The president has never been one to shy away from harsh rhetoric or harsh policy proposals. He came into office promising to deport tens of millions of people, ban an entire religion from entering the country, and put up a wall between us and our southern neighbor, so there’s not really a place to claim that the president is committed to working to find common ground with people.
Against that backdrop, the president was recently reported to be mulling over the idea of having funds that had previously been set aside to use for the military go towards the construction of his long promised border wall.
It’s ironic for that to be reported, since one of the lines from the Trump administration around the time of the three day government shutdown was that Democrats needed to come to an agreement with Republicans in order to fund the military.
In the face of reporting about the president considering using military funds for the border wall, Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego has announced plans to introduce an amendment to the defense spending authorization bill that prohibits military funding from going towards the wall. He introduced a similar amendment last year — before reporting came out that the president had actually been mulling over taking such a step — but it was not included in the final version of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act.
This time around, Rep. Gallego commented:
‘We can’t allow Donald Trump to steal already-limited resources from our troops to fund a pointless border wall that will serve little other purpose than to satisfy his own fragile ego. This money is meant to help our men and women in uniform — not to fulfill ill-advised campaign promises.’
He said that he plans to introduce his amendment in April when the House Armed Services Committee “marks up” this year’s NDAA.
Last week, the president signed an omnibus spending bill into law that included $700 billion in spending for defense purposes after having threatened to veto the measure — and let the government shut down — because it didn’t include the $25 billion for his wall that he wanted. Instead, it only included $1.6 billion for border security.
Him getting less money than he wanted for border security didn’t stop him from touting construction of border fencing on Twitter as the beginning of his long promised “wall.”
Great briefing this afternoon on the start of our Southern Border WALL! pic.twitter.com/pmCNoxxlkH
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018
CNN reporter Jim Acosta was among those to roast the president for his post, pointing out that the “wall” he’s seemingly touting is just fencing that has long been reported upon.
Looks like the border fencing CNN reported on last April https://t.co/jyVOUQQD6U pic.twitter.com/SI9rL9Fxms
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 28, 2018
As for Gallego’s intended measure to keep DOD money from going to fund an actual wall, it’s unclear whether or not it will pass, as both chambers of Congress are controlled by Republicans, just as the situation was last year.
In that light, Gallego commented:
‘I hope that Speaker Ryan will have the backbone to allow an up-or-down vote on the House floor and that my GOP colleagues will have the courage and integrity to put our military families first and say no to Donald Trump.’
This situation isn’t even the first one in which the president has been accused of misusing or being posed to misuse military funds. For instance, he has directed a military parade to take place in Washington, D.C., later this year.
Featured Image via MANDEL NGAN/ AFP/ Getty Images
