Episode 89: Defeated, Trump Declares Emergency

On Friday, February 15, President Trump announced he was going to declare a national emergency. The day before on Thursday, February 14, Congress averted a second government shutdown by approving a budget deal. The deal provided $1.375 billion for new border fencing — less than a quarter of the amount Trump originally sought to build his border wall. 

People in both parties do not approve of President Trump’s expanded executive authority and believe he is breaking an important precedent. Since 1976, 59 national emergencies have been declared, but in no instance did a president declare an emergency after Congress had already responded to the issue at hand.

In our second segment, we discuss Amazon’s decision to abruptly pull out of its HQ2 plans in New York City. What does it mean that one of the biggest companies in America would pull out of an agreement with the biggest city in America without any discussion or negotiations due to local community criticisms? And is there room in the Democratic Party for a pro-business progressive? 

Stay tuned this week for a special episode of our interview with Chuck Todd and the executive producer of Meet the Press, John Reiss! 

As always, you can jump to a section of the show by using our available chapters:

• Introduction

• Highlight/Lowlight

• Trump’s Non-Emergency  

• Amazon Splits with NYC 

• Show rankings 

• Closing

The shows we discuss today include:

State of the Union on CNN

Meet the Press on NBC

Face the Nation on CBS

This Week on ABC

Fox News Sunday on FOX

Email us at podcast@polilogue.com or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle.

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org