Politics

CNN Host Says Thom Tillis Flip-Flopped On Trump’s National Emergency

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Phillip Stucky Contributor
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CNN Host John Berman asserted that Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis flip-flopped by voting to support President Donald Trump’s use of the Emergency Act Friday.

“. . . . Tom Tillis from North Carolina, who wrote an op-ed saying he wanted to block the president’s move of the national emergency, yet voted with the president here. He’s putting — you know, the ‘are you ‘F-ing kidding me’ in flip-flop,” Berman said about the Senator. (RELATED: Texas AG Ken Paxton Has A Strong Message For Republicans Against Trump’s Border Wall Emergency)

“I mean you wrote an op-ed — he wrote an op-ed [against using the measure] — and then still voted with the president,” he concluded.

CNN Correspondent Dana Bash joined in then, saying, “If you want to know how perilous the politics are for Republicans to do what 12 of them did yesterday in voting against the president, effectively rebuking the president on his signature issue . . . . That is the ultimate flip-flop.”

“There has to be a new word that we have to introduce into the lexicon,” Bash continued, “because it is so stark. He did it because he was warned that he was going to get a Republican primary challenge.”

Tillis wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about his intention to not vote to support the president, and he also spoke on the Senate floor about the reasoning behind his decision to not support the president.

“I come to the floor to say I do not intend to vote for the resolution of disapproval. And here’s why: A lot has changed over the last three weeks,” Tillis said on the chamber floor.

He continued: “A discussion with the vice president, a number of senior administration officials, a lot of collaboration with my colleague from Utah [Senator Mike Lee] that’s a serious discussion about changing the National Emergencies Act in a way that will have Congress speak on emergency actions in the future.”

His op-ed also indicated he wouldn’t support the president during the vote: “It is my responsibility to be a steward of the Article I branch, to preserve the separation of powers and to curb the kind of executive overreach that Congress has allowed to fester for the better part of the past century. I stood by that principle during the Obama administration, and I stand by it now.”

He ended up voting with the majority of the Republican caucus against the Democrat-backed resolution that aims to cancel Trump’s emergency declaration related to the border wall. The president declared he intends to veto the measure.