Trump is making a prime-time speech tomorrow.
It will be his 16th Oval Office address. During his two terms in office, Obama made 20 Oval Office addresses.President Trump wants to address the nation about the government shutdown on Tuesday night, and later in the week plans to travel to the southern border as part of his effort to persuade Americans of the need for a border wall — the sticking point in negotiations with Democrats who are eager to reopen shuttered agencies.
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Trump should follow through on his threat to declare at national emergency. The emergency is that Congress refuses to appropriate money for the Wall. Declaring a national emergency would allow Trump to cut military projects and use the saved funds to build the Wall.
Declaring a national emergency would make other things easier too. Trump has already said declaring a national emergency would allow him to use the "military version of eminent domain" to seize private property near the border on which to build the wall. That can only mean less deliberating and more action.
Q But that — couldn’t that hold up your wall?
THE PRESIDENT: No, it’s not going to hold it up, because under the military version of eminent domain, and under, actually, Homeland Security, we can do it before we even start. Now, a lot of times we’ll make a deal, and I would say a good percentage of the time we’re making deals. We have already purchased a lot of it. You know, a lot of the money that we’ve been given has already been spent on purchasing the land, the right of way. It’s essentially a right of way.
So we are very, very far along on that. But eminent domain is something that has to be used. Usually you would say for anything that’s long, like a road, like a pipeline, or like a wall or a fence.
Okay? Thank you. Good question. It’s a good question.
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