declare a national emergency, as he signs this bill. so some time in the next 24 hours, we presume. we know there will be legal fights. what should we expect? well, there is a statute, a law on the books that allows a president to declare national emergency and spend money outside of what congress has authorized. and all recent presidents have done it. they have never done it in anything like these circumstances, where the congress has explicitly not decided to spend the money that the president is asking to spend. also, the fact that the president has waited so long to declare a national emergency may be an argument that there is no national emergency. that the fact that he waited for congress to act and only then declared the national emergency may argue against him. but the statute does give the
open and that s very important for the american people. but we will also, as we do so, protect our borders and protect our values. madam speaker? yes, ma am? the president just said that he will declare a national emergency when he signs this bill. do you still plan to file a legal challenge if and when he does that? and how quickly did i ever say i was filing a legal challenge? you said democrats i may, that s an option, and we ll review our options. but it s important to note that when the president declares this emergency, first of all, it s not an emergency. what s happening at the border. it s a humanitarian challenge to us. the president has tried to sell a bill of goods to america. but putting that aside, just in terms of the president making an end run around congress, hear he said out of respect, what the committee will do, and then walks away from it. but in any event, the president is doing an end run about
don t have confidence in what you did, even though the president failed to convince the american people and their representatives in congress of his position. but let s just see what the votes are. who knows what the calculus is on the other side. doesn t look like your side of the aisle? madam speaker, as far as the gun control bill or the background check bill is a concern, you just said that a national emergency should, declared well, could be declared. if you want to talk about an emergency, that s a national emergency. that s something that you would like to see a president declare? no, i m just saying that a president could do that. if you want to go down that path, then let s look at what really is a national emergency. i m not advocating for any president doing an end run around congress. i m just saying that the republicans should have some dismay about the door that they are opening, the threshold they are crossing. madam speaker, in your opening comments, you s
pelosi. key line here. she says, the president is doing an end round on congress. she said republicans should have a problem with that, too, and this is potentially dangerous precedent if, in fact, the president declares this national emergency and goes the route in which it looks like it s going to go here, david. reporter: that s right, ana. you saw she was trying to do two things at the same time, one, saying, hey, no president should be doing this, don t do an end run around congress, but hey, i m also trying to tell you, if there s a democratic president one day, perhaps he or she will declare the democratic party s policy initiatives to be an emergency. she used today s anniversary of the shooting in parkland as an example. she said that perhaps a democratic president would make the guns crisis in the country as they see it a national emergency and that that may be something that republicans look back on this day and realize that by going along with the president and declaring
we do think that the keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldn t have them probably saves the most lives. thank you all, very much. thank you. thank you. oh, happy valentine s day. all we need is love and chocolate, right? what time are you voting? can we still go to the valentine s day dinner? that would be the hope. it depends on how soon the republican the republican? the senate takes up the bill. we said that we wouldn t vote before 6:30, because that s when our members come back from north carolina. but we hope not to have it be one minute after that. so, you ll have time for dinner. thank you all very much. nancy pelosi now responding to the declaration from the senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell, that the president will sign the spending bill, but he s going to declare a national emergency in order to get his border wall at the border. let me bring in cnn s david chalian, who s joining us to react to what we just heard from