Trump SOTU may include wall funding and North Korea summit

Sinéad Baker (sbaker@businessinsider.com)

  • President Donald Trump is teasing potential show-stopping announcements for his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

  • Ideas he has publicly toyed with include using a national emergency to secure border wall funding, and confirming a second meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

  • A declaration would let Trump spend money on the wall without approval from Congress, though a new poll shows it would be an unpopular move.

  • Trump also said that his next meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un "is set" and that he will likely reveal details like the date and venue on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump has been teasing potential bombshells that he may drop during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

Trump has publicly mulled using the speech to declare a national emergency over border wall funding, and to confirmed a new summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump told reporters on Friday to "listen closely" to the address when asked whether he would declare a national state of emergency over the wall.

Trump has mulled taking the route to get money to fund the project even without the approval of Congress.

The inability of Trump and lawmakers to agree on wall funding caused a record-breaking partial government shutdown, which stretched from late December towards the end of January.

On Friday, when asked if people should expect him to declare a national emergency, Trump said:"I think there's a good chance that we'll have to do that.

"But we will at the same time be building, regardless, we're building a wall. And we're building a lot of wall. But I can do it a lot faster the other way."

RELATED: Trump's first state of the union

He hinted that the State of the Union is where he would announce this move.

"Well, I'm saying listen closely to the State of the Union. I think you'll find it very exciting."

Trump told The New York Times last week that declaring a national emergency may be his chosen route to try and get the wall built.

"I’ll continue to build the wall and we’ll get the wall finished," he said. "Now whether or not I declare a national emergency — that you’ll see."

And he continued to call the issue an "emergency" on Sunday, when speaking on the CBS show "Face the Nation."

"It's national emergency, it's other things and you know there have been plenty national emergencies called," he said.

Formally declaring a national emergency would allow Trump to spend money on the wall without approval from Congress

And the Trump administration is reportedly readying itself to make the move: the White House has been preparing a draft national emergency declaration, according to CNN, and is said to have identified where it could get the money.

But it appears that the move would be unpopular. 66% of Americans say that Trump should not declare a national emergency if Congress does not fund the wall, according to a CBS poll published on Sunday.

Trump raised the issue of the border wall again on Sunday, writing on Twitter that "Republicans must be prepared to do whatever is necessary for STRONG Border Security."

"Dems do nothing. If there is no Wall, there is no Security. Human Trafficking, Drugs and Criminals of all dimensions - KEEP OUT!," he wrote.

Tweet Embed:
//twitter.com/mims/statuses/1092181733825490945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
With Caravans marching through Mexico and toward our Country, Republicans must be prepared to do whatever is necessary for STRONG Border Security. Dems do nothing. If there is no Wall, there is no Security. Human Trafficking, Drugs and Criminals of all dimensions - KEEP OUT!

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is working to reach a compromise on border security before government funding runs out on February 15, when another government shutdown could begin.

Trump told CBS on Sunday that he would not take the prospect of another shutdown "off the table."

Another summit with Kim Jong Un

Trump said on Sunday that his next meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "is set" and that he would reveal details about the planned meeting "probably State of the Union or shortly before."

Trump said that the US and North Korea have "made tremendous progress" and contradicted the belief of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats that the North Korean leader is unlikely to surrender his nuclear weapons. "That's what the intelligence chief thinks," he said.

Trump instead reiterated his belief that the countries can come to an agreement, saying "there's also a very good chance that we will make a deal."

"It has a chance to be one of the great economic countries in the world. He can't do that with nuclear weapons and he can't do that on the path they're on now," he said.

"I like him. I get along with him great. We have a fantastic chemistry."

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