Radio Recap – Report: President Trump to Declare National Emergency

Breaking news:  Today, the President of the United States declared a national emergency over Covid-19.

On today’s Jay Sekulow Live we discussed President Trump declaring a national emergency over the Coronavirus outbreak.

At the time of recording, the President had not made his address, but a few hours later, President Trump held a news conference declaring a national emergency over Covid-19. It opens the door to open more federal aid to states and municipalities. This is a turning point in this response declaring a national emergency under the Stafford Act.

This allows states to receive federal money for expenses that include emergency workers, medical tests, medical supplies, vaccinations, and more. There’s also a lot of other powers that come with declaring a national emergency. The focus from the President today appears to be economic relief and support from the federal government to the states when they request that help.

As the President has said that he will do everything he can. Declaring the national emergency is kind of the final step of Executive action. The Stafford Act gives the President wide powers and there’s been a bipartisan call for him to do that. Whatever actions he takes I guess they won’t make partisan, even though I have this feeling that they will.

ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett made the following point:

This is not that dissimilar to other declarations that a president has made when the conditions called for it. As of now it does look like there will be bipartisan support for this announcement. I hope that will stick but I have my doubts because of some issues that I know of.

Even the funding bill to fund a lot of this that has to originate in Congress, that’s gotten tied up in politics. That’s gotten tied up with of all things, funding for abortion. I hope that bipartisan support for the declaration will stick but color me a little bit skeptical.

You know why there’s been legislation tied up in the House of Representatives to get more funding on Covid-19? Speaker Pelosi tried to sneak in a workaround around the Hyde Amendment which bars your federal taxpayer dollars from paying for abortions or reimbursing for the payment of abortions in the United States. She wanted to include abortion funding in the funding for Covid-19.

We say they worship at the altar of abortion. They do that even during a national emergency. Anybody blaming the President, just look to Speaker Pelosi and her abortion acolytes.

You can listen to the entire episode with more analysis here.