While Senate Democrats are being questioned about how they intend to fight back against the new Donald Trump administration, state leaders are stepping up.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong told MSNBC on Wednesday that he refuses to be intimidated by unconstitutional executive orders and threats from the Justice Department.
On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order that ended birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. As the administration begins its mass deportation program, the new Justice Department threatened any state and local officials with prosecution if they stand in the way of such deportations.
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Tong said he won't be intimidated.
"He's attacking American families and who we are as a people," said Tong. "So many of us are rooted in this country. Tied to this country by right of our birth. Like me, my parents were not citizens."
"This is an attack on the 14th Amendment, which isn't a statute. It's not a regulation. It's not a law that Congress wrote. It's in the Constitution and the president cannot, by the stroke of a pen, amend the Constitution or cancel one of its provisions," he continued.
Thus far, 23 states and several organizations have launched lawsuits against the Trump order, guaranteeing that it will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The conservative court will then interpret what the Constitution says.
Tong said that the threats are nothing more than "bluster and intimidation and trying to force us, and compel us, to do their will. And Connecticut has never quit on people. We're never going to surrender, and I am never going to back down."
"They can say whatever they want. Here's the bottom line the 14th Amendment protects birthright citizenship, period. Full stop by its very terms," Tong closed, challenging Justice Neil Gorsuch to read the language, which he called "black and white."
See the interview below or at the link here.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
