Trump will 'use executive action' to build the wall, says conservative lawmaker
President Trump will accept the bipartisan spending deal to avert another government shutdown even though it includes just $1.375 billion to install barriers along the southern border, instead of the $5.7 billion Trump wanted, an unnamed conservative House member told CNN Tuesday.
Then, the representative added, Trump will simply "use executive action" to spend more money on border wall construction without congressional approval. The end result, the lawmaker said, is that the government will stay open and lawsuits will be filed over Trump's choice.
This prediction fits with Sunday comments from acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who said on Fox News that the administration would "take as much money as [Congress] can give us, and then we will go off and find [more] money someplace else" for wall construction. Trump can "sort of move money around," Mulvaney argued, repeatedly insisting this will all be legal.
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Trump himself likewise said at his Monday night rally in El Paso he will be "building the wall anyway," whether Congress is willing to pay for it or not.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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