Trump will ask Congress for $8.6 BILLION to build his border wall when his budget lands on Monday, setting up ANOTHER clash with Democrats
- President Donald Trump on Monday will ask Congress to give him $8.6 billion to build his border wall when his budget request lands on Capitol Hill
- His move sets up another clash with Democrats who denied his last request
- The president’s $8.6 billion request is on top of the $6.5 billion he wants to redirect to build his wall under his emergency powers declaration
- With Democrats controlling the House it makes it highly unlike the president will get the money he is asking for
- His request follows a five-week partial shutdown over border money
- Trump’s move also shows he intends to keep the battle for his border wall alive as the 2020 election heats up
President Donald Trump on Monday will ask Congress to give him $8.6 billion to build his border wall, setting up another clash with Democrats over his signature campaign promise.
The president’s demand is more than six times what Congress allocated for border projects in each of the past two fiscal years, and 6 percent more than Trump has corralled by invoking emergency powers this year.
And it’s in addition to the roughly $6.5 billion the president said he would redirect under emergency powers after Democrats denied his request for $5.7 billion to help build the wall.
President Donald Trump on Monday will ask Congress to give him $8.6 billion to build his border wall when his budget request lands on Capitol Hill
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats denied the president’s last request for border wall money
The $8.6 billion request is part of the president’s 2020 budget, which will land on Capitol Hill on Monday.
White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said on ‘Fox News Sunday’ the president will demand funds for his border wall although he did not get into specifics.
‘I suppose there will be. I would just say that the whole issue of the wall, of border security, is of paramount importance. We have a crisis down there. I think the president has made that case very effectively,’ he said.
‘He’s going to stay with his wall, and he’s going to stay with the border security theme,’ Kudlow noted of the president. ‘I think it’s essential.’
One senior administration official told The Washington Post the $8.6 billion in the budget request, combined with the funds Trump wants to redirect with through his national emergency declaration, would allow the White House to complete at least 722 miles of new barriers, which has been Trump’s goal.
The president’s demand for funds for his barrier comes on the heels of a five-week partial government shutdown, the longest in American history, where Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi battled over border money.
Trump wanted $5.7 billion to build his border wall while Democrats offered $1.375 billion for border measures.
The clash resulted in a delayed State of the Union address, Trump canceling Pelosi’s government flight for a visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and bitter back-and-forths over the border.
The final compromise bill offered $1.37 billion in funds to existing forms of border barrier and did not fully fund the president’s wall request.
It limited funds to ‘operationally effective designs deployed as of the date of the [2017 funding law] such as currently deployed steel bollard designs, that prioritize agent safety.’
It was Democrats that emerged triumphant from that clash and their control of the House makes it highly unlikely the president will receive the money he is asking for in his 2020 budget.
White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said on ‘Fox News Sunday’ the president will demand funds for his border wall
Trump’s move shows he intends to keep the battle for his border wall alive as the 2020 election heats up
But after the government funding was settled in February, President Trump then announced a national emergency that would allow him to spend $8 billion to build his wall.
His move has already been challenged in court with a coalition of 16 U.S. states led by California suing Trump and top members of his administration in an attempt to block his emergency declaration.
Additionally the House passed a resolution denying President Trump emergency powers to build his border wall and it’s now in the Senate, where enough Republican senators have expressed support for it that it could pass the upper chamber.
Trump has vowed to veto it should it come to his desk and neither chamber has the three-fourth majority required to override the president.
Several Republican senators took issue with how the president made his move, arguing Trump violated the line that separated the powers of the executive and legislative branches when he declared a national emergency.
Trump’s budget request shows he plans to keep the border wall issue alive as the 2020 presidential campaign heats up.
Although the president’s budget request lands on Monday, there is still time to negotiate.
Funding legislation needs to be passed before Oct. 1 – the start of the 2020 federal fiscal year – or the government could shut down again.