Trump: Build border wall with military funds
WASHINGTON — Aas he sought the presidency in 2016, President Donald Trump frequently said Mexico would pay for a wall along the southern border. Now, he is privately pushing the U.S. military to fund construction of his signature project.
Trump, who told advisers he was spurned in the spending bill last week when lawmakers appropriated only $1.6 billion for the border wall, has begun suggesting the Pentagon could fund the sprawling construction, citing a “national security” risk.
After floating the notion to several advisers last week, he told Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in a meeting last Wednesday in the White House residence that the military should pay for the wall, according to three people familiar with the meeting. Ryan offered little reaction to the notion, these people said.
The individuals spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely about private discussions.
In another such interaction with senior aides last week, Trump noted that the Department of Defense was getting so much money as part of the $1.3 trillion spending package that the Pentagon could surely afford the border wall, two White House officials said. The Pentagon received about $700 billion as part of the spending package, which Trump repeatedly lauded as “historic.”
Meanwhile, the bill not only included a relative pittance of $1.6 billion for some fencing and levees on the border, compared to the $25 billion Trump was seeking, but it included strict restrictions on how the money can be spent.
A White House spokesman declined to comment.
It would be unlikely for the military to fund the wall, according to White House and Defense Department officials. The president has suggested to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis that the department could fund the construction instead of the Department of Homeland Security, two Trump advisers said.
The Pentagon has plenty of money, but reprogramming it for a wall would require votes in Congress that the president doesn’t seem to have. Taking money from the current 2018 budget for the wall would require an act of Congress, said a senior Pentagon official.
To find the money in the 2019 defense budget, Trump would have to submit a budget amendment that would still require 60 votes in the Senate, the official said.
Democrats in Congress would likely chafe at military spending going to the construction of a border wall, and military officials may also blanch at the possibility, White House advisers said.
“First Mexico was supposed to pay for it, then U.S. taxpayers, and now our men and women in uniform? This would be a blatant misuse of military funds and tied up in court for years. Secretary Mattis ought not bother and instead use the money to help our troops, rather than advance the president’s political fantasies,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said.