reserves to the congress the sole authority to appropriate funds. so this is illegal. certainly, extra legal. and i don t think it will stand up over time. he s not a dictator. as much as he would like to be one, he s not. he doesn t have the authority to approve. cnn has confirmed the report has said, he ll pardon anyone to break t , who breaks the law to build the wall. what happens, his aides now insist he was simply joking. which is always what he follows up when he s made something so outrageous that it engenders blowback across the philosophical spectrum. this is what he does. claim that he was just kidding. we all know there is some part of that that isn t just kidding.