The fight for the wall continues. You’ve probably seen a slew of headlines in regards to President Trump’s national emergency. Rather than leave you at the mercy of the mainstream media, we’re going to break down the situation and leave you with a clear understanding of where things stand and where they’re headed.
The Announcement
As you probably know by now, our President did in fact sign an omnibus spending bill to prevent a second shutdown. The bill included $1.3 billion for border security, but the Democrats forced a bunch of language in it to try and limit any effort on a border wall. They have reached levels of insanity in trying to stop President Trump from having a wall. It’s weird.
Before we cover the details of the new emergency declaration, it’s important to debunk a common lie. Liberals are saying that Mr. Trump refused to sign a bill last year that had much more money for a border wall. That’s not a half-lie. It’s a complete fabrication. To date, President Trump has vetoed 0 bills. Anyone who says otherwise is deliberately deceiving you.
So, the Democrats conceded a little on border security, but it isn’t enough to solve the problem. As he hinted, President Trump responded by invoking his backup plan. He has signed an emergency declaration in order to secure funding for a few hundred miles of border wall.
This declaration is similar to how he would release disaster funds after a hurricane or rapidly dispatch the military in response to an invasion. Officially, the declaration is calling for $8 billion for border construction. Those funds will be pulled from a number of different sources, and that’s going to help our President in the coming legal battles. We’ll talk about that more in a minute.
Immediate Challenges
It’s no surprise that the liberals immediately went to court against this declaration. It actually borrowed a ton of language from a similar emergency declared by Obama to fight against cartel violence, but the hypocrites of the left don’t care about that. Led by New York and California, a total of 16 states have signed onto a lawsuit designed to block this emergency declaration.
At minimum, you can expect it to go through a liberal court and get an injunction. This comes as no surprise to the President and his team, but it does mean that actual progress on the border will be delayed.
So far, the lawsuit is focused on trying to claim that no president can circumvent Congress when it comes to spending. Precedent is on Mr. Trump’s side on this one. That won’t matter while the lawsuits are being handled by biased judges, but if and when it gets high enough in appeals court, any neutral judge will side with history and approve President Trump’s spending.
The secret lies in how the emergency was declared. The $8 billion is not coming from a single source. Instead, it pulls from a mix of resources that are typically under the president’s direct control. In order to stop that spending, liberals will have to deny the current President access to each individual account. It’s a tall order.
The Long Road Ahead
President Trump has a fair chance of eventually getting through the legal obstructions. The longer and more difficult battle will happen in Congress. Say what you will about Democrats, they’re crafty. Right now, they’re launching a two-pronged attack, and it’s potent.
One group, led by the young radicals on the left, is pushing legislation that would permanently reign in presidential powers. If they write it well enough, it’s going to be tempting for Republicans to support it and prevent another Obama in the future.
The second prong of the attack is being led by Nancy Pelosi. She’s working on ways to support a future, liberal president and grant him powers to unilaterally spend money on single-payer healthcare or climate change initiatives. You can see how both of these efforts put Republicans in Congress in a tough spot. We need the wall, but we really don’t want another Obama.
In all, the wall’s future is pretty murky. That was true as soon as a Republican Congress failed to make anything happen. Now that it’s split, it’s going to be extremely difficult to make real progress on the border until the next big election.
The one thing to remember is that this is not and has never been Donald Trump’s failure. He has fought harder than any other president to do right by this country, and he’s not done yet.
