McConnell: Trump Will Sign Bill, Declare National Emergency
There were some wondering if President Trump would sign the newly passed spending bill designed to avert government shutdown, or declare a national emergency for border funding. Apparently he will do both.
Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, McConnell sought to reassure lawmakers unsure of the President’s position before taking a vote on the plan, which falls short of providing the $5 billion in border wall funding the President had demanded.
“He has indicated he is prepared to sign the bill. He will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time,” McConnell said. “I’ve indicated to him that I’m going to support the national emergency declaration. So for all of my colleagues, the President will sign the bill, we will be voting on it shortly.”
It provided reassurance amid questions about the President’s support for the deal, which was struck by a bipartisan panel of negotiators. Aides had said earlier Thursday they were concerned Trump would reject the spending compromise — a major shift from earlier this week when officials indicated privately that he would.
Advisers said Trump had grown increasingly concerned about what is contained in the 1,100-page legislation that was released late Wednesday evening.
The National Emergency declaration will almost certainly bring both Congressional and legal action against it. Stay tuned.
Let’s hope that Congress asserts itself and says “nope, no more imperial presidency”.Report
Well there was a vote thingee against the support of the war in Yemen yesterday which a start.Report
Finally.
Pity that we didn’t need a vote thingy to get into Yemen.
(Yeah, yeah… the AUMF…)Report
No poopie, But if something good happens, that is still, you know, good.Report
You would hope so.
Then I think… does Trump look better or worse vetoing congress and building his wall anyway?
I think I know the answer. Shit.
Then I wonder if this is more of a “give him enough rope to hang himself” with a really f’ed up project that under delivers and makes him look ridiculous.
Then I wonder again, what if he builds a magnificent g’damn wall. Shit.Report
Gaming this out, my current very bad case scenario involves people getting shot at.
The worst case scenario involves them getting shot.Report
I hope not… but my simulations haven’t gotten there yet.Report
I’m not sure why he has to declare a national emergency, as the 2007 secure borders act, which is US law, gives him the authority to redirect DHS funding to build border barriers if the secretary of DHS says we’ve lost operational control of a border area.Report
Woooooooo Eeeeeeee looky there….. a pen and a phone.Report
Are we making bets? I’ll take the House passes a resolution rescinding the emergency, the Senate passes it narrowly (Gardner, Collins, Murkowski, and McSally), Trump vetoes, neither chamber can come up with two-thirds. Sometime down the line, the courts find that no one has standing to challenge the President on whether it’s an emergency.Report
Seems like a good bet to me. If the courts want to punt on the issue that’s how they’ll do it.
Who do you think Trumps gonna raid the money from (and how much money) and how much stink do you think they’ll raise? Also what’s he gonna do about the land?Report
IANAL, only a lowly analyst, but here’s my take on a bunch of things that I think can be challenged in court about the handling of the emergency. I’m assuming Trump will start with the Army Corps of Engineers construction budget (named in the NEA) and take his arbitrary $5.7B (from a total in the range of $11-12B).
The NEA says the money has to be spent on construction in support of the military’s response to the emergency, not in support of civilian agencies. Absent a revolution or insurrection, with the courts all functioning normally, domestic deployment of troops to seal the border (or portions thereof) seems problematic. The NEA doesn’t relieve the military of going through eminent domain due process. The NEA doesn’t relieve the military of responsibility to conform to domestic regulations, like environmental impact statements. At some point, DHS will wave their magic wand and claim their statutory waiver from regulatory procedures covers the Army building a 2,000 mile long wall without any EISs, officially protected wilderness areas be damned. I don’t think the courts will agree. Some parts of the wall will almost certainly violate assorted interstate and international water compacts — this is the Southwest, where pretty much every drop of water that crosses a border, and many that don’t, are covered by one or more compacts.Report
It won’t be 2k long. Not even Trump will build it up mountains or over rivers. The 80/20 rule applies, he can get 80% of the entire job for 400 miles.Report
Hell, they’ve already built 650 miles of walls and fences of various sorts. If I let him replace 400 miles of that with his version of the wall, will he tear out the other 250 miles?
