Trump’s real ‘national emergency’ is the collapse of his presidency: columnist

On Tuesday night, we will learn whether or not President Donald Trump will declare a national emergency at the US-Mexico border.

TV networks are set to air his prime-time address to the nation at 9 p.m. However, Washington Postopinion writer Greg Sargent says the only national emergency there really is -- is the threat to Trump's presidency.

"If you read between the lines of all the coverage, it is overwhelmingly clear that the real national emergency that Trump and his allies have discerned is an emergency that threatens him," Sargent wrote.

Trump ran his presidential campaign on the slogan that "Mexico will build the wall." This empty promise has caused Trump to shut down the government until he gets funding and support for his idea.

Sargent said, "Trump’s wall is his most important unfulfilled campaign promise, but it’s also a talisman for everything that Trumpism embodies and a chief source of his bond with his base, which he will need as his legal and political travails mount."

His border wall has received criticism from Democrats and Republicans.

"But Trump’s public case for the wall has collapsed entirely, and much of the rest of the political system has rejected it, boxing him into a political corner with no escape. That’s the emergency," Sargent said.

"The big story, which is everywhere for all to see, is that Trump and his advisers cannot justify the wall as Trump envisions it in any remotely credible way; that this is becoming harder to mask with lies; and that for Trump Nation, this really is an emergency," Sargent said.

Read the full article here.