While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has announced his support for President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration for border wall funding, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) isn’t sure the senator is totally comfortable with the move.
“You’re watching Mitch McConnell eat a manure sandwich in this whole process,” Rogers, now a CNN contributor, said on the network Friday. “I think what he said is, ‘Listen, I’m weighing that the fact that another government shutdown is pretty damaging to the country ... and also the party, the Republican party as it stands today.’”
Though Trump intends to sign Congress’ spending plan on border security allocating $1.357 billion to the wall, he is expected to announce a grand total of roughly $8 billion in funding, most of which he plans to gain with his national emergency declaration.
Rogers speculated that McConnell is backing the idea “because he thought it expedient to make sure that the government didn’t shut down,” adding that “his isn’t a full-throated support of the national emergency ... and he’s not enjoying that manure sandwich right yet this morning.”
Republicans including Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.), John Cornyn (Texas), Susan Collins (Maine) and others have already voiced concerns over Trump’s strategy, some concerned it could set a precedent for Democrats to declare emergencies in order to implement their own initiatives.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have promised to challenge the declaration, calling it “naked contempt for the rule of law” in a statement Thursday.