House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that if President Trump can declare a national emergency to construct his border wall, a Democratic president can use the same powers to take all sorts of steps the GOP won’t like.

She specifically suggested guns as an area where a Democratic president might try an end-run around Congress.

“Because if the president can declare an emergency on something that he has created as an emergency, an illusion that he wants to convey, just think of what a president with different values can present to the American people,” she said.

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She continued: “You want to talk about a national emergency, let’s talk about today, the one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America. That’s a national emergency”

She made her comments to reporters Thursday afternoon, after the White House said Mr. Trump will sign the spending bill moving through Congress, which shortchanges his request for wall money, but will claim emergency powers to have the Pentagon build the wall anyway, using money Congress already appropriated.

Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer have vowed to try to overturn the president’s planned declaration, and some Republican senators have said they’ll join Democrats in that move.

Lawsuits are also expected.