Still angry about the budget deal he signed last week, President Donald Trump has floated the idea of using the Pentagon budget to pay for his long-promised border wall with Mexico, despite the fact that such spending would likely require approval from Congress.
Trump raised the funding plan with House Speaker Paul Ryan at a meeting at the White House last Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the discussion who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
And he has tweeted that building “a great Border Wall” is “all about National Defense” and has called to “Build WALL through M!” — the military.
Departments, however, have limited authority to reprogram funds without congressional approval. Pentagon spokesman Chris Sherwood referred all questions on the wall to the White House, where spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders deflected them, saying she was “not going to get into the specifics of that.”
Trump threw Washington into a tizzy on Friday when he threatened to veto the omnibus spending bill, in part because it didn’t include the $25 billion he’d tried to secure for the wall in a last-minute bargaining spree.
Trump raised the funding plan with House Speaker Paul Ryan at a meeting at the White House last Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the discussion who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
And he has tweeted that building “a great Border Wall” is “all about National Defense” and has called to “Build WALL through M!” — the military.
Departments, however, have limited authority to reprogram funds without congressional approval. Pentagon spokesman Chris Sherwood referred all questions on the wall to the White House, where spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders deflected them, saying she was “not going to get into the specifics of that.”
Trump threw Washington into a tizzy on Friday when he threatened to veto the omnibus spending bill, in part because it didn’t include the $25 billion he’d tried to secure for the wall in a last-minute bargaining spree.
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