With the shutdown stuck in a stalemate,
the phrase that everyone has been talking about
is "national emergency."
The president has warned he might declare
a national emergency,
going around Congress to get his border wall built.
President Trump is prepared to do what's necessary.
We have a national crisis.
We can call a national emergency,
because of the security of our country.
Absolutely. No, we can do it.
I haven't done it. I may do it.
I may do it.
Isn't it comforting to have a president
who always sounds like a guy on a ledge?
"I'll do it, man. Don't come any closer.
"I'll do it. I'll do it. All I wanted was a wall, man.
Nobody listened, man. I'll do it."
But that's right. Trump has claimed that as president,
he can declare illegal immigration
as a national emergency,
and then, he wouldn't need congressional approval
to build the wall. He can just do it himself, right?
Well, not himself, himself.
I mean, he's never done manual labor in his life.
I mean, like, I bet if he tried
to build the wall, that would be a disaster.
He'd be like, "And what's this, again?"
They'd be like, "That's a brick, Mr. President."
Be like, "Do I eat it?"
"Uh, Mr. President,
didn't you work in construction your whole life?"
He'd be like, "I only talk to the guys with the weird hats,
and they made the buildings go high, high."
(laughter)
Like, Trump doesn't do anything for himself.
He doesn't, though!
He's probably never even jacked himself off. Like...
-(laughter, groaning) -Yeah. He just calls in the butler.
He's like, "Shall we begin with the lotion, sir?"
"No, Jeeves. I think we'll go dry today."
"Very good, sir.
Shall I fantasize for you, as well, sir?"
"Yes, Jeeves. Let's go with two girls kissing."
"Very hot, sir. Very hot."
And look, it's not like other presidents
haven't declared national emergencies before, all right?
They've done it for lots of things.
Uh, for instance,
President Carter declared a national emergency
during the Iranian hostage crisis
in order to put sanctions on Iran, right.
President Obama declared an emergency during swine flu
to help hospitals respond more effectively.
And President Bush declared an emergency
when Friends went off the air.
He was like, "America needs to know
if Joey finds love. Hee-hee-hee-hee."
"Sir, they're making a Joey spinoff."
"Oh, thank God. Emergency over."
So, presidents declare national emergencies all the time.
What they don't do is declare an emergency
just to win a policy fight with Congress.
So, the question we need to answer is,
is Trump even allowed to do this?
Can President Trump declare a national emergency
to build the border wall with Mexico?
In a word, yes.
What is actually considered a national emergency?
That's where the legal language gets stickier.
In 1934, the U.S. Supreme Court said basically,
the situation should be urgent and infrequent,
really big-- like on the scale of a natural disaster--
and not reasonably expected or anticipated.
Yeah, so for something to be considered a national emergency,
the Supreme Court ruled a situation must be urgent,
infrequent and unexpected.
Basically, America should have a urinary tract infection.
(laughter, groaning)
And if you think about it,
none of these things apply to illegal immigration,
which has been more of like a steady, constant drip, okay?
Still needs to be checked out, but it's not an emergency.
The problem is, the Supreme Court doesn't get
to weigh in immediately, right.
Trump can declare a national emergency,
and then, the moment he does,
there are all sorts of things that he can do.
Many of these powers are really quite narrow, quite reasonable,
but some of them seem like the stuff of authoritarian regime.
So there are powers that would allow the president
to shut down communications facilities
and to freeze Americans' bank accounts, or
to deploy the military domestically.
Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
It's one thing to freeze our bank accounts,
or send troops to our houses,
but shutting down communications?
That means Trump could turn off the Internet, like Instagram?
(laughter)
How am I supposed to get sponsorships now? Huh?
You think I'm just gonna walk down the street
yelling at people about my juice cleanse? Huh?
Just gonna be like, "Hey, hey, you want to poop like me?!
Drink this!"
I'd sound like a crazy person. Come on, Trump.
(applause and cheering)
These are serious powers, people!
And when you listen to it,
it sounds really undemocratic,
'cause when you think about America, right,
you don't think of an autocratic ruler.
You think of pickup trucks and restaurants named after boobs.
Freedom, baby. Yeah.
But if Congress... but if Congress was going
to give a president these powers,
you would think that they would be very specific
about how the president could use them.
And if you thought that, you would be thinking wrong.
Congress chose consciously
not to include a definition of "national emergency."
The idea behind emergency powers is pretty simple.
It's the idea that the laws that ordinarily apply
just might not be sufficient in the case of an emergency,
and if you have a true crisis that's unfolding so quickly
that Congress, uh, doesn't have time to react to it,
then you might need to have some standby authorities
that give the president more flexibility.
Ah, that actually makes sense.
Congress can't say what every emergency situation might be
in the future, so they leave it vague,
because what counts as an emergency is different
for different people, right?
For some people, an emergency is black people barbecuing, right?
For other people, waiting for those three dots
in a text message is an emergency.
"Are you up or not?!"
(laughter)
So, Congress left it open to interpretation
because they assumed
the president would be somebody responsible
and trustworthy and potty-trained.
(laughter)
They didn't think there'd be a President Trump,
which is why they left such a big loophole.
Which goes back to what we've been saying
about Trump for a very long time.
He's basically the black light on American democracy, right?
You realize there were all these flaws in America
that nobody ever noticed before he showed up,
and then, all of a sudden, it was, like, "Oh, bam!
"Oh, wow! What is that?
"Oh, the president...
"The president doesn't have to show his tax returns.
"Oh, and the president doesn't have
"to divest from his businesses.
"And-and, holy shit, he...
"he might be able to pardon himself.
"That's crazy! And... oh, and what is that down there?
"What is... what is that? Oh, that's...
"Oh, that's just a mustard stain
"from when Thomas... Thomas Jefferson signed the...
"Oh, yeah, he just signed the most important document
"with his lunch. Okay, that was weird.
That's not Trump's fault."
So now, thanks to Trump, thanks to Trump,
we've learned that, during a national emergency,
a president can do way more than just build a wall, right?
He can shut down your Internet, send the troops in.
He can just control the country.
So if I'm the Democrats, I would give Trump the wall
before he finds out what he can really do.
I know it sounds crazy, but think about it.
Right now, he's like the baby from The Incredibles, right?
He only knows that he can float.
We do not want him finding out
that he can shoot lasers out of his eyes.