This is big.
US President Donald Trump is to use national emergency powers to secure funding for his planned border wall with Mexico.
The US Congress passed a spending bill to avert another government shutdown, which includes $1.3bn for 55 miles of new border fencing, but not enough for the concrete or steel wall Trump wants along the border. Trump is expected to sign the bill today (15 February).
If the bill is not signed on Friday, there will be another government shutdown.
“President Trump will sign the government funding bill,” the White House said, “and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action – including a national emergency.”
Trump is expected to announce that he will use executive action to draw on a variety of administration funding sources to help finance construction of his wall on the border with a national emergency being part of that.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, has said she will consider a legal challenge to the emergency declaration.
The National Emergencies Act contains a clause that allows Congress to terminate the emergency status if both houses vote for it and the president does not veto.
But a supermajority in both houses of Congress is needed to overturn a presidential veto.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
