Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 2-19-19

White House And Political News
Trump Declares National Emergency To Build Border Wall
Limbaugh Denies Influence Over Trump: 'I Don’t Make Policy'
RUSH LIMBAUGH
Battling with one branch of government and opening a new confrontation with an- other, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Friday to fulfill his pledge to construct a wall along the U. S.-Mexico bor- der.
Bypassing Congress, which approved far less money for his proposed wall than he had sought, Trump said he will use executive ac- tion to siphon billions of dol- lars from federal military construction and counter- drug efforts for the wall, aides said. The move drew immediate bipartisan criti- cism on Capitol Hill and is expected to face rounds of legal challenges.
Trump made the an- nouncement from the Rose Garden, as he claimed illegal immigration was “an inva- sion of our country.”
Trump’s move followed a rare show of bipartisanship when lawmakers voted Thursday to fund large swaths of the government and avoid a repeat of this winter’s debilitating five- week government shutdown. Trump’s insistence on wall
PRESIDENT TRUMP
funding has been a flash- point in his negotiations with Congress for more than two years, as has the resistance of lawmakers in both parties to meeting the president’s re- quest. West Wing aides ac- knowledged there was insufficient support among Republicans to sustain an- other shutdown fight, lead- ing Trump to decide to test the limits of his presidential powers.
The money in the bill for border barriers, about $1.4 billion, is far below the $5.7 billion Trump insisted he needed and would finance
just a quarter of the more than 200 miles (322 kilome- ters) he wanted this year.
To bridge the gap, Pres Trump announced that he will be spending roughly $8 billion on border barriers — combining the money ap- proved by Congress with funding he plans to repur- pose through executive ac- tions, including the national emergency. The money would come from funds tar- geted for counterdrug efforts and military construction, but aides could not immedi- ately specify which military projects would be affected.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Sun- day denied that he wields any substantial political in- fluence over President Donald Trump, criticizing the notion as a false narra- tive pushed by the presi- dent’s opponents to make Trump seem incompetent.
“If these people in the media, Chris, really thought that I was telling Trump what to do and when, they’d be calling me, they’d be asking me about it, they’d want to get down to the dirty details,” Lim- baugh told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
“People don’t really be- lieve what they’re saying about this,” Limbaugh said. “It’s just another effort to continue to try to dimin-
ish the president, diminish Trump, as somebody who doesn’t know what he’s doing, can’t do it without guidance from the so-called wacko right.
“It’s not at all the way he’s governing, and there isn’t anybody doing what I do that has a thing to do with actually making policy for this president,” he said.
Limbaugh and a host of other right-wing com- mentators were partly blamed in December for plunging the federal govern- ment into a 35-day partial shutdown after urging the president not to sign a stop- gap funding proposal that allocated far less than the $5.7 billion Trump had de- manded for construction of a wall separating the United States and Mexico.
Trump 'Daring The Courts' To Strike Down National Emergency
"This is the first time a president has tried to declare an emergency when Con- gress explicitly rejected fund- ing for the particular project that the President is advocat-
ing,"dam Schiff said on CNN's "State of the Union."
"He's pretty much daring the court to strike this down," the California Demo- crat said. "It is going to be a real test for my GOP col- leagues in Congress and their devotion to the institution."
Schiff, in his role on the House Intelligence Commit- tee, has been a vocal critic of the President's decisions both on immigration and his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's investi- gation. Since Democrats be- came the majority in the House of Representatives, Schiff has announced
House Intelligence Commit- tee Chairman Adam Schiff said Sunday the national emergency President Donald Trump announced is uncon- stitutional because he de- clared the emergency when "Congress explicitly rejected" the money for the wall on the southern border in the fund- ing package.
sweeping new investigations into the President's finances and business interests.
When asked by CNN's Dana Bash about any plans to limit the President's au- thority to declare national emergencies, Schiff ex- pressed hesitation.
"The risk that the Presi- dent takes, the risk to future Presidencies, is that we limit the President's power to act when it really is necessary," Schiff said. "But this presi- dent doesn't care about fu- ture presidents, he only cares about himself."
Schiff also said the news that the special counsel has evidence former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone communicated with WikiLeaks indicates "it is very possible that the best evidence is yet to come."
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