Tag: Trump emergency declaration

How President Trump came to declare a national emergency to fund his border wall

President Trump knew that lawmakers were unlikely to ever give him the billions of dollars he wanted to build a wall on the southern border, so in early 2018, he gave aides a directive: Find a way to do it without Congress.

It was hardly an easy assignment. The White House had some flexibility to spend money the way it wanted, but could not move the necessary billions at will. Trump could declare a national emergency, but White House attorneys repeatedly warned him the risk of failure in court was high.

On Friday, Trump did it anyway. Stepping to a microphone in the Rose Garden, the president told reporters he was invoking his powers to declare a national emergency, then acknowledged what his lawyers had been warning him: He will get sued and, at least initially, will probably lose.

View the complete February 15 article by Matt Zapotosky and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Following national emergency announcement, Trump goes golfing

The president’s public schedule contradicts his rhetoric about a crisis at the southern border.

President Donald Trump will head to his Mar-a-Lago resort and golf club Friday afternoon, hours after declaring a national emergency in order to build a wall on the southern border, according to his public schedule.

The move is not entirely surprising, given Trump’s past behavior in regards to the manufactured crisis.

Last year, the president sent troops to the border, in response to what he said was a worsening humanitarian and national security situation, only to pull them back a short while later, and then, without reason, send troops back again earlier this month. In January, Trump also delivered a televised address to the nation, laying out the supposed “crisis,” but did not declare a state of emergency, instead allowing the partial government shutdown — which began after Trump rejected a bill to fund his border wall because it did not include enough money — to drag on for more than a month.