Trump rips ‘Open Border Democrats’ for lawsuit seeking to block emergency declaration
President Trump on Tuesday took aim at a mostly Democratic-led effort to block his declaration of a national emergency in federal court, mocking “Open Border Democrats” on Twitter for their lawsuit.
In a series of tweets, the president lashed out at leadership in California, one of the states leading the legal effort. Trump ripped the state over a recently downgraded high-speed rail plan while comparing it to the price tag of his demanded border wall.
“As I predicted, 16 cities, led mostly by Open Border Democrats and the Radical Left, have filed a lawsuit in, of course, the 9th Circuit! California, the state that has wasted billions of dollars on their out of control Fast Train, with no hope of completion, seems in charge!” Trump wrote.
“The failed Fast Train project in California, where the cost overruns are becoming world record setting, is hundreds of times more expensive than the desperately needed Wall!” he added in another tweet.
Trump’s tweets came a day after a group of 16 states filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking to block Trump’s effort to get funding for his proposed border wall by declaring a national emergency.{mosads}
Fifteen of the 16 states have Democratic governors.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) announced that he planned to bring a lawsuit almost immediately after Trump declared a national emergency last week to circumvent Congress and allocate nearly $8 billion for his long-desired border wall.
Trump had predicted in his press conference on Friday announcing the declaration that the move would likely be blocked by the San Francisco-based Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, but said he thought it would ultimately be upheld at the Supreme Court.
“We will possibly get a bad ruling, and then we’ll get another bad ruling and then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court,” Trump said.
He added that he hoped to “get a fair shake, and we’ll win in the Supreme Court, just like the [travel] ban.”
Several previous immigration cases against the Trump administration have gone to the appeals court, which has often ruled against the administration.
Trump’s tweets Tuesday referenced California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) announcement earlier this month that California would scale back plans to build a high-speed rail line connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles, while refusing to return federal government funding for the project, money that Newsom says will still be used on the mass transit system.