Being a long time Coloradan now, I’ve acquired the ingrained state antipathy towards most things Texan. As an alternative, I’ll settle for “You can build as much wall as you want as long as it’s all in Texas.” :^)Report
Yeah but on which side of Texas should we build the wall?Report
Before he died, one of the long-time Denver Post curmudgeonly columnists used to occasionally advocate building a wall along the sections of the south and east Colorado borders closest to Texas in an attempt to keep the Texans out.Report
Meh, I imagine we will take the wheat and corn belt with us. Maybe a chunk from the middle of Canada also.
Most folks don’t realize the harvest paths are north-south from south Texas well into Canada.Report
For the record, this was tongue-in-cheek. I have no problem with Texans — at least those Texans who have no problem with me.
“All are welcome who welcome all.”Report
No worries, just stay away from Austin or Houston if the gun control stuff dusts up.
I think before it’s all settled, we will have open carry artillery.Report
New rule: citizen militias are limited to 14th century European military technology — just cuz longswords are cool.
And be honest, who doesn’t wanna knock down their neighbor’s pretentious treehouse with a trebuchet?Report
“Two 75mm pack howitzers behind every blade of grass.”
I think that’s our county motto for 2022.Report
Howitzers? Are we talking about my biceps?Report
How are you at throwing 13 pounds over 4 miles?
It has to be all day too. No wussing out after the first 25 sets. 😉Report
Other question: can the courts shut it down pending review? So Don gets his “victory” but doesn’t build anything and runs out of time before court review concludes? If that happens then both sides may technically win since Trumps followers only really care about the optics.Report
Got me. The CA and AZ borders are in the 9th Circuit; I could see the 9th issuing injunctions for environmental and other reasons. The NM border is in the 10th. The TX border is in the 5th. The Colorado River Compact and the Rio Grande River Compact, both of which include Mexico, go straight to the SCOTUS. Water compact cases take forever. There’s a CO-NM-TX case over the Rio Grande before the SCOTUS now. Last year they told the special master who had written an opinion, “Thanks, here’s your check, we don’t like your report, so we’re appointing a new special master (from Maine) and sending him off to make a different decision.” Probably 2020 before the special master writes anything.
One of the things that I expect Trump and his inner circle will miss is that should the US void the Rio Grande compact with Mexico, Mexico has the dams in place to dry up significant chunks of the river that Texas farmers and ranchers depend on.
These are the kinds of things that, particularly after spending time working for the Colorado legislature, cause me to mutter under my breath about f*cking clueless East Coast judges deciding Southwestern water cases.Report
I would hope to see a lot more Republicans vote in favor of that resolution, but I wouldn’t expect to see 67 total Yeas. I could see some reasonable court challenges, though.Report
I also bet that a lot of the money ends up going to contractors linked to the Trump family, the wall doesn’t get built, and the Republicans blame the entire thing on the perniciousness of the Democratic Party to rile up the base.Report
Especially if done under the NEA, which allows the Secretary to skip all of the normal competitive bidding and vendor qualification processes.Report
Contractors? Doesn’t the Army corp of engineering have to do the bulk of this?Report
You sweet summer child. Do you really think Trump is going to pass up an opportunity to line his pockets?Report
My assumption is he is already doing this left right and center. However you didn’t answer my question, doesn’t the army have to do the bulk of this?Report
As I read the statute, nope. The only requirement is that the construction be necessary for the military to perform its part of the emergency response. My interpretation of that would mean that the military has to have a large part of the responsibility for enforcing border security (probably less ports of entry), possibly the primary responsibility, which may be problematic for various reasons. But I concede there’s a chance the courts could accept an argument that goes, “The military’s role is to support DHS with physical security, concertina wire on fences is not enough, a wall is necessary. Under the terms of the NEA, the Army Corps of Engineers construction budget is available for that purpose, and the DHS waiver on regulatory procedures like environmental impact statements applies.”Report
1. Fuck you, Donald.
2. I can’t wait until President Harris declares a national emergency for universal healthcare.Report
Don’t forget guns!Report
Strangely, after Donald we’ll have a partially built wall added to the other partial bits that we’ll all promptly forget.
