CNN is reporting that the White House plan to get out of the shutdown mess by declaring a "national emergency" may be back on again.
The White House is preparing a draft proclamation for President Donald Trump to declare a national emergency along the southern border and has identified more than $7 billion in potential funds for his signature border wall should he go that route, according to internal documents reviewed by CNN.
Declaring that immigration was, according to Trump, a "national emergency" would theoretically give Trump broad powers to fund construction of a border wall without congressional approval, pulling the funds from the military and other government agencies. That is the theory; in practice, the declaration of national emergency would immediately be challenged due to it being transparently untrue, and the funds Trump moved as part of that emergency declaration would be the subject of immediate (and prolific) lawsuits.
More to the point, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could immediately hold a vote to end that "national emergency." The resolution would then move to the Senate, where it would be incumbent on Republican senators to either sign their name to Trump's "emergency" declaration, letting Trump play fast and loose with billions of dollars, or putting a stop to it. That's not a vote McConnell wants his team to be taking on.
In the face of Trump's continued tantrum, however, a possibly-illegal declaration by Trump that he now has wide-ranging powers to act without Congress' approval could very well be seen by both the White House and the Republican Senate as a better alternative than keeping the government closed or standing up to Trump and re-opening it without him. That is where we are, at this point: Republicans plotting an even more dramatic Constitutional crisis to extract themselves from the current one.