Trump Declares National Emergency, Calling Government Border Drug Stats ‘Lies’

President Trump on Friday morning officially announced that he will sign a national emergency order so that he can redirect $8 billion to extend barriers on the country’s southern border. In a dark, rambling speech, he asserted that there is an “invasion” of the country “with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs.” But he undermined his own contention that there actually exists a dire and urgent need for the extraordinary declaration. “I could do the wall over a much longer period of time,” Trump said during his free-wheeling speech. “I didn't need to do this.” That statement will be “plaintiffs’ Exhibit A,” constitutional scholar Elizabeth Goitein said in a tweet. He also repeated his contention that longer walls are necessary.