I am one of the few who was watching the regular briefings with Pence and Fauci. Sure seemed to me they thought it was real.
National emergencies are generally about cutting red tape and funding.
There is STILL a contingent on FR that is insisting that Trump is declaring a national emergency only for political purposes.
Do they realize that if that were the case, which it is not, that it would be inexecrable behavior on his part?
Exactly so. In this way, I guess, it IS about politics; it frees up some funding and gets Congress out of the way. Besides, there are 30+ national emergencies that are on-going, going back to Carter and Iran, through to President Trump and Huwai. “National Emergency” just sounds oh-so-scary in this context.