Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appears to have failed in his efforts to squash the House-passed resolution of disapproval of Donald Trump's emergency declaration. He'll have the vote on it in the Senate this week, and it will pass with a minimum of four Republicans votes, and possibly many more. But the exact form of that resolution, and how embarrassing it will be to Trump, is still at issue.
All 47 Democrats will vote against Trump, and there are still about a dozen Republicans who are undecided. Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and Rand Paul will join Democrats, giving them the simple majority needed to pass the resolution. But that's 16 votes short of what would be necessary to overturn Trump's veto: 16 votes that are unlikely to materialize.
Nonetheless, it's an embarrassing rebuke for Trump, who will be forced to use his first veto on his signature obsession—the border wall. Because of that, McConnell is working desperately to find an alternative to the House-passed resolution, one that waters down the opposition and encourages Trump to find a new route to the funding. "I think we're universally for what the president wants to do, but there's significant concern about using the emergency in this new way that sets a precedent likely in court that future presidents could use," said Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of the Republican leadership.
They're scouring Senate rule books to find a way to amend or rewrite the resolution to unify the caucus and tell Trump he can't do this, but still get him his money somehow. Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman told reporters in a conference call that they were working on an "alternative way" to give Trump money, possibly by "expanding the amount of money he can take from the Pentagon's counter-drug funds." The problem there, of course, is that the House won't go along with the game.
By all accounts, Trump is not happy with the prospect of losing in the Senate. He's been urging Republican senators to "stay united" for the past week, and said Friday that "we're doing fine in Congress. They understand it's an emergency."