BACKGROUND PRESS CALL BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS ON PRESIDENT TRUMP'S REMARKS ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY AND HUMANITARIAN CRISIS ON OUR SOUTHERN BORDER

Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 15, 2019

BACKGROUND PRESS CALL BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS ON PRESIDENT TRUMP'S REMARKS ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY AND HUMANITARIAN CRISIS ON OUR SOUTHERN BORDER Via Telephone 9:36 A.M. EST      MR. DEERE:  Good morning, everyone.  And thank you for joining us.  A couple of ground rules before we get started. Opening remarks from the Acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, are on the record.  The Q&A portion after his remarks are on background, attributable to a senior administration official.      Please note that the call is embargoed until the President begins his remarks in the Rose Garden later this morning.  With that, I will turn it over to our Acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney.      ACTING CHIEF OF STAFF MULVANEY:  Thanks, Judd.  And I'm joined this morning by Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Russell Vought, the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget.  So we'll go through some opening comments and open to questions.      The primary purpose of today is to sort of walk through some of the correct information regarding the declaration, specifically as to the funds of money and the pots of money that will be unlocked by doing this, and then also to try and put to bed some of the bad information that's flowing around.      So real quickly, at the very highest level, with the declaration of a national emergency, the President will have access to roughly $8 billion worth of money that can be used to secure the southern border.  I think everybody knows the past history of why we're doing this.  We've been through a shutdown.  We've now been through three weeks of allowing Congress to try and work their will, and they're simply incapable of providing the amount of money necessary, in the President's eyes, to address the current situation at the border.      So the details on the $8 billion: $1.375 billion made part of the appropriation -- that will be signed into law probably later today or tomorrow.  I don't think it's coming down from the Senate for the next couple of hours.      In addition to that, the President has access to roughly $600 million to the Treasury Forfeiture Fund.  He has access to additional funds of money through Title 10, Section 284; this is counter-drug activities within the Department of Defense.  While the amount varies, the amount that we intend to draw down from that account is roughly $2.5 billion.  That includes some reprogramming from other Defense Department accounts into the 284 account.      And then lastly, the second military account is the Title 10, Section 2808, which is military construction.  It shouldn't surprise anybody that the President, under certain circumstances, has the right to use military construction dollars in order to build things to help defend the nation.          That's roughly $3.6 billion.  That total is roughly $8 billion.  That's it. You'll notice what's not on that list is taking away any of Puerto Rico or Texas's disaster relief money.  That is not a part of our plan.  We assess that, with the $8 billion, we should have sufficient money this year to do what we wanted to do with the $5.7 [billion] worth of money that the President asked for originally, based upon the request from DHS and our border (inaudible).  What did I miss on that?      ACTING DIRECTOR VOUGHT:  No, just the fact that this is common authority to be able to declare a national emergency.  This is something that, since 1976, has been declared 58 times; 31 of them are still in effect.  These have been used for everything from preventing the importation of uncut drugs in Sierra Leone to blocking assets for drug narcotics traffickers.      So this is something that we really want to stress is: Appropriated dollars from Congress that is simply being used to be reprogrammed to other uses.  Every appropriations bill that you look at has some degree of reprogramming in it.  This is using types of reprogramming authorities that are present, and, in this case, the ability to use money under 2808 to tap the military construction plan.      So we think this is something that will give us the necessary information -- the necessary funding to be able to execute the wall in a timely manner.      MR. MULVANEY:  Just to follow up on one thing Russ just said.  You know, there's been some concern in the media about whether or not this creates a dangerous precedent.  It actually creates zero precedent.  This is authority given to the President in law already.  It's not as if he just didn’t get what he wanted so he's waving a magic wand and taking a bunch of money. I saw Nancy Pelosi yesterday say this sets the precedent for the Democrats to declare a gun emergency the next time they're in the Oval Office.  That's completely false.  If the Democrats could figure out a way to do it, they would have done that already, and that the authority to do so -- to the (inaudible) on the books (inaudible).  So it's not like they haven't had a chance to do that already. There's no precedential value to doing this.  This is operation of laws that are currently on the books.  And I think maybe Secretary -- or Senator Kennedy from New Orleans may have mentioned yesterday, but that's another story.      All right.  Guys, what else?  Is that it?  You guys want to ask -- you want to go to questions?      Q    Hi.  This is Andrew Feinberg with Breakfast Media.  Thanks for doing this call.  