>> The Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump can use military funds to build his
border wall.
This is, unfortunately, the outcome of a story that was ongoing.
It involved Donald Trump diverting money from the military for the border wall, after Congressional
Democrats refused to give him the funding he wanted.
He referred to the situation at the border as a national emergency, which allowed him
to divert that money, and it was challenged in the courts.
But today, the Supreme Court said he could go ahead and use that money.
The Court's five conservative justices gave the administration the greenlight to begin
work on four contracts it has awarded using Defense Department money.
Funding for the projects had been frozen by lower courts.
Now, of course, Trump is extremely excited about this and immediately tweeted about it
saying, wow, big victory on the wall.
The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border
Wall to proceed.
Big win for Border Security and the Rule of Law!
Now, just to give you a little bit more background, a trial court initially froze the funds in
May.
And an appeals court kept the freeze in place earlier this month.
The freeze had prevented the government from tapping approximately $2.5 billion in Defense
Department money to replace existing sections of barrier in Arizona, California, and New
Mexico with more robust fencing.
>> Yeah, okay, now let me shout at you guys.
I love it.
So I'll tell you why I love it.
Because I'm in favor of the border wall?
Hell, no, no, we just set a precedent.
Thank you, five Supreme Court justices.
Thank you, Donald Trump and all of his supporters in the Republican Party.
Now, you're on all the record in being in favor of executive privilege.
So you say that the President can do any executive order he likes.
Not only that, he can reapportion money that Congress apportioned in a completely different
way.
Whoa, that's tremendous power for the presidency.
And he can declare emergencies, and then reapportion money out of the Defense Department into any
project he likes.
Thank you very much for that precedent.
Because now when we have a progressive president, you will not get to complain about executive
orders.
I know you will anyway, but we'll roll this tape back.
We'll show you the tweets.
We'll thank the five Supreme Court justices that ruled in this direction.
And I don't care how much you cry.
We're gonna do executive order after executive order.
And you know what we're gonna do?
>> I think this is a disaster.
>> No, no, no, no, no, look, if you vote for a moderate Democrat, none of this will happen.
They'll just immediately surrender to Republicans on any given issue, okay?
If you vote for a progressive, the first thing that I would counsel them is take money out
of the Defense Department and spend it on the American people.
The Supreme Court just said you can take anything you want out of the Defense Department, and
it doesn't matter what Congress said.
Just take it out, use it for climate change, a real national emergency.
No problem at all.
Thank you very much, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and the rest of you,
Roberts, fantastic.
So be careful what you wish for.
If you're celebrating it today, you're all on the record.
So when you cry about it later, when a democratic president does it, I'm not gonna care at all.
And I'm gonna take this Supreme Court precedent and shove it in certain places for you.
>> Well, look, I think one party is just authoritarian by nature, and will take advantage of this
precedent way more than the left.
And remember, we have to get a progressive elected in the first place, which is, not
to be too pessimistic, an incredible uphill battle.
>> Top two out of three right now are progressives.
>> Yes, true, it's gonna be an incredibly difficult uphill battle.
So with that said, I'm much more concerned about what the executive branch is gonna do
under Republican presidents, especially considering how much they fight to put themselves in positions
of power.
They fight a lot harder then the left does.
And they're gonna make some decisions that are gonna be incredibly damaging, so we'll
see.
>> Yeah, I mean, I know it also, it's existing sections of border wall that's gonna be supplanted,
rather than the extension of the border wall.
And I also wanna note that digital surveillance of border systems actually, in many cases,
is far more effective than a wall itself, and perhaps even more pernicious.
>> But he wants a big wall.
>> Okay, and let me just tell you, guys- >> A big wall.
>> Root for a progressive president, and root for them to listen to me.
Cuz I will tell them, move hundreds of billions of dollars out of the Defense Department to
fight climate change immediately.
The Supreme Court just gave you a greenlight.