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U.S President Donald Trump declared national emergency to build border wall

U.S President Donald Trump declared national emergency to build border wall

President Donald Trump emerged from one political crisis Friday and immediately dove into another. The president was slated to sign a government spending and border security plan into law with only hours to spare before parts of the government shut down Saturday. He also declared a national emergency to re purpose funds from other parts of the government to build his proposed border wall without congressional approval.

“I’m going to be signing a national emergency, and it’s been signed many times before, by many presidents. It’s rarely been a problem … nobody cared,” the president said during unscripted remarks Friday in the White House Rose Garden.

The move — which Trump acknowledged is sure to invite vigorous legal challenges from activists and government officials — comes after Trump failed to get the $5.7 billion he was seeking from lawmakers. Instead, Trump agreed to sign a congressional funding deal that included just $1.375 billion for border security, an amount he claimed as a victory but said was still “not enough.”

In addition to the funds Congress has appropriated, the White House will seek to redirect $3.6 billion from a military construction fund, $600 million from a Treasury Department drug forfeiture fund and $2.5 billion from a Pentagon drug prevention program, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters Friday.

From the White House’s Rose Garden Friday, Trump said he had to make the move because there was “an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, all types of criminals and gangs.” And he lambasted congressional leaders for failing to get him the money he wanted, taking a thinly veiled shot at recently retired House Speaker Paul Ryan, saying people in Congress “should have stepped up.”

“It would have been easy,” Trump said over the course of nearly an hour of remarks followed by a question and answer session. “Not that easy, but it would have been a lot easier. Some people didn’t step up. We are stepping up now.”

The national emergency declaration is being used to tap the largest pot of money — the $3.6 billion earmarked for military construction. The White House is relying on other legal authorities to justify redirections of the other financial resources. “It’s an all-of-the-above approach,” said a person close to the White House. “He always knew Congress was never going to give him the money he needed.”

But even as Trump made the border announcement on Friday, he focused much of his remarks on other areas he considers clear victories — trade negotiations, the economy and his efforts to denuclearize North Korea. Before even officially announcing the anticipated declaration, Trump took a winding path through the other topics for about 15 minutes. Still, the border wall strategy is sure to appease his conservative base, which has been clamoring from Trump to win the border security funding he has vowed to obtain.

As expected, congressional Democrats announced they would immediately challenge the move on an array of fronts.

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