Trump Reportedly Pushing For Military To Pony Up For Border Wall
It looks like when it comes to President Donald Trump‘s long-promised border wall, we’ve evolved from “Mexico will pay for it” to the “Pentagon will pay for it.”
According to the Washington Post, the president has begun suggesting that the military should help fund the wall since he only received $1.6 billion in the latest budget for the project. He is reportedly telling aides that this would be justified because it involves national security.
Trump brought it up in a meeting with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) last week, stating the military should pay for the wall. While sources said Ryan didn’t react to the suggestion, officials have said that “it was an unlikely prospect.” In another meeting, Trump told his advisers that that the military could obviously afford paying for the wall because the latest budget included so much money for the Pentagon.
Trump has apparently already publicly made this declaration. In a tweet he sent out a couple of days ago and retweeted later, Trump wrote “Build WALL through M!” Advisers state that “M” means military.
Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2018
Prior to signing the omnibus spending bill last week, Trump bellyached on Twitter and during a signing event, stating that he would never sign another bill like that again. At the same time, he said that the main reason he was signing the bill was due to the increased funding for the military.
Meanwhile, the only way Trump can reallocate defense funds to the wall is to go through Congress, something the Pentagon has noted. Trump would also need to get 60 votes in the Senate if he wants to use the 2019 defense budget to pay for the wall, something that seems highly unlikely at this point.
[image via screengrab]
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