Trump on Border Battle: ‘I Shouldn’t Be Sued’

President Donald Trump expects court challenges over declaring a national emergency to secure border wall funding, but pointed out it rarely happens and believes he should not be sued, according to a Friday press conference.

“Look, I expect to be sued,” Trump said.

“I shouldn’t be sued,” Trump continued. “Very rarely do you get sued when you do a national emergency. And then other people say if you use it for this now what are we using it for? We’ve got to get rid of drugs and gangs and people, it’s an invasion. We have an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country that we stop, but it’s very hard to stop. With a wall it would be very easy. So I think that we will be very successful in court. I think it’s clear. And the people that say we create precedent, well, what do you have, 56 or a lot of times, well that’s creating precedent. And many of those are far less important than having a border. You don’t have a border, you don’t have a country. You know we fight before I got here. We fight all over the world to create borders for countries. But we don’t create a border for our own country. So I think what will happen is sadly, we’ll be sued and sadly it’ll go through a process and happily we’ll win I think.”

The president signed a bipartisan congressional bill passed by both chambers Thursday night to prevent a government shutdown. Trump said Thursday, prior to signing the bill, that he would declare a national emergency Friday afternoon.

The national emergency will allow Trump to spend $8 billion on the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The National Emergencies Act grants the president a set of special executive powers, like the ability to “seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication.”