09.17.19

Durbin: Senate Must Stand Up Against President Trump's Continued Diversion Of Funds From The Military To His Ineffective Border Wall

WASHINGTON – In a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Vice Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, today spoke out against President Donald Trump’s continued efforts to divert funding from our military in order to build his medieval border wall.  Last week, Durbin did not support reporting to the floor the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee funding bill because of President Trump’s continued infringement of Congress’s power of the purse.  To date, President Trump has diverted $6.1 billion worth of investments in our service members and their families for his border wall. 

“The resulting damage to our military and to the Appropriations Committee’s constitutional authority continues to accumulate,” Durbin said.  “It has to stop.  And it can stop, if my colleagues on both sides of the aisle can come together to reassert their obligations under the Constitution and provide our military families with certainty that they haven’t been forgotten in the midst to the run-up to the 2020 campaign.  I hope that all of us think long and hard about the importance of this decision and our obligation to stand behind our men and women in the military.”

Video of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor are available here.

Audio of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.

Footage of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here for TV Stations.

Earlier this month, the Department of Defense announced it would divert $3.6 billion from military construction projects to pay for President Trump’s border wall by cancelling 127 military construction projects around the world, as well as in 26 U.S. states and territories.  President Trump had already diverted $2.5 billion from the military earlier this year for his border wall, bringing the total to $6.1 billion.

-30-