But after Kamala, we’ll have a partially thought through healthcare system that we only wish we could forget.
Let’s abuse our National Emergencies wisely is all I ask.Report
I’ve said before where I see this sort of thing going so I won’t belabor it.
But the little Leninist in me is chuckling.Report
Dang, you have a little Leninist?
All I got was a little Lvov, and he’s already in Paris.Report
I wasn’t Libertarian because I was afraid of what other people would do to me if they got their hands on the levers of power.Report
Not to rain on anyone’s parade or anything, but the NEA is not an unlimited license. Point to something in the NEA that would allow President Harris to divert money from some place into government-paid-for healthcare. If she’s got the votes to amend the NEA to allow it, she’s got the votes to enact universal healthcare anyway.
Much as I personally dislike saying it, there is an arguable case that Trump can legally divert a certain pot of money to build a wall. I think the details will have much of the wall tied up in court for years (see above), and a lot of it will turn out to be impossible to build in practice, but some things can be done until such time as Congress chooses to change the law.Report
Army Corps of Engineers Bovine eradication facilities… definitely in scope.Report
I’d love to see UH for 5 Billion or however much pocket change she can scrape up.Report
Don is a piker and an incompetent so who knows how much he’ll actually be able to get out. There’s not much cap on what someone who wasn’t inept could do using this lever, certainly not 5 billion (and I think it’s a mighty bad idea). Building green power plants for the “climate emergency”; expanding government healthcare to address the “healthcare emergency”… the list goes on and on.Report
The total amount of money in the pot he’s tapping is 10-11 Billion. He started with 1 and change so he only needs 4.
These are VERY tiny amounts of money by the gov’s standards and this was always a minor issue that he wanted far too much. A prez HRC would have been fine building a wall, this has always been about preventing Trump from having credit.Report
This is the endgame. And it’s never going to get us what we want.Report
“2. I can’t wait until President Harris declares a national emergency for universal healthcare.”
I will say it’ll be interesting to see how exactly it’s explained to us that this is a really important issue and it’s important that we get the problem solved by any means necessary and that’s why we need to figure out a way to get around the partisan bureaucratic gridlock and get. This. Job. DONE.Report
We have 31 ongoing national emergencies, most of which have no business being national emergencies. I’m glad people are finally noticing how this power has been relentlessly abused.Report
This for sure.Report
Yeah, best case is that court or legislative action pares back emergency powers to something more reasonable.
Worst case is that in 20 years time everything is done by State of Emergency, with the legislature reduced to passing continuing resolutions on the Budget every so often.Report
Without an omnipotent executive, how can you use the threat of the Son of the Return of the Revenge of the Flight 93 Election to keep your coalition from crumbling to dust when you run a Red Skull/MODOK ticket?Report
Are any of you, like me, old enough to remember the pernicious assault upon the delicate system of distributed Constitutional powers, checks, and balances which are the very foundation of our liberties being ruthlessly and imperiously assaulted by so-called President Barack Hussein Obama when he had the unmitigated arrogance and gall to issue a “signing statement” purporting to interpret legislation passed by Congress on the very day he signed that legislation into law? Or what a grave threat it was to the very foundations of democracy and the rule of law when that same man of Kenyan extraction announced that he, in his capacity as President, would unilaterally announce priorities in the implementation of laws passed by Congress?
We’ll have to see what Trump actually does with this declaration, but what I’m really reminded of is an observation that our own EIC made about Trump: his history of business ventures being put through Chapter 11 demonstrates that when Trump no longer sees a way he can win, he will change the rules. Now, even then, Trump still loses quite a lot, but it’s a good bet that whatever vision he eventually announces for the new rules, we aren’t going to like them.Report
It’s only bad when Democrats (can be alleged to) do it Burt.Report
The only problem with Rule-by-Force is when the ‘other’ side is doing it.
I hope it gets so bad that people will shudder seeing anyone reach for it for a thousand years.Report
Just so that we’re clear: I think this is a terrible idea, both in what it’s used to do and in how it’s done. It may just be following a precedent, but you have to choose to follow a precedent, and you can also choose to not do that.Report