Red state papers blast Trump's fake emergency as pathetic 'power grab'

Trump is trampling all over the constitution and Congress’ authority by declaring a fake national emergency at the southern border, and now red state newspapers are calling him out.

Trump’s declaration is an “invalid emergency order” given because he is desperate to “build an unnecessary pet project,” the editorial board for West Virginia’s Daily Mail wrote.

After definitively saying there is no crisis along the border, Utah’s Salt Lake City Tribune called Trump’s fake emergency “an excuse for an unconstitutional power grab so he can build, or plan to build, or pretend to build, a multi-billion-dollar wall along that frontier.”

In deep-red Missouri, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch linked the declaration to Trump’s fragile ego, writing, “A president’s inability to keep a campaign promise isn’t an emergency.”

Trump won West Virginia by 42 points, Utah by 18 points, and Missouri by 19 points. But now these states are crying foul at Trump’s latest attempt to circumvent the will of Congress.

Trump shut down the government for 35 days demanding Congress pay a $5.7 billion ransom to build wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats scoffed at the idea, forcing Trump to repeatedly cave on his demands.

After Trump signed a long-term government funding bill, he declared a national emergency along the border, promising to steal money from military projects to build a wall.

His actions are nothing more than a tantrum, according to North Carolina’s WRAL.

A common theme through these and other editorials in red states is Trump’s massive and unconstitutional power grab. Whether lambasted as “executive overreach” or “an end-run around the Constitution,” red-state editors called out Trump’s fake national emergency as an attempt to undermine the very fabric of America’s democracy.

“American presidents have repeatedly called national emergencies to protect democracy,” writes the Houston Chronicle. “Donald Trump may become the first to do it to undermine democracy — on our very own soil.”

Even the conservative Wall Street Journal criticized Trump’s decision, calling it a “misuse of the emergency power delegated by Congress, which is meant for genuine security crises, not to fulfill a campaign promise.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already planning on using her levers of power to stop Trump. But will Republicans put the good of the country ahead of Trump’s lust for power?

“If not them, who?” asks the Salt Lake City Tribune. “If not now, when?”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.