Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed her strategy from Laredo, Texas, where a group of Democrats is visiting the border in an attempt to dispel the president’s claims that an emergency situation exists. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Congress House ready to go to war with Trump over national emergency House Democrats will vote Tuesday to block Trump's effort to go around Congress to build his wall.

House Democrats will move early next week to block President Donald Trump from circumventing Congress to build a border wall, kicking off a weeks-long battle to pressure Republicans to rebuke the president over his national emergency declaration.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi detailed her party’s strategy Friday, one week after Trump announced a national emergency to secure as much as $6 billion for his border projects — funds that Congress had already denied.


The House plans to vote Tuesday on legislation that would reverse Trump’s emergency order. That privileged resolution — which has 226 co-sponsors, including one Republican — is expected to easily pass the House. The Senate will then be forced to vote within 18 days, posing an uncomfortable test of loyalty to Trump for the GOP-controlled chamber.

“The president’s act is lawless and does violence to our Constitution, and therefore, to our democracy,” Pelosi told reporters. “Not only is he disrespecting the legislative branch and the Constitution of the United States, he is dishonoring the office in which he serves.”

Pelosi revealed her strategy from Laredo, Texas, where a group of Democrats is visiting the border in an attempt to dispel the president’s claims that an emergency situation exists.

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Next week’s vote will be the first of a multitrack approach to force Trump to back off his attempt to siphon money from some Pentagon programs toward a border project.

With the clock ticking toward a vote in the Senate, the House will attempt to keep up public pressure by holding hearings on Trump’s use of executive action next week.

The House spending panel — whose members have vehemently opposed the move — will hold a hearing Wednesday where officials from the Navy, Army and Air Force will testify on Trump’s plans to transfer money from military construction projects to his wall.

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee will hold its own hearing on the law governing national emergencies.

Trump declared Friday that he will have the backing of congressional Republicans, predicting that they would not vote to defy his attempts to unilaterally build the border wall. But if not, Trump said he would “100 percent” veto the measure.

“We have too many smart people that want border security, so I can’t imagine it could survive a veto. But I will veto it, yes,” Trump said, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office.

House Republican leaders also feel confident that Democrats won’t be able to muster support for a veto override, which would require more than 50 Republicans to side with Democrats, according to two GOP aides.

House Republicans will begin their whip operation Monday night to help persuade their members — many of them publicly skeptical of the emergency declaration — not to vote with Democrats.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his deputies will also make their case Tuesday morning at a closed-door caucus meeting before the vote.

Democratic leaders are still working out details on their attempts to take Trump to court over his actions.

Pelosi said Friday there will be a legal challenge to block Trump in court, but she did not specifically say it would come from Congress, suggesting that it could be an outside group. She also said other House committees, such as Armed Services and Appropriations, would take other actions.

“They’ll be working in a very focused and strategic way in what we might do next. Right now, today, it’s about this resolution,” Pelosi said.

House Democrats are framing their fight against Trump as squarely focused on the constitutionality of his actions, with hopes of bringing as many Republicans on board as possible.

One Republican — libertarian Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan — has so far joined the Democrats, but one Democratic aide said Friday that “quite a few” other Republicans are expected to support the measure on the floor next week.

Numerous Senate Republicans have expressed concern about the national emergency declaration, but it’s still unclear how many would formally buck Trump. So far, only Maine Republican Susan Collins has said she would support a resolution of disapproval. She said Trump’s declaration of a national emergency “completely undermines” Congress.

In the Senate, the measure can pass with a simple majority, so only four Republicans would need to join Democrats to force Trump to issue his first veto. More moderate GOP senators and those up for reelection in 2020, including Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, are potential swing votes.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged his colleagues Thursday to vote for the House resolution and said the Senate would introduce an identical measure, in a bid to put more pressure on Republicans.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, formally introduced the resolution Friday morning.

“This is unprecedented,” Castro told reporters Friday. “The president is declaring a national emergency to fulfill a campaign promise, not because there is an actual emergency on the United States border.”

The House will tee up the resolution on Monday night, with plans to vote Tuesday, adding to an already dramatic week in Congress.

The House plan to vote next week on a landmark universal background checks bill that marks the formal launch of the Democratic Party’s gun reform agenda. The House Oversight Committee will also hold a much-anticipated hearing from Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen.

Marianne LeVine and Caitlin Oprysko contributed to this report.

