Trump signature would hand Democrats big win
President Donald Trump is poised to sign the government funding bill, however grudgingly. The Post reports, “A White House official told The Washington Post on Wednesday morning that Trump sees signing the legislation, if passed by Congress, as the way to avoid another shutdown.” Of course he needs a fig leaf so the White House will “likely pursue an executive order to reallocate additional federal funds to barrier projects.”
The promise of moving around funds is so vague at this point it is hard to assess whether it will survive legal challenge. If for example, Trump takes money from victims of California fires and mud slides, I imagine California congressmen including House MinorityLeader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., will object. And you can be certain California (or whatever state’s pocket get spicked for Trump’s face-saving move) will sue in court. The issue is likely to be tied up in court for a while, and unlike the Republican House majority that willingly ceded power to the executive branch, you can bet Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will seek vigorously to defend Congress’s power to appropriate.
Trump not only hands Democrats and Pelosi a huge political victory, he also hands Democrats a gift for 2020 and beyond. Trump’s heavy-handed strategy for 2020 is to paint Democrats as pro-crime and pro-open borders. He’s said as much recently – and his eager-beaver lackeys in right-wing media are happy to repeat the charge.
Some of the latter pointed to Beto O’Rourke’s remarks in El Paso, Texas, as evidence of his support for open borders. While O’Rourke urged Americans to greet immigrants with open arms he certainly did not invite illegal immigrants. In the context of mothers and children seeking asylum O’Rourke seemed to be restating what was and still is a basic American notion (“Give me your tired...”). At any rate, Trump’s default insults and smears (Socialist! Pro-crime!) are anything but subtle.
How exactly will that work once the funding bill is passed – and signed by him? Democrats overwhelmingly will be on record in favor of spending nearly $1.4B in border security, including 55 miles of fencing. Now there is no mistake: Trump isn’t getting his wall. (CNN reports: “The 55 miles is double the amount allocated in the last spending agreement, but 10 miles less than the bipartisan Senate Homeland Security funding bill from 2018 that Trump rejected... Additionally, the deal prohibits the use of concrete walls and only ‘existing technologies’ for border barriers that can be built.”) However, Democrats are voting for border security and Trump apparently is going to sign it. Moreover, “There’s a $1.7 billion increase in overall spending for the Department of Homeland Security, primarily for technology, ports of entry security, customs officers and humanitarian aid.”
If Democrats were really for “open borders” they wouldn’t support that sort of thing. Maybe Trump will claim that this is just a smoke screen (but then why sign it?). In point of fact no elected Democrat I know of has cheered for open borders. While Trump claimed this is what Hillary Clinton wanted, that was a lie.
Let’s not forget that in 2013 “every single Democrat in the Senate voted for the so-called Gang of Eight immigration overhaul bill that would have provided about $40 billion for border enforcement, including deploying thousands more agents and building 700 miles of fencing.”
Democrats, frankly, have done a poor job rebutting the bogus accusation that they support open borders. However, thanks to Trump they’ll have a recent, persuasive argument that they’re four-square behind funding (lots of it) for secure borders. Come to think of it didn’t they offer him $25B at one point for border security if he’d legalize the Dreamers?