some version of a pepper ball gun at the bear yesterday. this happening while the trump administration and democrats continue to square off regarding trump s national emergency declaration at the border and the push for a wall. nancy pelosi visited laredo texas, saying there is no emergency and that the declaration violates the constitution. the wall is not effective. it s very expensive. it s nothing more than a campaign for the president in one of his speeches. it has no merit in terms of effectiveness, cost effectiveness and does not support the values of our reporter: . reporter: the troops will help shanahan and dunford to determine how much money will be allocated from the military s construction fund. in that letter to the department of defense, dhs requested, quote, fencing, while the dod uses the term barrier. none of the officials use the
the border. everybody knows we need border security. we need a wall. i think it s a very bad subject for the democrats. we need a wall. we ve apprehended more people than we have in many years, it s costing us a lot of money with the military. we have tremendous border control and border security there. eric: jeff paul is live in los angeles with more. hi, jeff. reporter: shanahan and dunford are working to understand where the gaps in protection are and what dhs specifically needs. they ve just wrapped up a fly-over of the existing border fence in new mexico, across from texas. the area is two of the sites requested for prioritization for construction by the department of homeland security in a letter extent the pentagon last night. earlier today, the officials visited a national guard mission where they were briefed on border control capabilities including patrol vehicles, atvs, horses and weapons. it was this location where shanahan and dunford fired off
courts. so it s a better situation if republicans stick with the president, but there are a number of republicans, senator graham said on fox yesterday he expects a handful of republican defections, that would mean it would pass the senate. the president is right, there is no chance i think that he would be overridden, that congress would override his veto? it s going to be settled in the courts. arthel: that of course extends the timing of everything. but meanwhile let s talk about this. during the flight to el paso today, patrick shanahan and general dunford briefing reporters about the mission there and th the defense department s role in border security and i want to go over some of that briefing again. jeff paul touched on it. regarding that briefing, the $3.6 billion from the military construction fund, secretary shanahan will determine which dhs, department of home p land security projects are necessary for the use of of the armed
have all tweeted their support for juan guaido and venezuela today. meanwhile, president nicolas maduro, he gave a speech in caracas, urging the united states and president donald trump to keep their hands off of venezuela. he also said, he is prepared to give up his life for a free and independent venezuela. eric: all right we will see how this progresses.thank you. arthel: meanwhile at home, acting defensive terry patrick shanahan, making a one-day trip to el paso, texas. to visit the troops there. he traveled with general dunford, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. as the pentagon considers allocating money for the construction of a border barrier. jeff paul is live from our west coast bureau now with more. hi jeff. reporter: hi arthel. shanahan and dunford just wrapped up the visit to the border. they were to determine how much money will be spent of the $3.6 billion allocated for the military construction fund. they said they were checking
that you mentioned. i didn t mention it. we didn t either. it s g rated. we won t say. anyway, during the course of this, shanahan refused to actually condemn the idea of a full withdrawal further angering senator graham, and then it led to him saying well, then i m going to be your adversary on this issue. at the end of december graham came out of a meet agent the white house and said this. watch. this is an akin to surrendering. mr. president, you have a chance to change course. you have a lot of bipartisan to do so. take advantage of it. after discussions with the president and general dunford, i ve never felt better about where we re headed. we re slowing things down in a smart way, but the goal has always been the same, to be able to leave syria, make sure isis never comes back. our partners are taken care of and iran is contained. what happened between