and ultimately that s the only way the wall is going to be built. laura: well i understand the white house counsel s office is looking at a provision of the u.s. code i think it s 287 that would allow the president to move money into wall building that has a relation to stopping the flow of drugs across the border not only that, but he can reprogram unobligated military construction funds for that purpose. that law dates back to 1976. it s been invoked 58 times, including for the civil war in sierra leone. that is clearly a priority national defense issue. and the president has the legal authority to declare it that and pull those funds from other military construction projects and put it into the most important project we have, the defense of our southern border. for those that say that, what s more important, securing the border of iraq or the border of the united states?
allow the judges to decide how we re going to secure our border. the things we re not talking about is the extent to which the car tell have literal operational support of our border. we re not allowed to travel. that s an emergency level kind of operation that we re dealing with at our border. the president is right to be focused on. that congress ought to do its job and step up in having the obligation to second cure our border. laura: gentlemen, thanks so much. we ll have you back as this continues to develop. after early morning criticism some gop office pushing back against me specifically as it relates to ice and the detention beds. they say despite the claims from the democrats in the media that this package will end up providing more beds than were requested in the president s budget sins dhs and ice can use all the transfer pre
back pay to federal contractors who were caught in the middle of the recent shut down. it s unclear if law makers would be successful in getting the provision included. now i m hearing tonight that that could destroy any possibility of this thing even going forward. but people have to understand we don t even have the language yet and we know stuff gets slipped in, congressman mcclintock at the last minute, it happens every single time to the american taxpayer. your thought laura as long as the democrats control the house nothing good is going to come out of the house of representatives. as long as the republicans have given chuck schumer and the democrats a fill bus search veto over any roappropriations bills we re not going to get a good bill through the senate. the president has statutory authority to the move ahead with the wall. he can draw $13 billion to do so. he has the legal authority to do so. he has the responsibility to do so.