Sen. Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican, on Sunday warned President Trump against invoking emergency powers to secure money for a U.S.-Mexico border wall if Congress can’t strike a deal in the coming weeks, saying such a move would be a “bad precedent.”
“I happen to agree with the president on barriers at the border and border security as an important first step, but there might be a future president that I don’t agree with that thinks something else is an emergency,” Mr. Blunt said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“I think it’s a bad precedent,” he said. “I hope the president doesn’t have to go there. If we’ll do our job, he won’t even have to consider going there three weeks from now.”
Mr. Trump on Friday signed a stopgap funding bill that doesn’t include wall money and will re-open shuttered federal agencies through Feb. 15, bringing at least a temporary end to a shutdown that had stretched for more than a month.
The president said that if Congress can’t strike a deal on homeland security funding in the next three weeks, he could orchestrate another shutdown or invoke emergency powers to secure wall funding without congressional approval.
Democrats have already vowed legal action if the president ultimately decides to declare a national emergency to address the southern border.
Liberals have also suggested that future presidents could cite such a move from Mr. Trump as precedent to declare a national emergency to muscle through a nationalized health care plan or other liberal priorities without consent from Congress.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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