Thursday February 14, 2019
U.S. President Donald Trump will sign the government funding bill — and issue a national emergency on the border, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday.
WATCH: Pelosi threatens Trump on setting precedent for national emergencies
In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also said: “President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action — including a national emergency — to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.”
Sanders said that means the president is “once again delivering on his promise to build the wall.”
Trump’s signing of the funding bill, once it is approved by both Senate and the House, will mean that another partial government shutdown will be averted.
The bill will have departments running through the fiscal year, but without the $5.7 billion Trump wanted for the border wall with Mexico. The bipartisan agreement provides under $1.4 billion — enough for just 55 miles of new barriers and fencing.
Declaring an emergency would allow Trump to invoke executive powers to try to shift money to wall-building from elsewhere in the federal budget.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she may consider legal action against Trump if he does declare a national emergency.
“It’s important to note that when the president declares this emergency, first of all, it’s not an emergency,” Pelosi said.
She added there are actual emergencies in the U.S., citing the Parkland school shooting which occurred one year ago today.
“You want to talk about a national emergency? Let’s talk about today, the one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America. That’s a national emergency.”
The funding bill has already passed in Senate with a 83-16 vote. The House is also expected to vote on the bill later Thursday.
Trump’s signature on the bill will end the raucous legislative saga that commenced before Christmas and eventually led to the historically long 35-day partial federal shutdown.
Trump yielded on the shutdown Jan. 25 after public opinion turned against him and congressional Republicans.
The fight left both parties dead set against another shutdown. That sentiment weakened Trump’s hand and fueled the bipartisan deal, a pact that contrasts with the parties’ still-raging differences over health care, taxes and investigations of the president.
— With files from The Associated Press