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Emergency? Trump’s ‘I didn’t need to do this’ line sets Twitter ablaze

by in News

Anybody having an emergency?

How ‘bout an emergency happy hour? Emergency skiing?

And, of course, there’s always emergency golf.

As President Trump announced his call for a national emergency Friday before jetting to Mar-a-Lago for a golf get-away, the public took to Twitter to question his choices.

The Tweets were to the point.

“Anyone else out there playing emergency golf this weekend?” asked Rep. Brian Schatz from Hawaii.

A few minutes later, he quipped: “I think I may go emergency surfing this weekend depending on the wind.”

Non-fans of the president took particular umbrage at Trump’s choice of words.

“I want to do it faster. I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather do it much faster,” he said of the national emergency he’d just declared.

Oh, no, he didn’t just say that. Did he just say that? Yes, he did.

“Hint: If you ‘didn’t need’ to do it, then it wasn’t an emergency, to begin with,” Tweeted California Rep. Katie Hill, D-Agua Dulce.

“This quote should be the first sentence of the first paragraph of every complaint filed this afternoon,” attorney George Conway, a Trump critic, tweeted.

And it didn’t take long. The ACLU made it official: “BREAKING: We’re suing President Trump over today’s blatantly illegal declaration of a national emergency. There is no emergency. This is an unconstitutional power grab that hurts American communities. We’ll see him in court.”

Hashtags #TrumpFakeEmergency, #FakeTrumpEmergency and #nationalemergencydeclaration were trending,

But even as many Tweeters mocked the president, others didn’t see the humor.

“Declaring a national emergency over a fabricated border crisis is an abuse of power. This political stunt is irresponsible and sets a dangerous precedent – all because @realDonaldTrump is not the master negotiator he claimed to be,” wrote Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside.

And Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Norwalk, wrote: “The president simply doesn’t understand checks and balances.”

Others saw an opportunity to talk up a different kind of emergency.

“… On average, 96 people are killed every day by gun violence in America,” wrote Gov. Gavin Newsom. “THIS is a real emergency.”

Other California Congress members chimed in, including Brad Serman, D-Sherman Oaks: “We do have a national emergency: It’s Donald Trump. #FakeTrumpEmergency.”

Still, there were some very pleased constituents to see Trump stand his ground. One of them, conservative comedian Terrence K. Williams, danced and sang after declaring: “Trump is building the wall, y’all!”

Meanwhile, the president was surprisingly quiet on what may be his favorite mode of communication, Twitter.

Other than posting a video of his speech and congratulating law enforcement for tackling yet another tragic shooting in Illinois, the only other post by Friday late afternoon was a satirical video clip from his State of the Union address that appears to mock Congressional Democrats.  In the short clip, the president is glowing while Democratic members of the Legislature appear visibly uncomfortable. The song in the background, R.E.M’s “Everybody hurts.”