President vetoes wall resolution again

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has issued his second veto against legislation seeking to end his national emergency at the southwestern border, rejecting bipartisan objections to his efforts to obtain funds for a border wall.

His move, announced late Tuesday, was expected and will return the resolution to Congress. It is unlikely to garner the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.

The announcement comes exactly seven months after Trump issued the first veto of his presidency against a nearly identical resolution that would have terminated the national emergency. He declared the emergency earlier this year after Congress declined to designate money for his border wall; he has sought to allocate funds from other government agencies to the southwestern border.

Trump, announcing the veto, noted that he had vetoed the earlier measure “because it was a dangerous resolution that would undermine United States sovereignty and threaten the lives and safety of countless Americans.”

He added, “It is similarly my duty, in order to protect the safety and security of our nation, to return S.J. Res. 54 to the Senate without my approval.”

Lawmakers can force votes on the issue every six months. Democrats have seized upon the tactic as a way to corner vulnerable Republicans into defending either the president’s national security policies or Congress’ constitutional responsibility to dictate government spending.

But Trump, in his veto message, argued that the national emergency had “empowered my administration’s governmentwide strategy to counter large-scale unlawful migration” and said that a national emergency was still warranted at the border.

Separately, Democrats are protesting the quiet transfer of more than $200 million from Pentagon counterdrug efforts toward building the wall.

The move would shift $129 million to wall construction from anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan — the source of perhaps 90% of the world’s heroin — along with $90 million freed up by passage of a stopgap funding bill, top Democrats said in a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

The Defense Department “was faced with a simple choice: either additional funds be used for their intended purpose, to accelerate our military’s efforts to combat heroin production in Afghanistan; or divert these funds to pay for cost increases of a border wall project that does not have the support of the American people,” the Democrats wrote.

Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York and Patrick Leahy of Vermont took the lead, noting that the heroin trade is a major funding source for the Taliban and urging the Pentagon to “redouble its efforts to starve the Taliban of a vital funding source and reduce the scourge of heroin abuse in this country and abroad.”

Trump has shifted more than $6 billion from Pentagon accounts to pay for border fence construction.

A fight over the wall issue is tying up efforts to begin serious negotiations on wrapping up $1.4 trillion worth of agency appropriations by Thanksgiving.