A Republican congressman told The Hill on Wednesday that President Trump declaring a national emergency in order to bankroll his border wall “would be a mistake.”
“I do think there’s an emergency, but I would hate to see the President have to declare a national emergency because it would show that Congress is not working,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told The Hill’s “Rising” Web program. “We’ve got to come together and find a middle ground and do our job in Congress and not leave this for presidential executive order or declaring a national emergency. I think that would be a mistake, it would be wrong, but it would really be a reflection of a Congress not working.”
There was speculation that Trump would declare a national emergency at the border during his primetime address from the Oval Office Tuesday night — he did not — but the White House has made it clear that the option was still “on the table,” as press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders put it Wednesday.