So what I'm wondering about is, in this appropriations bill, Congress has specifically forbidden wall construction in several areas and forbidden the use of federal funds for building the wall in areas not specifically appropriated.  Is the President asserting that he can defy Congress and defy the specific prohibitions in appropriations legislation?          SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  The restrictions that are in place in the DHS appropriations apply to the $1.375 billion that is appropriated to DHS for fiscal year '19 wall money.  Those restrictions do not apply to our funds under the Treasury Forfeiture Fund.  They do not apply to the funds that we want to reprogram into the counter-narcotics drug-fighting fund, nor do they apply to the 3.6 that we would potentially tap from the military construction fund.      Q    Oh, hi.  It's Peter Baker from the New York Times.  Can I ask -- two quick questions.  One is, which of these funds -- the pots you just described -- are the ones that require the national emergency, as opposed to what the President could do under his traditional discretion?  And of the 58 national emergencies you cited, how many of them actually involved moving money around as opposed to imposing sanctions or taking other actions?      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  So, the first question -- the $600 million for the Treasury Forfeiture Fund and the reprogramming from DOD into the counter-narcotics do not require the national emergency.  The 2808 money for military constructions do require it.      In terms of the types of things that this has been used before to get to a presidential, 2808 has been used before.  President George H.W. Bush invoked it in November of 1990.  President George W. Bush invoked it in November 16, 2001.  Combined, this has been used to transfer $1.4 billion.  So is not something that is unprecedented.      Q    Hi, thank you.  Jeff Schogol with Task & Purpose.  We've been trying to find out which military construction projects will see the money moved for the border wall.  DOD is not speaking on the matter.  The ball is entirely in the White House's court.  So I'm wondering if you can give us a breakdown of which military construction projects will see these funds re-appropriated.  Thank you.      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  As an administration, we're working together to prepare the portions of money that would be potentially devoted to this purpose.  We would be looking at lower priority military construction projects.  We would be looking at ones that are to fix or repair a particular facility that might be able to wait a couple of months into next year. So we're going through a filter to ensure that nothing impacts lethality and readiness on the part of our military construction budget, which is a budget that's substantially larger than $3.6 billion.      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Yeah, keep in mind this is not the entire military construction budget.  It's just a small fraction of it.      Q    Hi, this is (inaudible) of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Thank you.  I have -- along the same lines, I just want to really clarify whether Army Corps funding or prevention projects -- I know you said not disaster funds -- but would that be a pot of money up for grabs in this situation, or would that be off the table?      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  It is not on the table currently.      Q    Hi, this is Tierney Sneed from TPM.  Can you discuss the sort of strategy you'll be using to defeat any legal challenges or what pushback you get from the House Democrats for taking this move?      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Yeah, no, we're not going to describe any -- the purpose of this meeting is to go over the finances of it, not the legalities of it.  So, no, we won't be discussing that today.      Q    Hey, guys.  Thanks for the call.  It's John Fritze from USA Today.  Two quick questions.  The $8 billion, how many miles does that get you?  And then, secondly, Congress imposed some restrictions on the $1.375, basically saying it's bollard wall only.  I just want to confirm, this additional money, will you be using the same design?  Like, are you restricting yourself to bollard wall for this additional money as well?      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Let me take the first part.  Yeah, we're going to build a bollard wall.  That's been one of the stories here that I think just didn’t get nearly enough attention during the shutdown or after the shutdown. We long ago agreed on the bollard wall with the Democrats.  And as recently as last week, they're still talking about a medieval concrete wall.  We have made it very clear to them for several months now that the bollard steel barrier is what we wanted to build. Going back until, I think, October, November, the Senate subcommittee actually passed a bill out of subcommittee that had restrictions, saying "no concrete," but we could effectively build the bollard wall.  And we accepted those restrictions several months (inaudible). So, no, this is not a way to get around those restrictions.  It's simply a way to build more of what we need.  So, no, there's no fight over what's going to be built.  It will be the bollard wall.  I don't know what the first part of the question was.      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  In terms of how many miles does this buy us -- as you know, we sent a request to the Hill for $5.7 billion that would have gotten us 234 miles.  That's our goal: to try to accomplish that amount of miles. It's going to be a little bit of mix and match, because instead of Congress just providing the money, the different pots have different authorizations for how and where we can use that money.  