Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said President Trump should declare a national emergency if Democrats are still not willing to budge on border wall funding after the three-week continuing resolution becomes law.
“Come February the 15th, if the Democrats still say: ‘Go to hell on the wall, you get a dollar, that’s it.’ They basically tell Trump, ‘I’m not going to do with you what I did with Bush and Obama,’ then I hope he will go the emergency route,” Graham told Fox News after the president announced he would sign a bill to temporarily fund the government during continued negotiations.
“We don’t need to shut the government down, we need to secure the border,” Graham said. “And to me, the last best chance to do this win-win is between now and Feb. 15.”
Friday was the second scheduled payday in which hundreds of thousands of furloughed and “essential” federal employees working without pay received a $0 paycheck.
Trump said that he would sign a bill later Friday that would provide the funds necessary for people to return to work and get paid, but only for three weeks as he continues to fight for border wall funding.
The president said he considered declaring a national emergency at the U.S. border in order to allocate funds for the construction of a physical barrier without shutting down the government.
“As to shutting the government down again, that makes no sense to me. What I want to do is shut down the crime coming across the border,” Graham said, agreeing with Trump that there is a humanitarian crisis of drugs, human trafficking, and crossing at the southern border. “The real danger to this country is the broken border.”
