Article written by Aaron SilvermanPresident Donald Trump used the constitutional power of the veto on Friday, March 15, for the first time so far in his more than two years as president. A day after the Senate passed a resolution voiding the national emergency declared by President Trump last month, the president announced in the Oval Office that he was returning the measure to the Senate without his approval, thereby keeping his national emergency declaration intact and allowing him to free up funds from other government operations to construct his long-promised wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.Friday’s veto announcement was the latest turn in President Trump’s years-long effort to build the border wall. Back in 2015, during his presidential campaign, President Trump promised his supporters that he would construct a border wall to combat what he views as the insidious effects of illegal immigration from Mexico and Central American nations. President Trump also promised during his campaign that Mexico would pay for the wall. Trump’s critics oppose the wall for a variety of reasons, ranging from the claim that the wall is an unnecessary and huge expense that addresses a nonexistent problem, to claims that the wall is a xenophobic and bigoted idea. A week after his election, President Trump signed an executive order calling for “the immediate construction of a physical wall.” During the next two years, Trump slowly abandoned the promise that Mexico would pay for the wall. However, his promise of a border wall has remained a pillar of his agenda throughout his presidency. After failing to get Congress to fund the border wall during January’s government shutdown, President Trump declared a national emergency, allowing him to bypass Congress by diverting funds from other government operations to finance the wall. Thursday’s Senate resolution reversed this national emergency declaration, and that resolution was the subject of President Trump’s veto.Sitting in the Oval Office Friday morning, President Trump signed the veto while surrounded by law enforcement officials and family members of people killed by undocumented immigrants. “Congress has the freedom to pass this resolution and I have the duty to veto it,” he said. Notably, the resolution was passed in a Republican-controlled Senate, with twelve Senate Republicans defecting from Trump to support the resolution. Those in favor of the resolution framed the issue as a matter of defending the constitutionally-enshrined separation of powers. “The President’s actions clearly violate the Congress’s power of the purse, which our founders enshrined in the Constitution,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, both Democrats, said in a statement. Many Republicans opposed Trump’s national emergency declaration for more concrete reasons. Some worry that Trump’s national emergency declaration sets a dangerous precedent that could do them harm should a Democrat win the White House in 2020. Senator Tom Thillis, a Republican, described a future “President Bernie Sanders declaring a national emergency to implement the radical Green New Deal.” Other Republicans think that Trump’s national emergency could lead to him diverting funds from other government efforts, such as defense spending.Most pundits agree that there’s only a slim chance Congress will override his veto. However, Trump’s border wall is not yet a sure thing; he will face obstacles in the form of a litany of legal suits challenging his national emergency declaration.Trump’s reliance on the veto, for the first time in his presidency, demonstrates the pushback he is getting from newly empowered Congressional Democrats who just recently won back the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections in November. Thursday’s resolution could presage the force and vigor with which Democrats will hamper President Trump’s agenda in the next two years.Some see the Senate’s resolution as a gift for Trump, in fact. The rebuke to Trump from both Democrats and Republicans may enable Trump to portray himself as an anti-Washington candidate for the 2020 reelection campaign, like he did in 2016. Matt Schlapp, a Trump ally and chairman of the American Conservative Union, said “the president is at his strongest when he is fighting and is seen as credible when he is fighting members of his own party.”https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/inside-his-veto-fight-gop-trump-may-have-found-gift-n983961https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-border-emergency-the-president-plans-a-10-am-announcement-in-the-rose-garden/2019/02/15/f0310e62-3110-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html?utm_term=.31823141696dhttps://www.cnn.com/2019/03/15/politics/trump-veto-resolution/index.htmlhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/amp-stories/border-wall/