The Associated Press Washington – Opponents of President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border appear to have enough Senate votes to reject his move, now that Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky has said he can’t go along with the White House. The House has voted to derail the action, and if the Senate follows later this month, the measure would go to Trump for his promised veto. Three other Republican senators have announced they’ll vote “no” – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Paul makes it four, and assuming that all 47 Democrats and their independent allies go against Trump, that would give opponents 51 votes – just past the majority needed. Congress is unlikely to have the votes to override. “I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress,” Paul said at a GOP dinner Saturday night at Western Kentucky University, according to the Bowling Green (Ky.) Daily News. “We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing.” Many lawmakers opposed to the emergency declaration say it tramples Congress’ constitutional power to control spending and would set a precedent for future Democratic presidents to make such a declaration for their own purposes. They also are concerned Trump would siphon money from home-state projects to barrier construction. Under the declaration, Trump would divert $3.6 billion from military construction to erect more border barriers. He’s invoking other powers to transfer an additional $3.1 billion to construction.<doc-sep>Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called the border wall proposal hammered out by congressional negotiators a “big victory” for President Trump in an interview with Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Daily Wednesday morning. “I think in the end, Trump won a big victory here, because everybody else had folded,” he said in the interview with host and Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow. “At Christmastime, everybody else was folding, and just saying, ‘Oh the Democrats gained control of the House, this is the best that we’ll ever do.’ So he got $1.375 billion for border security that wasn’t in there before,” he said. Before the government shutdown, Democrats offered no money for a physical barrier. One option proposed by Democrats included $1.6 billion to $2.5 billion — none of which could be spent on a wall. “I think the president wanted $5 billion and Nancy Pelosi wanted $0, so until she got him to $0 there was going to be no compromise,” Paul said of those discussions. “So I think there will be a splitting of the difference, I think the number that’s being floated around is $1.375 billion — not all of that for the wall, but some of it will be,” he said. “Democrats can say none of it’s for the wall, but in reality it’s for a steel slat barrier that certainly looks pretty hard to get over for me,” he added. Paul also spoke about Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D) comments endorsing abortion after a baby is born. He said as a doctor who has worked to save premature babies’ lives, “It just sort of grosses me out to even think these people are thinking a six, seven, eight-pound baby at the time of birth could be aborted.” “The person who has the stomach … to commit that kind of murder at that time of a full-term baby is somebody who really doesn’t have a conscience,” he said. “[Democrats] have really gone off the deep end on this.” “It’s not a small feat to kill a six or seven-pound baby. It takes considerable effort, and it’s especially gruesome,” he said. Paul also discussed his opposition to President Trump’s attorney general nominee William Barr. He said he opposed Barr’s nomination on the grounds that he supports the government’s ability to surveil Americans’ phone and financial records without a warrant. “Barr has been very explicit that he doesn’t think the Fourth Amendment applies to your business records once you allow business to capture these records. I disagree,” he said. “It’s not that I’m against finding out information about people who are committing crimes, but you have to go to a judge first — that’s what our Constitution says,” he said. “He’s been saying the Patriot Act didn’t go far enough, we need to snoop on Americans more.” Paul also criticized Barr’s positions on guns. He said Barr wants to limit the size of magazines, and in the ’90s was fine with banning semi-automatic weapons.” “I really just don’t think he’s a very good traditional conservative, and he’s not a Libertarian at all,” he said. However, he said Barr was strong on executive privilege and executive power, which he said, “appeals to the president.” “My guess is that he will not let the Mueller thing get out of hand, and I’m actually fine with that,” he said. “The Mueller investigation — it’s time for it to finish up, and it has become a witch hunt,” he said. “I think he won’t let it become just sort of a big huge clown-car kind of game used to pillory the president.” Paul also touched on Trump’s recent decision to withdraw from Syria and drawdown troops from Afghanistan. “I’m very proud of President Trump for being the first president, really in my lifetime, to understand that we have to learn how to declare victory. We’ve been in Afghanistan for 17 years,” he said. He said the Afghanistan War has morphed from hunting down those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks into a $51 billion-a-year nation building effort. He criticized an amendment led by Republican Senate leaders last week rebuking the president for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan precipitously. “How can leaving after 17 years be precipitous?” he asked.