Congress is one GOP vote away from rejecting Trump's border emergency
The most straightforward way to end President Trump's southern border emergency declaration is for Congress to terminate it with a joint resolution. The House is expected to easily pass such a resolution on Tuesday, giving the Senate 18 days to vote on the one-page, 80-word bill. On Monday night, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced in a Washington Post op-ed that he will support the resolution, joining Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Assuming all Democrats vote for the measure, it needs just one more Republican to pass in the Senate.
"Numerous Senate Republicans say that, like Tillis, they despise Trump's decision to declare a national emergency to get additional funding for his wall," Politico says. But based on interviews Monday with more than a dozen of those GOP senators, "most aren't ready to say they will vote to block him from doing so," which would carry a political cost. Trump urged Republicans to reject the resolution in a tweet on Monday, and there's little expectation Congress would override his threatened veto, "but significant Republican defections would give it momentum in the Senate and could raise the specter — however remote" — that Trump's emergency declaration will be killed by lawmakers, The New York Times reports.
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