and i can tell you that it won t work from my experience when i was the chief of staff of the senate committee on environment and public works, which has jurisdiction over all federal government building projects in the united states, a building project like this starting from zero today would be a minimum, minimum of two years away from breaking ground on the first inch of such a building project. and that s if the building project had the unanimous support of congress and the country. no one working in the federal government now has any idea how to launch a building project like this under an emergency declaration, even if the congress and the country supported that emergency declaration. the government simply does not know how to do this. but even more importantly, as you will hear in a moment from the highest legal authority we could find on this subject, the president s emergency declaration will be challenged in court. no one knows this subject better
he wants from congress is not a national emergency, nor is it a national emergency if the president can t keep his promise to the american people to have mexico pay for the wall. that s a trump emergency, it s not a national emergency. so this will be challenged in courts immediately and it will be pretty easy to throw this thing out neal, i ve just been handed details from nbc news reporting on what the president is expected to say tomorrow and specifically about the money. he is specifically intending to take $2.5 billion from the department of defense, from the drug intradiction program in the department of defense and use that for a building project inside of the united states of america, which is not in the jurisdiction of the department of defense. yeah. that s what dictators and kings do. it puts congress in the driver s seat for appropriations.
he is specifically intending to take $2.5 billion from the department of defense, from the drug intradiction program in the department of defense and use that for a building project inside of the united states of america, which is not in the jurisdiction of the department of defense. yeah. that s what dictators and kings do. it puts congress in the driver s seat for appropriations. congress decided after debate that the money, $2.5 billion should be spent on drugs. they didn t say it should go to his silly wall. here s the thing about the national emergency. presidents have lots of latitude in courts, as you know. i argued a bunch of these cases. but what they don t have is latitude to define an emergency in contra invention to congress. the 2018 election was all about should we have this wall or not.
ridiculous the entire process has become when you take it a step further you have congress telling the administration you are not allowed to build walls rather than here s funding for the wall, lawrence congressman, with this information we have that they re going to take $2.5 billion from the defense department and somehow try to transfer that into spending for a domestic building project, it s not clear at all what department that money would go to for this building project. obviously has no authorization. what is your reaction to taking $2.5 billion from the defense department as the president is going to try to do? it s wrong and unconstitutional. i m not going to yield my time back to neil but he was citing the constitution which gives us that responsibility. we will use every tool possible in order to push back against the administration and hold them accountable, but one of those
department that money would go to for this building project. obviously has no authorization. what is your reaction to taking $2.5 billion from the defense department as the president is going to try to do? it s wrong and unconstitutional. i m not going to yield my time back to neal but he was citing the constitution which gives us that responsibility. we will use every tool possible in order to push back against the administration and hold them accountable, but one of those tools is going to be having individuals from the pentagon come to the appropriations committee of which i serve on and to explain exactly what they plan to do and why they feel this transfer is allowable if the president so chooses. i heard the worldwide threats assessments just like you reported two weeks ago. and guess what, dan coats never mentioned the southern border in 70 pages of testimony to the senate. so this is not a crisis.