<doc-sep>Sen. Rand Paul has joined the list of GOP Senators who are abandoning Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pledge to support the border emergency declaration by President Donald Trump. “I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress,” Paul told a home-state audience at Western Kentucky University’s Augenstein Alumni Center on May 2. “We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing,” he said, according to the Bowling Green Daily News. Paul is the fifth GOP Senator who says he will oppose Trump’s emergency declaration. His vote will allow Democrats to get a resolution against emergency spending through the Senate with a vote or two to spare. But Trump’s emergency declaration is expected to survive because Trump can veto the Democrats’ resolution against the emergency. Trump is using the emergency declaration to redirect several billion dollars of appropriated funds to help build additional miles of border wall. The declaration comes after the D.C. establishment largely blocked Trump’s 2016 mandate for immigration reform. The GOP and Democratic establishments have done little to reverse the rising death toll from smuggled drugs, little to stop the rising inflow of low-wage economic migrants, and little to reverse the chaotic diversity in blue-collar neighborhoods which is being caused by the establishment’s cheap-labor immigration policy. Democrats need support from 20 GOP Senators to get the 67 votes needed to override Trump’s veto. McConnell agreed to support the border emergency and the associated funding for the border-wall, in exchange for Trump’s support of GOP’s botched 2019 budget agreement with the Democrats. The deal provided Trump with money for just 55 miles of wall, and conditions that allow Democrats to block construction until October. GOP estb. pols don't like Trump's national emergency. But they squirm and dodge b/c Sen. McConnell promised to back Trump's emergency after his deputies botched border talks with Democrats. Maybe they should have fought for their voters' wall in 2017-8? https://t.co/xVBHeAKkaL — Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) February 19, 2019 Trump, however, is pushing hard against Senators who have helped block his wall since early 2017. “It is a very dangerous thing for people to be voting against border security for anybody, including Republicans,” Trump said in a February 28 interview on Fox News. “I really think that Republicans that vote against border security and the wall … I think they put themselves at great jeopardy.” On March 1, Vice President Mike Pence told the CPAC audience: President Trump used his authority under the law to declare a national emergency on our southern border, but now Democrats are trying to stop the president from exercising the authority that the Congress gave him to address this real crisis. So today, we call on every member of Congress. Stand up for border security. Stop playing politics with the security of the American people, and stand with President Trump for a stronger and safer America. Trump “has got sufficient funding without a national emergency,” Sen. Lamar Alexander said after a February 28 speech on the Senate floor. “He can build a wall and avoid a dangerous precedent,” said Alexander, who has been a member of the GOP’s cheap-labor caucus since at least 2013, when he backed the “Gang of Eight” amnesty.” Trump’s emergency is “unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the Constitution,” said Alexander, who is not running for election in 2020. Several GOP Senators have explained why they will not support the President’s border defense plan. According to Politico: Alexander is just one of about 10 senators who are committed to blocking the president’s move or are considering doing so, suggesting the White House has a ways to go to avoid a public split in the party and a Trump veto. “The president can get way more money than he’s even asking for without setting the Constitution on its head,” said this undecided senator, who requested anonymity to speak frankly. “I am very, very skeptical about the precedent this makes.” If Trump doesn’t back down, there is still deep reluctance in the GOP to becoming the 51st vote for the disapproval resolution that the Senate is expected to vote on in March. So far, Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine are the only Republicans who have said they would support blocking Trump on his plans to seize billions from military projects. “The question before us is not whether to support or oppose the wall. It is not whether to support or oppose President Trump,” Collins said, according to RollCall.com. “Rather, it is this: do we want the executive branch, now or in the future, to hold the power that the founders deliberately entrusted to Congress?” Other Senators are dodging the issue. According to the Hill: “I think it’s clear that people want to see the final documentation and they want to know the specific statutory basis,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La. ), who is expected to back Trump. Asked how they would vote on the resolution of disapproval, both Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) demurred, noting that they hadn’t yet seen a detailed list indicating from where the White House plans to divert funds. