Trump interview: President says border situation is 'national emergency' as he edges closer to declaration
President takes trip to Texas on 20th day of government shutdown
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Donald Trump has doubled down on his threat to declare a national emergency to free up federal funds to build a wall on a visit to Texas as part of an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.
When asked how soon it would be before he declare an emergency, the president said "if we don't make a deal with Congress most likely I will do that". Despite the fact any such move would bring legal challenges, Mr Trump said the law is "100 per cent on my side".
He went on to call the situation at the border "a national emergency, if you look what's happening."
Mr Trump did not lay out a specific timetable for when he might take the step of a declaration, saying: “I think we're going to see what happens over the next few days.”
Critics have accused Mr Trump of "manufacturing" a border crisis to try and get the wall as part of a deal to end a partial government shutdown.
Two days after delivering a televised address to the nation to make his case for a wall, and a day after he abruptly left a meeting with Democrats after they refused to pay for one, Mr Trump travelled to the city of McAllen where he signed autographs for supporters and met border agency officials.
As he left the White House for his visit to Texas, Mr Trump again denied throwing a “temper tantrum” during the encounter with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi a day earlier.
At a roundtable meeting with community leaders and officials in McAllen, among them Texas senator Ted Cruz, the president repeated his insistence that a wall would be be built.
Who could be running against Trump in 2020?
Show all 23“We’re going to build a powerful steel barrier. They said we don’t want a concrete wall. I said that’s okay, we’ll call it a steel barrier,” he said.
“They say this is a manufactured crisis. That’s their new sound bite ... Every network has ‘manufactured crisis’. But it’s not. What’s manufactured is the word ‘manufactured’.”
The president - who has cancelled an upcoming trip to Davos, Switzerland, because of the shutdown - also sought to address those critics who have pointed out he used to repeatedly promise Mexico would pay for any barrier. He claimed without evidence that the terms of a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada will provide the money for the wall.
“When I say Mexico’s going to pay for the wall ... I didn’t say they’re going to write me a check for $10bn or $20bn,” he said. “If Congress approves this trade bill, they’ll pay for the wall many times over. When I say Mexico’s going to lpay for the wall, that’s what I mean”.
To see how events unfolded throughout the day, see our liveblog below
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A quick recap of Nancy Pelosi's attack line from yesterday.
The House speaker said Mr Trump had "stomped" out of their meeting, adding in a statement: "In a matter of hours, or just a few days, many people – federal workers – will not be receiving their paychecks, and what that means in their lives is tragic in terms of their credit rating, paying their mortgage, paying their rent, paying their car payment, paying their children’s tuition and the rest.
"The president seems to be insensitive to that. He thinks maybe they could just ask their father for more money, but they can’t."
Mr Trump has previously said that he "can relate" to people struggling without pay.
"I’m sure that the people that are on the receiving end will make adjustments, they always do,” he said at the weekend. "People understand exactly what’s going on. But many of those people that won’t be receiving a paycheck, many of those people agree 100 per cent with what I’m doing."
The crowdfunding website GoFundMe has said some 1,000 furloughed government workers have asked for financial help online as the shutdown nears the three-week mark.
Mr Trump has been considering whether to declare a national emergency and use it to get around opposition to the border wall in congress by spending money allocated for the Department of Defence to construct it.
Critics said that would be illegal, and plans were afoot to immediately challenge it in court were Mr Trump to go ahead. Even members of his own party who want to build a wall have said they do not want money to be taken from the military to pay for it.
Residents of the town Donald Trump is to visit later today on the US-Mexico frontier have poured scorn on his plans for a border wall.
"Why on earth would me and my husband live here, and work here, and rear six children here, if it wasn't safe?" said Marianna Trevino-Wright, the director of the National Butterfly Centre in McAllen, Texas.
In fact, she said, Mr Trump's proposed wall poses more of a threat than the migrants he claims it would keep out - given it would run right through the centre's property.
Her organisation has launched a lawsuit over the plans.
McAllen's mayor, Jim Darling, said that "tens of thousands of people go back and forth" between the town and its neighbouring Mexican settlement, Reynosa. "You can't just shut this place down" because their economies are so deeply entwined, he said.
But one interviewee, a conservative talk show host, claimed that "the wall does work". Sergio Sanchez added: "When you have people by the thousands entering this country without permission and abusing present immigration policy, it is in essence an open border."
Additional reporting by Reuters
Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska who has previously indicated she would back Democratic attempts to end the shutdown, tweeted a further condemnation of the stoppages last night.
The shutdown has craft beer brewers nervous, a local news station in Michigan reports.
Larry Bell, of Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, told WWMT that the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau that normally approves label designs for newly-created beers was closed due to the shutdown.
"If you've got an application in for a new brewery, winery or distillery right now, you're just burning money waiting for the government to reopen," Mr Bell told the station, a CBS affiliate.
The beer can manufacturer he works with needs six months' notice of label approvals, he added - meaning his range of summer beers is potentially under threat if the impasse continues.
Details have emerged of Mr Trump's planned movements today.
At 9.15am eastern time - 2.15pm in the UK - he will face questions from reporters on the south lawn of the White House.
At 12.45pm central time - 6.45pm in the UK - he is due to touch down in McAllen, Texas.
The president is set to arrive at the town's border patrol station 20 minutes after that and will participate in a round-table discussion on immigration and border security. He is due to leave at 2.15pm local time.
At 2.30pm local time, or 8.30pm in the UK, Mr Trump will arrive at the Rio Grande for a briefing on border security, departing the area some 70 minutes later to return to Washington.
Another press conference will take place at the White House at 8.05pm eastern time - 1.05am UK time.
Nearly two dozen bodies have been found - most of them burned - in Mexico near the border with the US.
Authorities uncovered 20 bodies, including 17 burned ones, near Nuevo Laredo, along with five torches vehicles.
The grisly discovery took place in the town of Miguel Aleman in Tamaulipas state, across the Rio Grande from Texas.
Tamaulipas has become one of the most violent states in Mexico, riven by gangs fighting to control the drug trade, extortion rackets and the exploitation of migrants.
Hundreds of bodies in unmarked graves have been found in recent years in the aftermath of the decade-long drug war led by the military to battle the cartels, which led to increasingly bloody turf wars.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Chuck Schumer, the leading Democrat in the Senate says his party will demand votes on the spending bills passed by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives aimed at re-opening the government.
Senate majority leader Republican Mitch McConnell has said he will not allow a vote on anything the president would not sign.
Federal workers are planning a rally in Washington to call on Congress to end the shutdown.
The event, organised by union leaders, is set for noon ET (5pm GMT) at the AFL-CIO union headquarters
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