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GOING THE EMERGENCY ROUTE: The word first came on the Senate floor when Majority Leader Mitch McConnell informed his colleagues that he had just gotten off the phone with President Trump, who had just been persuaded to reluctantly sign the compromise spending bill that would keep the government open. “He will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time, and I’ve indicated to him that I’m going to support the national emergency declaration,” said McConnell. A short time later Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the president’s most ardent supporters in Congress, told reporters, “I think he has all the legal authority in the world to do this, and I will stand behind him.” The president confirmed that he will use his executive authority to build the border wall that Congress refuses to fund, in a retweet of his White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders. “President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action — including a national emergency — to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.” WHERE WILL THE MONEY COME FROM? In addition to the $1.375 billion included in the spending bill, the president plans to reprogram another $3.5 billion from military construction funds, $2.5 billion from Defense Department counterdrug money, and $600 million from Treasury forfeitures, according to CNN. Congressional aides told reporters yesterday that there is roughly $21 billion in authorized but unobligated construction funds in Pentagon budgets from the past five years, including $10 billion in the most recent budget. UNDER WHAT AUTHORITY? The president will be invoking section 2808 of Title 10 of the U.S. code, which states that “without regard to any other provision of law,” he “may undertake military construction projects, not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces.” The key phrase is “to support such use of the armed forces.” Among the possible arguments in any legal challenge will be whether building more border walls qualifies as a project that supports armed forces. The other critical provision states that the president’s authority “shall terminate with respect to any war or national emergency at the end of the war or national emergency.” If Congress wanted to to challenge the president it could pass a resolution declaring an end to the emergency, which could also end up in court. DEMOCRATIC THREATS: “The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities,” tweeted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-Calif. yesterday. Both Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted, “Declaring a national emergency would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract from the fact that @realDonaldTrump broke his core promise to have Mexico pay for his wall.” In a press conference, Pelosi hinted at a court fight. “I may, that’s an option, and we’ll review our options. … [I]t’s not an emergency, what’s happening at the border. It’s a humanitarian challenge to us. The president has tried to sell a bill of goods to American people.” Pelosi noted that Republicans are worried about the precedent set for future presidents. “I know the Republicans had some unease about it, no matter what they say,” she said. “If the president can declare an emergency on something that he has created as an emergency, an illusion that he wants to convey, just think of what a president with different values can present to the American people.” REPUBLICAN HEARTBURN: “I continue to believe that this is not what the national emergency act was intended to be used for,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “It was contemplated as a means for responding to a catastrophic event like an attack on our country or a major natural disaster.” “I encourage the President not to divert significant Department of Defense funding for border security,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, in a statement. “Doing so would have detrimental consequences for our troops as military infrastructure was one of the accounts most deprived during the Obama-era defense cuts. And it would undercut one of the most significant accomplishments of the last two years — beginning to repair and rebuild our military.” Good Friday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Kelly Jane Torrance (@kjtorrance). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense. EDITOR’S NOTE: We will not be publishing Daily on Defense Monday as we observe the President’s Day federal holiday. |
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HAPPENING TODAY: Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan moves on to Germany for more networking and relationship building at the Munich Security Conference. Vice President Mike Pence will also be attending what is widely considered the world’s leading forum for international security policy. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is leading a large congressional delegation, called the gathering “a marketplace of ideas where initiatives and solutions are developed and opinions are exchanged.” The bipartisan U.S. delegation includes:
REASSURING NATO: In his two days at NATO, Shanahan attempted to reassure NATO allies that President Trump still values the alliance and sees it as a force for confronting world threats, including Russia and China. “In the face of these challenges, NATO remains the world’s most powerful military alliance and the embodiment of our transatlantic bond,” Shanahan said at his closing news conference at NATO headquarters. “From Bagram to Baghdad, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, the teamwork ensures collective security. That’s why, as President Trump said just last month, we’re going to be with NATO 100 percent.” OUT OF AFGHANISTAN TOGETHER: “There will be no unilateral troop reduction,” Shanahan said when asked if there was concern among his fellow defense ministers about an “abrupt” withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. “I mean, that was one of the messages of the meeting today. We’ll be coordinated. We’re together.” Shanahan told the NATO ministers that President Trump believes the current talks with the Taliban represent a real an opportunity for peace. “Let’s not let this opportunity be stolen away from us,” he said. “The value of these meetings is that everyone can go back and explain to their senior leadership where does the United States stand.” ISIS DEFEATED, NOT ELIMINATED: In response to a question about the remaining strength of ISIS in Syria, Shanahan said the group has been largely defanged. “They no longer hold geography. They no longer govern in the spaces they once held. Their finances have been annihilated. Their ability to communicate on social media has been destroyed. You know, in that regards, they’ve been defeated.” But Shanahan said that does not mean they have been eliminated. “Are there remnants that are scattered or that’re hiding in those communities? Well, they are. But that’s the nature of