This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, January 16th, 2019.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The President has claimed that he has the power to declare a national emergency and sees executive powers to deal with illegal immigration into the United

States. But how true is that? Cato Vice President Jean Healy argues that presidents have long

sought to enhance executive power,

and Congress's record is mixed on reining those powers in.

We spoke this week.

So earlier this month, President Trump threatened to declare a national emergency and build his border wall using the quote

military version of eminent domain and he's been sort of hot and cold on the idea since then so it's

hard to tell whether this is whether he's going to cross the Rubicon or is this

just another thing like the the executive order ending birthright citizenship that he floated

before the midterms you know is this just another pump fake is designed to thrill the base and

rile up the media at this point that's not clear. So what does the Constitution

tell us about presidential authority with respect to an

emergency either real or imagined?

And what does that meant historically?

Most of the emergency powers

at the Constitution grants are in Article 1

and they go to Congress.

You know, Congress has the power to provide

for calling forth the militia, the power to suspend habeas corpus

is in Article 1. President gets almost nothing in the way of unilateral emergency

...