Trump considers radical move to end border row
President Donald Trump edged closer toward a radical move to fund his proposed border wall yesterday after the prospect of a deal with the Democrats to reopen government dimmed and the president’s political leverage appeared to dissipate.
Trump renewed his threat to bypass negotiations with Democratic lawmakers and instead declare a national emergency on the southern border with Mexico. While the possibility of such action was revealed only a few days earlier, White House lawyers and budget staff have been looking into it for weeks, a person familiar with the matter said on the condition of anonymity.
Several advisers close to Trump are recommending that he declare an emergency, despite wide recognition that it would be immediately challenged in court. Democratic lawmakers said so last week after Trump floated the idea in public.
‘‘I may declare a national emergency dependent on what’s going to happen over the next few days,’’ Trump said yesterday. Building a wall is ‘‘a very important battle to win,’’ he said.
Trump views his campaign promise that he’d build a border wall as essential to his chance for re-election in 2020. He regards the government shutdown as mainly affecting Washington, not where his strongest supporters live, another person familiar with the matter said.
The use of a national emergency to re-appropriate money for wall construction would be an unprecedented executive action sure to draw opposition not only from Democrats on Capitol Hill who see the project as wasteful spending, but also their Republican counterparts who spent years decrying perceived overreaches by President
Barack Obama.
They would be wary of a precedent that could permanently erode Congress’ power of the purse.
But Trump’s consideration of such an extraordinary step indicates that some in the White House see the gambit as the president’s only way to salvage his wall pledge as the consequences of the shutdown amplify and talks with Democrats fail. The president reiterated that he had no interest in resurrecting a deal that would trade wall funding for legal protections for undocumented children – one of the few issues that could move Democrats toward compromise.
Meanwhile, a series of political stunts – including the president’s first appearance behind the White House briefing room lectern, flanked by supportive Border Patrol agents, and a televised Cabinet meeting lasting more than 100 minutes – have done little to generate legislative momentum for wall funding. And Democrats have shown little interest in the ‘‘concession’’ offered by the administration for construction of a border barrier that uses steel rather than concrete. While the president thought such a design change could give Democrats some political cover, both he and White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney made clear on Monday that their offer was simply a wall by a different name.
‘‘We’ll call it something different,’’ Trump said when asked what he’d include in a compromise deal.
Democrats also appeared unmoved by the administration’s repeated efforts to convince them that there is a crisis at the border. Trump conceded there was ‘‘not much headway made’’ after Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen briefed congressional staffers on Sunday on the threat of crime and drugs posed by those entering the country illegally. – Bloomberg