“We can declare a national emergency. We shouldn’t have to,” Trump told reporters. Trump said his lawyers had told him he had the power to invoke national emergency powers to get his wall funded. “I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency,” Trump told reporters at the White House later. Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat who has cultivated good relations with Trump, told reporters a national emergency declaration by Trump would be “wrong, but I think that’s his only way out” of the impasse.

Source: The Express Tribune January 11, 2019 14:45 UTC