By Brian Henry

President Trump may not be swayed by a conversation between lawmakers, but the law itself might have a greater impact on the president, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told Cheddar Monday.

"I don't think that cautious careful conversation works on him very well but I do think lawsuits might get his attention," Ellison said.

That is precisely why Ellison has joined a multi-state lawsuit challenging President Trump's emergency powers. Sixteen states have joined forces to push back on Trump's choice to use his executive power to fund a border wall with Mexico, dubbing his methods "unconstitutional."

The issue is especially personal to Ellison: he said the "emergency" move is particularly dangerous for the state of Minnesota, since funding may be diverted from the local National Guard, which was recently deployed to mitigate damage caused by severe weather.

"Our national guard in Minnesota was dealing with blizzard-like conditions in southern Minnesota this weekend. The weather was so bad. We had blizzards, we had white out conditions. People were not in a position to take care of themselves. They needed our National Guard to get out there, deploy, and to literally rescue them. If their money is channeled away from them to go build Trump's wall that would put our people at a distinct disadvantage and put them in harm's way," Ellison said.

Ellison said that although the president has yet to reallocate funds, more states will most likely join the suit in the event that he does.

"I think that many more states might well join us when they start losing their money for Trump's wall. What has happened at this point, Trump has stated where he is going to get the money from. He has not started actually taking our money away. When he starts doing that, I think more states will join."

Ellison added the suit is a matter of principle, not just funding.

"This is not all about dollars and cents for me," he said.

"That would be damaging to our democracy. There is a bigger issue of our democracy which is based on a separation of powers and checks and balances which the president is stomping all over."

For full interview click here.