Key GOP senator offers ultimatum to Trump on border emergency

National Emergency

Sen. Lamar Alexander urged the president to withdraw his national emergency declaration or face a Republican revolt.

Sen. Lamar Alexander delivered an ultimatum to President Donald Trump on Thursday: Reconsider your national emergency declaration at the border or face a potential rebellion from the GOP.

The retiring Tennessee Republican declined to state whether he will become the deciding senator to block the president’s maneuver, instead taking to the Senate floor to try and convince Trump that he has other ways to collect $5.7 billion for the border wall — the precise amount of money he demanded during the government shutdown fight.

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“He’s got sufficient funding without a national emergency, he can build a wall and avoid a dangerous precedent,” Alexander told reporters afterward. “That would change the voting situation if he we were to agree to do that.”

Three other Republicans have said they would join Democrats in voting for a resolution to block Trump, and only one more is needed for the Senate to successfully reject Trump’s declaration.

But Alexander pointedly refused to become the 51st vote for the disapproval resolution that the Senate is expected to vote on in March, deeming it a hypothetical since Trump could withdraw the national emergency declaration or the House-passed resolution could be amended.

Under current law, the House measure will come up by mid-March, and Alexander left little doubt that he’s just one of a large bloc of Republicans who may defy the president.

Trump’s national emergency declaration for border wall funding is “unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the constitution,” Alexander told reporters. “And many Republican senators who can speak for themselves share that view.”

“We’ve never had a case where the president has asked for money, been refused the money by Congress, then used the national emergency powers to spend it anyway,” he added. “To me that’s a dangerous precedent.“