Congressional Democrats may get another chance to block some of Donald Trump’s wall-building plans. It turns out that there’s only $85 million left of the $2.5 billion in unspent Pentagon counterdrug money the Trump administration had identified as available for his wall. That’s about a third of the money Trump planned to tap.
The Defense Department is hoping to shift $2.4 billion from other programs into the counterdrug fund and then into the wall, Roll Call reports, but that’s where Democrats will get a say: Whatever happens with the resolution to block the national emergency declaration itself, this move would need approval from four different House and Senate committees that oversee the Pentagon. Democrats are not exactly going to nod along with that plan. “I am adamantly opposed to the use of any funds provided by Congress to the Department of Defense for the unauthorized construction of a wall on the Southwest border,” said Rep. Pete Visclosky, chair of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, in a statement.
Don’t expect Trump to give up, though—he can look for money elsewhere, including by taking more military construction money, or, potentially, by just plain ignoring the requirement to ask to move money into the counterdrug fund.