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 Trump tries to win votes
in Senate fight
BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 03/11/19 08:20 PM EDT 2,910

41

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President Trump is pressing Republican senators in a last-ditch effort to win

votes against a measure disapproving of his emergency declaration to build a
wall on the Mexican border.

Trump is going to lose the Senate vote later this week, but the White House
wants to keep the tally as low as possible and the president is now putting skin in
the game trying to sway undecided GOP lawmakers.

“We talk to a number of members every single day, certainly at the presidential
and the staff level, and we’re going to continue to engage with them in this
process,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters
Monday.

Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said “the president and the White
House and some of our members are still discussing the path forward and hoping
we get kind of a resolution.”

A senior Senate Republican aide said the White House is “very involved” in trying
to come up with a solution to avoid an embarrassing vote later this week.

Vice President Pence, White House legislative affairs director Shahira Knight and
a senior attorney for the Department of Justice are leading the outreach to Senate
Republicans, the source said.

The Senate is expected to vote on the measure Thursday, and as many as 15 GOP
senators have expressed strong misgivings about Trump stepping on their power
of the purse by declaring a national emergency after Congress appropriated only
$1.375 billion for border barriers. Even Republican senators who have
announced they will support the resolution to block Trump’s national emergency
are coming under pressure.

“I am being lobbied on the issue,” said Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the first
Republican to announce her support for the measure, adding that she’s not going
to change her mind. “I came out very, very early on this issue because to me it
was such a clear-cut constitutional issue.”

Republicans led by Sens. Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) are trying to
craft an alternate resolution that would express support for Trump’s desire to
build border barriers while discouraging him or future presidents from declaring
national emergencies to circumvent Congress.

No proposal, however, has yet emerged to compete with the main disapproval
resolution, and some Republicans question the wisdom of voting on a second
measure rebuking Trump’s action that could secure even more GOP votes.

“There’s no consensus on that yet,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of
the Senate Republican leadership team.

Another Republican lawmaker involved in the talks said “a lot would have to fall
in place in a politically charged environment to find a solution,” expressing
pessimism about the possibility of a GOP alternative to compete with the
disapproval resolution.

Separately, Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) are backing a
proposal that would rein in the president’s power to declare a national
emergency by requiring Congress to vote on extending such a declaration beyond
30 days.

But Cornyn said any vote on this measure “would be a subsequent legislative
matter.”

Trump has stepped up his public pressure on senators, warning they will be seen
as weak on border security if they vote with Democrats.

“Republican Senators have a very easy vote this week. It is about Border Security
and the Wall (stopping Crime, Drugs etc.), not Constitutionality and Precedent. It
is an 80% positive issue. The Dems are 100% United, as usual, on a 20% issue,
Open Borders and Crime. Get tough R’s!” he tweeted on Monday.
A large number of Republican defections would generate a spate of negative
news stories about Trump losing his grip on the Senate GOP conference and
could bolster legal arguments that his action is unconstitutional. This could be
the biggest impact of the disapproval vote, as it’s clear the measure doesn’t have
enough support in either chamber to overcome a veto. The House passed its
disapproval resolution 245-182 behind a united Democratic caucus and 13
Republican defections.

One Republican swing vote, Sen. Johnny Isakson (Ga.), who is concerned about
Trump overstepping his constitutional authority, said he’s more likely to vote his
conscience since the disapproval resolution won’t survive a veto.

“Whatever you vote, it’s probably going to die somewhere in the process after it
leaves here. So I want the vote to be representative of what I believe we need to
do,” he said. “It’s all about the signal that you send.”

Isakson said “some people” from the administration have contacted him.

Republican senators are telling the administration that it has enough money to
fulfill Trump’s request from last year to spend $5.7 billion on border barriers and
doesn’t need to resort to the emergency declaration. But that argument has been
undercut by strong Democratic opposition to the White House’s newest budget
request for $8.6 billion for border barrier construction in fiscal 2020.

The request includes $5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and
$3.6 billion for the Department of Defense’s military construction fund. It would
go toward plans to build barriers along 722 miles of border.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the chairwoman of the Senate

Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, says it will be difficult to
get Democrats to agree to any new money for border barriers in this year’s
spending bills.

“We’ll have to see. I would just conjecture this reach by the president probably
will cloud some of our ability to appropriate on homeland security for the wall,”
she said of Trump’s emergency declaration.

Democrats say Trump’s request is a non-starter.

“The recklessness of the Trump budget is underscored by its inclusion of $8.6

billion in border wall funding, an egregious waste of money that does nothing to
make our country safer,” said House Appropriations Committee
Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.).

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Senate Budget Committee’s ranking member who
is also running for president, said “we don’t need billions of dollars for a wall that
no one wants.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders pushed back, arguing that Trump’s emergency

declaration and budget request are necessary to protect the nation.

“He’s doing what Congress should be doing. He took an oath of office and he has a
constitutional duty to protect the people of this country. We have a humanitarian
and national security crisis at our border,” she said.

Russell Vought, the acting White House budget director, on Monday dismissed a
question about whether Trump might take additional executive action to fund
the border wall if Congress fails to provide any more money. One option could be
to use emergency defense funds appropriated through the Pentagon’s overseas
contingency operations fund.

“Right now we are focused on spending the money that Congress gave us in the
last appropriations bill and the money that we have identified as part of
declaring a national emergency,” he said.

“This $8.6 billion is geared toward what we would need in addition to complete
that wall,” he added.

Niall Stanage contributed.

TAGS SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO BERNIE SANDERS JOHNNY ISAKSON SUSAN COLLINS DONALD TRUMP RON
JOHNSON JOHN CORNYN TODD YOUNG PAT TOOMEY NITA LOWEY JOHN THUNE MIKE LEE

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