Here & Now

National Emergency Will Bring Funding for Border Wall

Frederica Freyberg:

Now to Washington and the walls dividing government over immigration. On Thursday a second government shutdown of the year was averted with the passing of a bill that partially funds President Trump’s wall at the southern border, but a billion short of what he asked for. Today the president signed the bill. He then, as expected, declared a national emergency to authorize more billions in funding for the wall. Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson had this to say about shutdown politics. “I continue to be amazed at the dysfunction of Washington D.C.,” he said. “I primarily voted for this bill to move us past the current appropriation impasse and avoid another shutdown. We must now devote our energy to a thorough and thoughtful process that addresses the complex problems of border security and both legal and illegal immigration.” Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin said, “Both Democrats and Republicans oppose the president declaring a national emergency and taking money from our military or anywhere else to pay for a wall that he promised Mexico would pay for. This is a bad idea. Doesn’t the president have enough legal problems already?” What to make of the border wall imbroglio in Washington. In tonight’s look ahead, we turn to UW-Madison Professor of Journalism Mike Wagner. Thanks very much for being here.

Mike Wagner:

It’s my pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what is your reaction to the president declaring an emergency?

Mike Wagner:

Well I think it shows that he’s in a — he sees himself in a very weak position. Most research on the presidency says that when presidents are strong, they’re able to persuade members of Congress to do what they want. He completely failed there in terms of getting the border wall funding that he wanted from Congress. Presidents can be successful if they burnish their reputation in Washington. But by most accounts, that’s in tatters, as even his most powerful ally Majority Leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell has trouble trusting whether the president’s going to sign stuff that McConnell brings to the president’s desk from the Senate. Then the third is to get the public on his side and the president’s approval rating is underwater. He took heat for the shutdown. This shows the president in an extraordinarily weak position doing something that has been done maybe five dozen times since the ’70s, but virtually never for a purpose like this.

Frederica Freyberg:

But still it seems like a strong move. Would his base declare that a winning move?

Mike Wagner:

I think his base is supportive of it. The public opinion research that I’ve seen on immigration issues and the president’s positions line up very well with what his base would like on this. He’s going to be able to — presuming that the emergency stays declared and that he is able to successfully move money, he’s going to be able to say to his base, I got this done. I said I wanted around $6 billion for a border wall and I ended up with $8 because I was so wise about how I did things, of course. But a lot of this is going to be facing scrutiny again from the House and potentially the Senate and almost certainly in the courts.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because why is it a deal that the president would declare an emergency?

Mike Wagner:

Well Congress passed a law, early 1970s, that related to when the president could do this and then also they put kind of a caveat in that law where the House and then the Senate could, by a majority vote, kind of disapprove or take back or undeclare the emergency. Now, at that time, they didn’t think the president would be able to veto that. But the Supreme Court later said that legislation has to have an opportunity for signature or veto. So it could be that the president declares emergency, the House and maybe even the Senate say, “Oh no, you can’t.” And then the president could then veto that and then send it back to the House and Senate where there probably isn’t two-thirds of the Senate willing to override that at present.

Frederica Freyberg:

Imbroglio indeed. So prior to this, how would you grade President Trump’s leadership and the turmoil that was the government shutdown and then its reopening?

Mike Wagner:

Well, the president — below average. So probably a “D.” The president went into the shutdown in a pretty weak position. He put his party in a weaker position because they kind of took the public blame along with him for the shutdown. And then when the bill — when the agreement got hammered out this week, there was less money for the border wall or border fencing I guess in this case, not the wall in the way that President Trump had originally wanted it. But there was less money for that than in the original offer. And so he hasn’t gotten what he’s wanted through the legislative process. I think what’s more to the point is that he had two years of a unified government and he couldn’t get 0.1% of his budget priority, which is $6 billion for the wall, passed by unified government. He’s certainly not getting that from the Democrats in the House.

Frederica Freyberg:

I was going to ask, with a Democratic House, should we expect to see more of these kind of executive power plays?

Mike Wagner:

I think we might expect to see more power plays from the president and I think we’ll start to see power plays from the House. I think we’ll see more aggressive pursuit of the president’s tax records, more hearings in the House, things that hold the president’s feet to the fire in ways that didn’t happen when the majority party was his own.

Frederica Freyberg:

In El Paso, President Trump declared that we’ve built a lot of the wall and what we should be saying now is finish that wall. Apparently the truth is that there were zero miles of this barrier, any barrier built under Donald Trump. What do you make of his kind of regular misstatements of fact?

Mike Wagner:

It’s a part of who he is, how he campaigned and how he governs. President Trump regularly says many things that are not true. And there’s a fatigue that comes with that from reporters covering him, from people listening to him. His supporters will often see this as, well, lots of politicians say things that aren’t true, why are you harping on President Trump? President Trump’s opponents say but President Trump says things that aren’t true in far greater number and about far more things than the average politician, especially the average president. And so I would say it’s important for reporters to keep on those issues and pointing out when the president says things that are demonstratively false.

Frederica Freyberg:

Mike Wagner, thanks very much.

Mike Wagner:

My pleasure.