The battle of Stephen Miller and Wallace against Trump's national emergency declaration

The White House's senior advisor, Stephen Miller – the Trump administration's leading voice in immigration – has firmly defended President Donald Trump's statement of a national emergency to fund a wall of largest border in a contentious interview with Chris Wallace, the presenter of "Fox News Sunday".

Miller said the action was justified by the authorities granted to the president under the National Emergency Act of 1976 and added that if such an emergency had been declared to support the involvement of the United States in a foreign country like Syria or Belarus, it would not cause a blacklash. .

Trump's political advisor also made it clear that if Congress passed a resolution disapproving of the emergency declaration, the president would veto it. This would be the first veto of his administration.

"The president will protect his national emergency declaration, it is guaranteed," Miller said.

Wallace urged Miller on statistics that showed the number of illegal border crossings had dropped significantly since the turn of the century, that most drugs were seized at entry points and that no similar national urgency was declared under the 1976 Act.

Miller however ducked when Wallace asked if he could quote "a unique case, even a" where a president was asking for funds in Congress, Congress had not granted him credits and a president was then invoking powers of National emergency.

Asked about the increasing number of undocumented immigrants apprehended on the US southern border since 2000, but Wallace said he has lost 75% of his value since this year, Miller said the policy of Immigration of former President George W. Bush was "an amazing betrayal of the American people."

"I will not sit here today to tell you that George Bush defended this country at the southern border because he did not do it," Miller said. "One of the biggest changes since then has been the massive liberation of illegal aliens due to a mosaic of judicial decisions and flaws in our federal laws and the changing tactics of smugglers and transnational organizations."

A representative of Bush did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

On Friday, Trump ordered the national emergency to build a border wall that he could not get funded by Congress. The government has just bought out a 35-day partial closure of the government – the longest in US history – that began after lawmakers refused to provide Trump with $ 5.7 billion in funding to build this wall. The president closed the government in response, but gave in after more than a month, signing a draft spending bill.

The president also signed Friday a bipartite spending agreement providing more than $ 1.3 billion for the construction of 55 km of fences at the border, as well as additional funds for other border security measures. But that did not allow him to finance a wall.

Trump will divert nearly $ 7 billion from a set of military construction projects, anti-drug trafficking programs and an asset confiscation fund from the Treasury Department in order to create obstacles.

The national emergency has already led to legal difficulties, which, according to Trump, was to be announced on Friday. He also said that he had declared urgency not out of necessity, but to build the wall more quickly.

"I could do the wall for a longer time," said Trump. "I did not need to do that, but I would rather do it much faster."

On Sunday, Wallace asked Miller how the construction of the wall could be a national emergency if Trump claimed that he "did not need to" declare it.

"As former presidents, he could choose to ignore this crisis, ignore this urgency as others have done," said Miller. "But that's not what he's going to do."

Miller said the president, if he is able to use the funds to build the wall, will ensure that construction is completed by September 2020.

"In the middle of the presidential campaign," said Wallace.

In closing the interview, Wallace said, "It's always good and always exciting to talk to you."

Allan Smith

Allan Smith is a political journalist for NBC News.