Trump shut down the government from the 22nd of December until 25th Jan, it was the longest government shutdown in history – affected 200,000 American government workers

Basically, the the government made a budget for 2019, which said they wanted $5 billion for the wall – congress said no, and the republicans largely seemed to appear fine with the denial – until Trump was criticized from right-wing media outlets which said he was backing down on his promise. So he changed his mind, and said he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. This meant that there was no resolution about the funding, and under the Antideficiency Act the government was not allowed to continue operations until funding had been made. In the process, 800,000 government workers missed their paychecks for a month, at an estimated economic value of $11 billion.

On the 25th of jan, trump agreed to approve a stopgap bill, which allowed funding for the government for 3 weeks until the 15th of feb. This meant those 800,000 people got payed temporarily. Trump threatened that if the democrats had not signed the budget by the 15th he would declare state of emergency.

By the 15th of feb, the democrats still hadn’t budged, which meant that trump declared state of emergency. State of emergency basically means the government can perform actions that it’s not normally able to do – in other words, gives trump super powers. It’s like real life cheat codes, where he can use laws that normally aren’t available to him in order to get his wall money. National emergencies act of 1976 – no definition of what constitutes an emergency.

People are currently wondering what kind of laws he could use to get his money. Some people think it could be by relocating money already set aside for the military to create the wall, which means the military directs its attention to building the wall until its completion – as if there was a real emergency.

Another option would be to declare a state of immigration emergency, which is a set-aside pool of money for if there is a world war, or disaster that means many people from around the world would seek America as refuge –  but apparently is “vaguely worded enough to permit an edgy interpretation” and potentially allow trump to do that. The only thing is that there’s only $20 million set aside for that, so it seems like he’d have to use a bunch of different funds.

But law people reckon it won’t happen, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union said the idea was a “nonstarter.” Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said in a Fox Business appearance that the president “cannot spend money unless it’s been authorized by Congress.”

True TLD;DR

Trump promised the wall in his election campaign

Trump gave congress 2019 budget, included the $5b wall

Congress said no

Argued by trump

Budget wasn't cleared, no one got payed

People got payed for 3 weeks

National emergency declared

Trump super powers

Who knows what laws Trump will use

Can still (probably will) get blocked by the senate