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is also hinting at opposition. “I have long believed and advocated that every president, Republican and Democrat, should act consistent with the Constitution and federal law, and I’m assessing those legal authorities right now,” he said.<doc-sep>Trump plans to use emergency powers to secure $3.6 billion from the Department of Defense's military construction funds to build his proposed border wall. He will take executive actions to divert another roughly $3 billion toward the project, along with $1.4 billion allotted by Congress last month. Trump declared a national emergency after Congress did not approve the $5.7 billion he wanted for border barriers. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced late Sunday that he would support a measure to terminate the flex of executive power, joining three of his Republican colleagues. The GOP-controlled Senate plans to take up the proposal, which the Democratic-held House already passed, by mid-March. If all 47 Senate Democrats support the measure as expected, four Republicans add up to the simple majority needed to approve it. A fourth Republican senator plans to vote to block President Donald Trump's national emergency declaration, giving the chamber enough support to reject the president's action barring any changes. Despite the Senate's support for the resolution, Congress likely will not block the emergency declaration. Trump has pledged to veto it. If he rejects the bill, the House and Senate would have a difficult time finding two-thirds majorities to override the veto. Paul joins GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina in pledging to vote to terminate the declaration. Others such as Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., have signaled they could join that group if Trump does not change course. In a Fox News column, Paul wrote that he backs Trump's effort to put money toward a border wall. But he wrote that he "cannot support the use of emergency powers to get more funding." "Every single Republican I know decried President Obama's use of executive power to legislate. We were right then. But the only way to be an honest officeholder is to stand up for the same principles no matter who is in power," Paul wrote. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., have both supported Trump's emergency declaration. McConnell acknowledged Monday that the Senate will pass the resolution disapproving it, but stressed that Congress likely will not be able to overcome Trump's veto, according to CBS News reporter Mark Knoller. Mark Knoller McConnell tweet In passing the measure to block the emergency declaration, the Democratic-held House fell well short of a veto-proof majority. While 245 House members voted for the resolution, 290 would need to back it to overcome a veto. Democrats currently control 235 seats, while Republicans hold 197 and three are vacant. Meanwhile, 67 senators would have to support it to reach the two-thirds threshold needed to circumvent Trump. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.<doc-sep>
Sen. Rand Paul, who has joined with four other GOP senators against approving President Trump’s national emergency declaration, predicted that the Supreme Court will strike down the action because it violates the “will of Congress.” “Without question, the president’s order for more wall money contradicts the will of Congress and will, in all likelihood, be struck down by the Supreme Court,” Paul wrote in an op-ed for Fox News published late Sunday. He went on to say that he believes Trump’s picks to the court — Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — “may rebuke him on this.” Trump declared a national emergency last month in a maneuver that would allow him to siphon funds from the military construction budget to pay for a wall on the southern border, a signature issue of his presidential campaign. The declaration came after Congress refused to authorize the $5.7 billion in funds Trump demanded for the barrier — appropriating only $1.375 billion. “Congress clearly expressed its will not to spend more than $1.3 billion and to restrict how much of that money could go to barriers,” the Kentucky Republican wrote in the piece. “Therefore, President Trump’s emergency order is clearly in opposition to the will of Congress.” Paul recalled that he and Trump objected to President Barack Obama’s use of executive power in 2014 to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and said he has to view Trump’s order the same way. “I would literally lose my political soul if I decided to treat President Trump different than President Obama,” Paul said, adding that he supports Trump’s views on immigration. “I supported his fight to get funding for the wall from Republicans and Democrats alike, and I share his view that we need more and better border security,” he wrote. “However, I cannot support the use of emergency powers to get more funding, so I will be voting to disapprove of his declaration when it comes before the Senate.” Three other Republicans in the chamber — Thom Tills of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — also said they won’t back Trump’s emergency declaration. If those four join with all the 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats, there would be a bipartisan majority to block the declaration, leaving Trump with the choice to veto the legislation, which has already passed the House. But Congress does not appear to have the two-thirds majority needed to override his veto — meaning Trump’s declaration could stay in place.