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By Allan Smith
Republican and Democrat legislators on Sunday expressed concern over President Donald Trump's urgent statement on the need to divert money to build the border wall project after the US Congress refused to authorize such funding.
The statement, which was made by Trump on Friday, divided the Republicans, with some saying it was a constitutional override and could open the door to a future Democratic president saying similar emergencies over issues with which the GOP does not agree. is not in agreement.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate's Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, said on the statement of the "NBC" "The Press".
This statement is "certainly the broadening of the authority that Congress has given to previous presidents, this chair has the same authority," Johnson said. "I would like him not to use it in this case, but again, I understand his frustration."
Johnson said that he would take "a very careful look at what he's doing here in this case."
"I'm going to look at the president's case," said Johnson. "And I'm also going to watch how fast this money is going to be actually spent compared to what it's going to use.
"If he will not spend it this fiscal year or very early in the next fiscal year, I would have doubts" about whether the situation at the border is really an emergency, he said. Johnson. "So again, I'm going to take a look at it and I'm going, you know, I'm going to decide when I really have to vote."
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. Trump 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 funds for other security measures at the border. Trump will now try to divert nearly $ 7 billion from a combination of military construction projects, drug interdiction programs and an asset forfeiture fund from the Ministry of the Interior. Treasure to build a longer barrier.
The national emergency has already caused legal difficulties, which Trump said expect to wait by announcing the emergency on Friday. He also stated that he had declared the urgency not out of necessity, but to allow faster construction of the walls.
"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."
Congress could pass a resolution disapproving of the emergency declaration, which it has the power to do under the 1976 National Emergencies Act.
Republican representative Will Hurd of Texas, who represents a border district, said he would support such a resolution and said that he did not think that a national emergency declaration was needed .
"This is not a tool the president needs to solve this problem," he said.
Democrats have expressed strong opposition to Trump's move. Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois told the House of Commons on ABC that the House should sue Trump if the resolution was not safe from the veto.
"Frankly, the president is trying to remove the power of the stock market from the legislature," she said. "We are co-equal government branches and he's trying to make some kind of executive drift, and it's really unjustified."
Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown has said the statement violates the Constitution.
"It is the first type of urgency that we have seen as well as a president did that," he said. "He could not get the Mexicans to build the wall." He could not get Congress to vote for money. … That's why you see so many Republicans saying do not do that. Republicans are afraid that he will take money elsewhere and something that interests them, but, basically, they think it's a failed president, who hates losing, who acts childishly. "
But others took the airwaves to defend the president. Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio told "This Week" that the declaration was necessary because Congress would not fund the president's priority.
"So we tried to follow the credit process and build it," Jordan said. "We tried to do that last year, and our party, our party leaders would not even go, the Democrats would certainly not go there. it will be slow, it will go to court, we understand that, but it is better to start this process so that we can finally do it than not to do it at all. "
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told "Face the Nation" that the southern border was a national emergency.
"Let's say for a moment that he withdrew money from the military construction budget," Graham said. "I would say that it is better for Kentucky high school students to have a secure border, we will provide them with the school they need, but for now, we have a national emergency on our hands."
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