Washington, D.C. — After the House voted 245-182 in favor of a resolution to block President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency along the Mexican border, Sam Berger, vice president of Democracy and Government Reform at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
This resolution is a powerful, bipartisan rebuke of the president’s latest abuse of power. This phony emergency is nothing more than a pretext for fulfilling a campaign promise that Congress declined to fund. Republicans and Democrats were united when they opposed funding for Trump’s wall in the first place, and they have now joined in rejecting Trump’s rationale for diverting billions of dollars from critical military projects to build himself a campaign backdrop. Continuing to pursue this phony emergency in the wake of such a rebuke would be a clear dereliction of his duty as commander in chief: He would be putting his own needs before the needs of the military and before the needs of the American people. Senators of both parties should follow suit to come together, regardless of their position on the wall, and stand up for the constitutional protections they took an oath to uphold.
For more information or to talk to an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at [email protected] or 202.478.6327.