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
requests from the plaintiffs, whoever those plaintiffs turn out to be, and there will certainly be a lot of them, already for some sort of injunction for the money not to be spent, but that s a decision for the judge. and the injunction could likely be appealed, to an appeals court and then probably to the supreme court. so every step in the legal process will be highly contested, but one thing i think we can safely assume is that the president and thus the administration will no hit pause on spending this money, unless a court tells it to hit pause. and that will be one of the contested issues. all right. stand by, if you will. i want to play the rather contentious moment when mitch mcconnell interrupted republican senator chuck grassley on the floor. watch. allowing these tax credits, incentives to lapse, has created uncertainty for investors and the industry about the
for what an executive can do with the money. that s why mitch mcconnell resisted for so long and why the big story here, ana, is mitch mcconnell is setting a huge precedent as it relates to what the executive branch can do when it comes to congress always existing power to allocate money. such a good point. chris cilizza thank you for breaking it down for us. let s give our final thought to david chalian on the current state of play. to that last point chris was making and what dana was saying before, the real-world political impact of what the longest shutdown in history was about. it moved mitch mcconnell off position. see, the republicans felt so burned by that last shutdown, as did donald trump, his numbers took a hit. it was very bad politics for him and his party and now we see the result of that at all costs and it seems costs of mitch mcconnell changing his position
national emergency, which he had made abundantly clear, he thought was a bad idea. and he used it to try to end this. he used it with and, frankly, against not against but on the other side of a negotiation with the president of the united states. dana bash, thank you very much. thank you to all of our contributors. jake tapper picks up our special coverage from washington now. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. capitol hill in a varitable frenzy this hour, that president trump might not sign that spending bill to keep the government funded because there wasn t enough money to fund his wall. he went on the record saying the president will sign the bill and will also declare a national emergency in an attempt to get more border wall funding. senate majority leader mitch
and allowing this precedent, that s the cost now, for avoiding another shutdown, which they deem would be politically worse, donald trump was able to use that threat of another shutdown to move mcconnell off that position. i have a couple of more minutes. kierstin powers, i want to go to you. what did you make of nancy pelosi s response? it s what you would expect and it s how many members of congress, even republican members, would have to feel this is an end run. it is a deal struck between democrats and republicans. it sets a terrible precedent, as she pointed out. in the future, i don t think republicans would like it very much. i think what s happening with mulch mcconnell, he s probably just dealing with the crisis that s closest to him. the crisis that s closest to him is the government shutting down. and if there s a national emergency, that doesn t necessarily mean the president will get the money. he will try to get the money, but there may be ways to stop