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A2 UP FRONT
Saturday 16 March 2019
VETO jority required to override al pomp of a bill-signing.
Continued from Front Trump's veto, though House Trump was surrounded in
"Congress has the free- Democrats will try nonethe- the Oval Office by support-
dom to pass this resolution," less on March 26. ers, including law enforce-
Trump said, "and I have the Despite the reproach, ment officials and the par-
duty to veto it." Trump seized the opportu- ents of children killed by
A dozen defecting Repub- nity to publicly rebuff Con- people in the country ille-
licans joined Senate Demo- gress and show his commit- gally, who offered profuse
crats in approving the joint ment to the border wall. In thanks and frequent ap-
resolution on Thursday as embracing the opportunity plause. Trump dramatically
both parties strained to ex- to deploy the constitutional signed his veto message
ert their power in new ways. power of the veto for the and then held the docu-
It is unlikely that Congress first time, he treated the oc- ment up for the cameras to
will have the two-thirds ma- casion with all the tradition- capture.
Trump wants to use the President Donald Trump signs the first veto of his presidency in
emergency order to di- the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, March 15, 2019, in
vert billions of federal dol- Washington.
lars earmarked for defense Associated Press
spending toward the south-
ern border wall. It still faces lenge to the 1976 National said Trump won't forget
several legal challenges Emergencies Act, just as when senators who op-
from Democratic state at- a Wednesday vote on posed him want him to at-
torneys general and envi- Yemen was the first time tend fundraisers or provide
ronmental groups who ar- Congress invoked the de- other help. The official was
gue the emergency decla- cades-old War Powers Act not authorized to speak
ration was unconstitutional. to try to rein in a president. publicly on internal delib-
Come here tourists Those cases could prevent That resolution seeking to erations so spoke on condi-
And dig our cultural scene Trump from diverting extra end U.S. backing for the tion of anonymity.
it’s not too fancy money to barrier construc- Saudi Arabian-led coali- Speaking in the Oval Of-
and this island’s pretty clean tion for months or longer. tion fighting in Yemen was fice, Trump painted his
It ain’t no drag…MONDAY American Civil Liberties approved in the aftermath usual portrait of a lawless
Union, which filed one of of the killing of journalist Ja- and violent border. He cit-
WE’RE CLOSED TO CELEBRATE the challenges, said the mal Khashoggi in the Saudi ed "thousands and thou-
veto is meaningless, like Consulate in Istanbul and is sands" of gang arrests and
OUR FLAG !!! the declaration in the first expected to be the subject claimed many of the asy-
place. of Trump's second veto. lum seekers released into
"Congress has rejected the Despite the embarrassing the U.S. were "stone-cold
In conjunction with Himno y Bandera, Aruba Today
will not be published on Monday, March 18th, 2019. president's declaration, defections of the 12 GOP killers," ignoring data that
We will resume out regular printing schedule on and now the courts will be senators, Trump's grip on shows immigrants are less
Tuesday, March, 19th, 2019. the ultimate arbiter of its the party remains strong likely to commit crime. He
legality. We look forward and the White House made noted, correctly, a spike
to seeing him in court and it clear that Republicans in the number of people
to the shellacking that he resisting Trump could face coming to the border to
will receive at the hands of political consequences. claim asylum.
an independent judiciary," Ahead of the voting, Trump Trump initiated the show-
said Executive Director An- framed the issue as with- down months ago when
thony Romero. him-or-against-him on bor- he all but dared Congress
House Speaker Nancy Pe- der security, a powerful ar- not to give him the $5.7 bil-
losi called Trump's veto a gument with many. lion he was demanding to
"lawless power grab" and But Friday, Trump said build the U.S.-Mexico wall,
railed that, even after both he had sympathy for the by threatening a federal
chambers tried to stop him, Republicans who voted government shutdown.
Trump "has chosen to con- against him and empha- Congress declined and
tinue to defy the Constitu- sized that he never truly the result was the longest
tion, the Congress and the twisted the arms of law- shutdown in U.S. history.
will of the American peo- makers, because he knew Against the advice of GOP
ple." there were not enough leaders, Trump invoked the
Trump, however, insisted votes to override the veto. national emergency dec-
the situation on the south- "Look, they were doing laration last month, allow-
ern border is "a tremendous what they have to do," ing him to try to tap about
national emergency," add- Trump said, insisting he "put $3.6 billion for the wall
ing, "our immigration sys- no pressure" on lawmakers by shuffling money from
tem is stretched beyond to vote against the resolu- military projects, and that
the breaking point." tion because he realized drew outrage from many
Many lawmakers said Thurs- that the measure was likely lawmakers. Trump had
day's vote was not neces- to pass. campaigned for president
sarily a rejection of the Still, a White House official promising Mexico would
president or the wall, but
protections against future
presidents — namely a
Democrat who might want
to declare an emergency
on climate change, gun
control or any number of
other issues.
It was the first direct chal-