Two more Senate Republicans pledged Thursday morning to vote against President Trump’s emergency declaration, all but guaranteeing that the Senate will pass a resolution disapproving of Trump’s border wall money grab.
Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) both issued statements on Thursday lambasting Trump’s border wall declaration and pledging to vote with Democrats on an effort to undo the measure.
Alexander called Trump’s declaration “dangerous precedent.”
“Never before has a president asked for funding, Congress has not provided it, and the president then has used the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to spend the money anyway. The problem with this is that after a Revolutionary War against a king, our nation’s founders gave to Congress the power to approve all spending so that the president would not have too much power. This check on the executive is a crucial source of our freedom,” he continued.
Romney made similar arguments.
“This is a vote for the Constitution and for the balance of powers that is at its core. For the executive branch to override a law passed by Congress would make it the ultimate power rather than a balancing power,” Romney said in a statement.
That brings the tally of Republicans who plan to cross Trump to seven, three more than needed for the Senate to pass a resolution of disapproval. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure Thursday.
Trump admitted he’s likely to lose the vote — “I’ll probably have to
veto,” he told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday morning. But that hasn’t stopped him from attacking the Republicans who dared cross him:
A vote for today’s resolution by Republican Senators is a vote for Nancy Pelosi, Crime, and the Open Border Democrats!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 14, 2019
It’s unclear why Trump has continued to escalate on the issue given that it’s a show vote — he plans to veto the measure, and his emergency declaration is already tied up in the courts. But it’s clearly not enough to stop the resolution itself, even if it puts Senate Republicans in a tough spot.