the next phase: How do we maintain security? How do we keep them suppressed?” he said. VOTEL’S RESERVATIONS: Outgoing U.S. Central Command leader Gen. Joseph Votel, who last week told Congress that he wasn’t consulted by President Trump about the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, now tells CNN that if he had been asked he would have recommended against it. In an interview with CNN’s Barbara Starr, who is traveling with Votel in the region, the general said, “It would not have been my military advice at that time,” adding he believes it’s too soon to bring U.S. troops home. “I would not have made that suggestion, frankly,” he told Starr. Votel has said he’s under no deadline to complete the withdrawal, and he told Congress he was still working out security arrangements to protect the local population and America’s Kurdish allies. “When they are capable of handling this threat on their own without our assistance, that will be another key criteria indicating to me that we have accomplished our mission of defeat of ISIS,” he told CNN. A FAREWELL TO ARMS CONTROL: In next week’s Washington Examiner magazine, we explore the question of whether bilateral arms control treaties between the U.S. and Russia are an anachronism in the age of great power competition. President Trump is pulling the United States out of the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty largely because Russia is violating it, but also because China is not covered by it and China is now the world’s leader in the production and deployment of medium- and intermediate-range precision strike systems, according to the DIA. Trump said future treaties “have to add countries, obviously,” and he muses about getting “everybody in a very big and beautiful room, and do a new treaty that would be much better.” That raises questions about the future of that last remaining major arms treaty, New START, which limits the number of fielded strategic nuclear weapons and warheads and expires in two years. Read more in our newly expanded Washington Examiner magazine. NETANYAHU ‘DETHRONED’: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in a jovial mood at a U.S.-led summit after a Wednesday evening presentation by a trio of Arab diplomats on the threat Iran poses to its other neighbors. In a show of mock lamentation, he lamented that he had been “dethroned” as the chief Iran hawk among Middle Eastern leaders, three diplomats in the room told the Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke. That joke — an endorsement of the alarm sounded by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain — was seen as a form of vindication of the Warsaw conference on Middle East peace in the minds of U.S. organizers, Gehrke reports, noting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s team suffered some quiet disrespect in the days leading up to the ministerial thanks to Western European disinterest in an event devoted to flogging Iran for its aggression throughout the region. “We are seeing near-public unity among key Arab states and Israel to confront Iran’s aggression in the region,” Brian Hook, the State Department’s special envoy for Iran, told the Washington Examiner in an interview on the sidelines of the summit. “It’s important that the world understands that the view from the region is that the most serious and pressing security challenge for both Arab states and Israel is Iran.” Netanyahu’s remarks — and the nearly unprecedented public meetings he’s held in Warsaw with Arab leaders — offset the frigidity of diplomats from major European powers, who declined to applaud the Arab triumvirate’s broadside against Iran. THE RUNDOWN Washington Examiner: DOJ warns Trump that border national emergency declaration will be blocked by courts AP: Interview: Maduro reveals secret meetings with US envoy USNI News: WEST: New Rules Are Giving Surface Commanders More Latitude in How They Train Breaking Defense: Whither Nuclear Command, Control & Communications? Washington Post: Special agent involved in Army officer’s murder case charged with lying about earning a Purple Heart International Policy Digest: Securing Afghanistan’s Perimeter Breaking Defense: No More ‘Playing Defense’ For U.S. Navy; Offensive Weapons Are The Play Washington Examiner: Pregnant teenager who joined ISIS wants to ‘come home’ to UK for fear of unborn child’s safety |
CalendarFRIDAY | FEBRUARY 15 12 p.m. Rayburn 2075. “Dealing with North and South Korea: Can Washington Square the Circle?” www.cato.org TUESDAY | FEBRUARY 19 10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. A conversation with General David L. Goldfein, chief of staff of the Air Force. www.brookings.edu WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 20 12:15 p.m. 740 15th St N.W. #900. “21st Century Proxy Warfare.” www.newamerica.org 12:30 p.m. 1619 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “The ‘New Cold War’ Metaphor Makes No Sense.” www.sais-jhu.edu 2 p.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave, N.W. “Hope in an Age of Nuclear Weapons: The Realist Case for Elimination.” www.stimson.org THURSDAY | FEBRUARY 21 8:30 a.m. 2101 Wilson Blvd. “Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Defense Roundtable Breakfast.” www.ndia.org 11 a.m. 1000 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. “Gullible Superpower: U.S. Support for Bogus Foreign Democratic Movements.” www.cato.org FRIDAY | FEBRUARY 22 10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Avenue N.W. “Prospects for the Trump-Kim Vietnam Summit.” www.csis.org MONDAY | FEBRUARY 25 9:30 a.m. 1211 Connecticut Avenue N.W. “Competing with Russia ‘Short of War’: How the US and NATO have Countered Russian Coercion Panel Discussion.” www.stimson.org TUESDAY | FEBRUARY 26 7 a.m. 2425 Wilson Blvd. Breakfast with Ryan McCarthy, Under Secretary of the U.S. Army. www.ausa.org 12 p.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave N.E. “Modernizing the U.S. Sea-based Strategic Deterrent Force and the Need for 12 Columbia-class SSBNs.” www.heritage.org WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 27 11 a.m. 1700 Army Navy Drive. Expeditionary Warfare Division Annual Meeting. www.ndia.org THURSDAY | FEBRUARY 28 8 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. “Strategic National Security Space: FY 2020 Budget and Policy Forum.” www.csis.org 8:30 a.m. 1789 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Congress and the National Defense Strategy: A bipartisan conversation with congressional national security leaders. www.aei.org SUNDAY | MARCH 3 10:30 a.m. 8900 Little River Turnpike, Fairfax. Breakfast discussion with rocket scientist behind Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, Dr. Ari Sacher. jnf.org/vabreakfast MONDAY | MARCH 11 7 a.m. 1779 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference. www.carnegieendowment.org TUESDAY | MARCH 12 7 a.m. 1779 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference (Day 2). www.carnegieendowment.org |
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