EXCERPT:
PELOSI: "I may, that’s an option, and we’ll review our options. But it’s important to note that when the President declares this emergency, first of all, it’s not an emergency. What’s happening at the border. It’s a humanitarian challenge to us. The President has tried to sell a bill of goods to America. But putting that aside, just in terms of the President making an end run around Congress, here he said out of respect, what the Committee will do, and then walks away from it. But in any event, the President is doing an end run about Congress, about the power of the purse. You’ve heard me say over and over again, Article I, the legislative branch, the power of the purse, the power to declare war, many other powers listed in the Constitution, and of course, the responsibility to have oversight. So the President is doing an end run around that. It is. We will review our options and be prepared to respond appropriately to it. I know the Republicans have some unease about it, no matter what they say, because if the President can declare an emergency on something that he has created as an emergency, an illusion that he wants to convey, just think of what a president with different values can present to the American people. You want to talk about a national emergency? Let’s talk about today, the one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America. That’s a national emergency. Why don’t you declare that emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would. But a democratic president can do that. A democratic president can declare emergencies, as well. So the precedent that the President is setting here is something that should be met with great unease and dismay by the Republicans. And of course, we will respond accordingly, when we review our options. First, we have to see what the President actually says."