we saw. he tried to use empathy, saying my heart aches for those people struggling to get to the airport to leave the country, but also defended it, saying the military is working day and night to get people out. and it was striking how many times he referred to the numbers. i think he s really trying to make the point that this effort has been a success, and despite struggles to get everyone to the airport, he vows every american that wants to leave the country will be able to, and they ll continue to work through the night to get as many people out. i think that was the takeaway from the speech. charlie in. look, obviously the president has had problems, a competency gap, a credibility gap. some of the things he s said before don t line up with the reality on the ground. and he s had an empathy gap. i will be interested to hear
began the evacuation efforts it was going to be hard and painful. i think there are some people that would disagree with that. as we ve seen it unfold over the past two days. and i keep going back, charlie, right? to the conversation that was reported between ashraf ghani and the president in which ghani pleaded with the president to not pull people out of afghanistan for the sake of the afghani people. right? and there you have ashraf ghani abandoning his country essentially on day one as the taliban took over kabul, whereas the president could have very well made the decision to say you know what, my priority is the american people right now and it is not what you re asking. no. and early in the week the president, you know, made no secret of his frustration with the afghan president. but again, going back to this whole point about the president wants president biden wants to keep talking about the decision to withdraw, but the logistics and the way it was done actually matter.
this is a big deal and potentially a high potential of some legal challenges ahead for president trump. it s a huge deal. in this case both sides want to call this a win, but for who? i want to bring mike and charlie in. president trump calling this a win. mcconnell just wanted trump to sign this, but is it a win? i think the framing is is this a win or loss misses the point. we are narrow focusing here. this is a constitutional crisis. this is going to have implications for a long time. don t you feel like we ve said the phrase this is a constitutional crisis with long-term implications for the last two years? we have. it s becoming more and more real. this is the point where donald trump is crossing the line and if congress goes along with it, we ll set that precedent for a very, very long time. so in terms of is this a win because rush limb baa is going to say something nice about
the president s decision. this issue is far from over. let me bring in julia and charlie. julia, there is the discussion as pete williams brought up as we were developing our rolling coverage, this national emergency is going to get tied up in courts. it s not a basis of is this an emergency or not. it s who has jurisdiction. there are those who look at the situation on the border and go even democrats will say this is a humanitarian crisis. is it a national emergency? does it rise to that level? right. let s think about we ve had a lot of coverage. we had an hour of our reporters at the border. pretty safe towns if you re on the u.s. side. it would be hard to see that as a national emergency when you talk to people in el paso or san diego. the emergency we re not talking about is happening on the northern mexico side. thousands of people waiting to get in and claim asylum. there was another challenge to trump yesterday when immigration
things develop in the past in your time working in past administrations. can you talk through to the point that julia and charlie are make? the idea this may set up a fight that democrats will have tools in their tool box for if they get the presidency back in 2021? the thing we need to remember is this is a desperate act by a president that knows he s lost. you don t start by saying looking around the table and saying bring me everything that s unconstitutional and illegal. let s go with that. this is what you do after you ve exhausted all your other option. and so in this case there s going to be clear standing for one house of congress to sue. because they had a debate. he asked for the funding. congress said in. and now he s trying to make an end run around the constitution in order to fund the wall. it s a pretty clear case. i d anticipate you d see a legal suit brought relatively quickly after he attempts to move this money. that said, pete williams made the point the preside