Trump indicates he will declare national emergency on 15 February as Pentagon sends 3,750 more troops to Mexican border

Donald Trump claimed in an interview broadcast on Sunday to have “set the table beautifully” for the next stage of his confrontation with congressional Democrats which caused the longest government shutdown in US history.

Trump indicated that to secure funding for a wall on the border with Mexico, he will declare a national emergency on 15 February, the deadline for funding talks initiated after the 35-day shutdown, the longest in US history.

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It came as the Pentagon announced it was sending a further 3,750 troops to the border to put up another 150 miles (240km) of concertina wire and provide other support for Customs and Border Protection. The additional personnel will increase the total number of active-duty troops sevenfold on the Mexican border, to 4,350.

In the interview with CBS’s Face the Nation, the president attempted to portray the shutdown that ended last month without funding for his wall as a victory over Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker.

Talks between the White House and congressional Republicans and Democrats are not expected to produce a bill containing the $5.7bn Trump wants for a wall. The president this week told the New York Times the negotiations were a “waste of time”. On Sunday a key Republican participant, the Alabama senator Richard Shelby, told CNN’s State of the Union that without a Trump-Pelosi truce, “the chances of us reaching an agreement are slim”.

Trump is therefore set to declare a national emergency over what he claims is a crisis at the southern border, allowing him to find funds in military and other budgets.

Such a move would almost certainly get tied up in the courts. Among Republicans, it has also provoked worries about setting a precedent regarding the use of executive power that future Democratic presidents might follow when pursuing liberal goals.

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“On the 15th we have now set the table beautifully because everybody knows what’s going on because of the shutdown,” Trump said. “People that didn’t have any idea – they didn’t have a clue as to what was happening, they now know exactly what’s happening.”

Trump added: “I don’t like to take things off the table. It’s that alternative. It’s national emergency, it’s other things and you know there have been plenty national emergencies called. And this really is an invasion of our country by human traffickers …”

The president repeated his assertion that without a border wall the US is subject to vast lawlessness, including “human trafficking … drugs and gangs and criminals pouring in”.

Most independent observers have cast doubt on Trump’s claims. Most on both sides of America’s partisan divide concluded that the shutdown was a victory for Pelosi, who kept her party in line and forced the president to end the shutdown he provoked without achieving his aim.

On CBS, Trump accused his political rival of being “very bad for our country”.

“She knows that you need a barrier,” he said. “She knows that we need border security. She wanted to win a political point. I happen to think it’s very bad politics because basically she wants open borders. She doesn’t mind human trafficking …”

Interviewer Margaret Brennan warned Trump that he would still have to deal with the speaker over border and immigration issues, a national emergency notwithstanding.

Pelosi has, after all, offered the president more than $1bn for border security: just not for building a wall.

“Excuse me?” Trump asked. “She’s – she’s costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars because what’s happening is when you have a porous border, and when you have drugs pouring in, and when you have people dying all over the country because of people like Nancy Pelosi who don’t want to give proper border security for political reasons, she’s doing a terrible disservice to our country.

“We’re going to have a strong border. And the only way you have a strong border is you need a physical barrier. You need a wall. And anybody that says you don’t, they’re just playing games.”