A Hypothetical

October, 2016: US Supreme Court associate justice Anthony Kennedy collapses and dies of a heart attack, on the day after justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announces her decision to retire immediately. US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly tells US president Barack Obama not to bother announcing nominees to the two positions, as he will delay any confirmation hearings/votes until after the January, 2017 inauguration of the next president.

November 8, 2016: US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is elected to serve as the 45th president of the United States. In his victory speech, he repeats a promise he's made over the course of his campaign: He intends to nominate "conservative" Supreme Court justices who will overturn precedents on abortion (Roe v. Wade) and same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges).

November 15, 2016: Governors Jerry Brown (D-CA), Kate Brown (D-OR) and Jay Inslee (D-WA) appear at a press conference with the Democratic leaders of their state legislatures and announce their intention to bring ordinances of secession to a vote in their respective states. Said ordinances, if passed, will constitute the three states as the new, independent nation of Pacifica, with the three governors serving as, respectively, interim president, vice president and secretary of state pending elections in November of 2017. Pacifica's Constitution will, from the start, explicitly protect abortion and same-sex marriage (as well as possibly suppressing gun rights and other Democratic Party type things).

December 20, 2016: On the day after the Electoral College confirms Cruz as president-elect, the three state legislatures pass the ordinances of secession, to take effect on January 1, 2017.

December 21, 2016: Jay Inslee, the secretary-of-state-to-be of the new-nation-to-be, arrives in Washington to present US president Barack Obama and US president-elect Ted Cruz with an offer of military port/basing rights (naval ports remain US property, land bases have a long time-line for relocation) and zero trade barriers between the two nations in return for a peaceful separation and recognition of Pacifica.

Should Obama and/or Cruz, or perhaps the outgoing/incoming US secretaries of state, meet with Inslee or beg off on the claim that he lacks standing as his alleged country does not and cannot legally exist?

Should Obama take any executive action with respect to the Pacifica secession, or should he leave it to Cruz to handle (as James Buchanan did with/to the Confederacy and Abraham Lincoln)?

Should Cruz accept the secession and the proposed terms of relationship?

If not, should he move immediately to military/police action -- blockade, invasion, attempts to arrest the ringleaders, etc. -- to suppress it, or do like Lincoln and play things down while trying to bluff Pacifica into firing the first shot?