During Sunday’s “Kasie DC” on MSNBC, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said he believes there is an emergency at the southern border, but cautioned against declaring a national emergency.
Cole said if President Donald Trump were to declare a national emergency to get his planned wall built, it would be “unwelcome precedent.”
“I think declaring emergencies where you’re going to immediately go to court — it’s going to be litigated for months where it’s not immediately obvious to everybody in America is a high-risk proposition. And I would rather try to come up to deal. Look, at the end of the day, the president is going to get billions of dollars more than frankly either he asked for or Congress originally voted. That’s going to go for more border agents, that’s going to go for more containment facilities, that’s going to go for judges, that’s going to go for more sensors. It’s all going to make the border safer and he would have done more on the border than everybody else.”
He continued, “Will he get everything he wants? Probably not. That’s the nature of negotiation. Now, would I like him to get everything he wants? Sure. But again, we don’t have the votes for that in the House and frankly never had the votes in the Senate.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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