And so we are in the process to make sure that we can make those dollars go as far as they possibly can, and we expect they will be able to go farther than 234 miles.      So we are working on it, but that still remains what we think is vital in this year to be able to make progress to secure the border.      Q    Hi, guys, it's Margaret Talev of Bloomberg.  I also just wanted to clarify our ground rules.  For all of these -- the question and answer part, is that all on background?  Is that what you said? And then, also, my question is, you scoured all of government, so, presumably, you have more than eight billion -- more than the seven whatever -- about $7 billion that you've identified.  Can you say how much in total you have identified, and whether at some point you may implement on that? And also, I think you answered this question, but I just -- things are moving very fast.  How quickly will the emergency declaration come?  And it will just be one declaration of emergency, right?      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Margaret, just to clarify, all the Q&A is on background.      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  In terms of additional pots of money, we continue to look for pots of money that can be used for this.  We have not ended that.  This is where we are right now in being able to find alternative paths outside of what Congress normally appropriates.  But we have not put that to rest.  And there will be one declaration.      SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  And nor are these pots of money fixed.  I mean, money flows into and out of the federal government every single day.  So when we sit here and tell you that there's -- you know, we think we can get $2.5 billion from Section 284, where that money might come from, which accounts, could change on an almost daily basis.      So it's one of the reasons we've identified more than the $5.7 [billion] is to make sure we have enough money to do what we need to do. Q    Hello, this is Tony Bertuca, from Inside Defense.  My first question is: Are there plans to reimburse the Defense Department for the MILCON money?  Sort of backfill it with the FY20 request? And then, secondly, you mentioned that the $2.5 billion in Section 284 funds would be reprogrammed from elsewhere in the department.  Reprogrammed from where?  Thank you. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  In terms of your first question, yes, we have a budget that is due to be transmitted in March to the Congress, and that will make plans to backfill for these accounts in fiscal year '19. We're not going to speak yet to where we would draw from in terms of reprogramming -- or, in the defense (inaudible), it's actually called "general transfer authority."  That will be, as [senior administration official] said, an ongoing conversation.  And we will be doing that soon. Q    Hi, this is Yamiche Alcindor with PBS.  I have a question.  You said earlier that this is not going to create (inaudible) precedent, and that the President isn't just doing this to get around Congress.  But I don't understand -- isn't that exactly what the President is doing? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Let me see if I can be clear: Yes, this does technically go beyond the appropriations bill, but the point I tried to make was that he's not just -- you don't get a chance to do this just because you want to do it.  I was trying to draw some distinction between that and some of the precedential value that some of the Democrats particularly said this had. So, yes, he's going outside of the ordinary appropriations process, but, yes, that's exactly why the National Emergencies Act of 1976 is on the books -- to allow Presidents to do exactly this.  I don't know if that clarifies that at all or not. Q    Thanks very much.  When can we expect to find out where the 234 miles the administration wants to build fencing will be?  Do we know if it's going to be fencing or a wall where there previously was none?  Or is it going to be replacement barrier? And given that construction is about to begin on fiscal year '18 appropriated projects, when can we expect to see ground broken (inaudible) the money appropriated under the national emergency (inaudible)? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Let me ask my colleague to take that one. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Hi.  So it actually ends up being a complicated question.  Let me try to walk you through.  So we have -- the men and women of the Border Patrol each year put together a border security improvement plan, which looks at all of the areas on the 2,000 border by risk.  It takes into consideration smuggling routes, violent gangs, humanitarian issues, different types of terrain, and figures out where we need physical barriers the most.  Based on that list, that is what we build against. So '17 and '18 funds are underway.  Once we have appropriated the funds in '19, we will continue with our priorities, as listed in that plan. We work constantly with the appropriators and our authorizers on that plan where the wall will go up.  But of course, as you know, we also work with the local community as well.  So generally, we will follow the process that we always have in the past. MR. DEERE:  Thank you.  Everyone, this concludes our call.  Please remember that the Acting Chief of Staff's opening remarks were on the record.  Any other remarks from our participants, as well as the Q&A portion, was on background, attributable to a senior administration official.  A reminder that this call is embargoed until the President begins his remarks later this morning.  Thank you all for joining us.                         END                9:54 A.M. EST