republicans warn the president is setting a diangerous precedent. opening the door for future presidents to achieve unilaterally what they could not get out of congress. challenged in the courts, in u.s. courts. in the past donald trump has shown he s not too worried about making executive orders that he knows will be challenged in court. the response of the democrats and of many critics of donald trump has been to declare this potentially to be a constitutional crisis. some saying donald trump himself is a national emergency. many international opinions slamming the emergency declaration. the uk s guardian says trump s clear abuse of power faced a torrid of lawsuits and also the president s emergency ruse is a wake-up call. adding the emergency declaration is a brazen move eninvolving both the longest shutdown in u.s. history and the case of outright president s blackmail to force funding from congress. all right. coming up, freshman
the news continues with my colleague ayman mohyeldin. how many takes did it take her to get that one? i m sure they fell on her butt a few times. still lock as yng as you get the j. yes. and a lot to break down this hour. including fighting back. democrats moving into action mode today ready to throw everything they have at president trump s national emergency declaration. from the halls of congress to federal courthouse and everything in between. what did they say? that s the question that has always loomed over donald trump and vladimir putin s private conversations. now members of congress want the answer, and they think they have a way to get it. and the sounds of silence. a chilly reception for vice president mike pence and his daughter ivanka trump at an international meeting where donald trump wasn t there but clearly on the minds of everyone else. a lot more than coming up, but we begin to break down this hour
committee, and eric engle, focused in trying to find out what exactly took place in those private conversations between vladimir putin, russia s president, and president trump. tried everything to get the note of the translator and what have you. having a hard time nailing this down and may want to try to get the translater in front of congress at some point, if that s possible. does the white house have absolute executive privilege over these conversations? you know, these are issues of first impression, because believe it or not we don t have a lot of circumstances in which a president talks one on one to a foreign leader and nobody knows what s said. no one has any idea. somewhat unprecedented. really is. the idea, maybe they can subpoena s the interpreter or other people trump talked to. apparently, unlike almost any other president, he didn t allow the secretary of state, the vice president or his other foreign policy advisers to know what was said. so they re kind of, you k
the president has the power t e declare a national emergency for funds? what is the central legal question they ll answer? they can review whether there s a national emergency, but they usually give the president wide discretion and deference there. the thing is, when you declare a national emergency, what you do is unleash all of these other laws where congress has said if there is a national crisis, the president can do this. but when the president does something like build a wall, he has to attribute it to a specific law, and under the constitution, it s congress who appropriates funds. if congress wants to take money congress appropriated for the military and use it to build a wall, he has to make a case how that s related to the military, and that s where he may get pushback from the courts. victoria, besides the courts paul just mentioned, do activists have any other recourse? we haven t seen big protests yet of the president s decision.
so how are you getting the same from the same tweet a very completely different conclusion? i think her tweet was accurate and not anti-semitic. and it was not that different from tom friedman, who is a big israel supporter who when benjamin netanyahu spoke in front of congress, said, this speech was bought and paid for by the israel lobby. now, the wall street journal this week reported that aipac raises and spends $100 million on its lobbying efforts that are not direct contributions to candidates, but they do a lot to direct those contributions. they have a congressional council where your standing depends on your willingness to make contributions to israel politicians that aipac finds and identifies and even sets up meetings. so i think, you know, there is no question i mean, when $100 million a year is raised and spent by aipac, countless more comes from donors that are bundled and affiliated with