Early this year Senator Mike Lee said he believed that Trump’s national emergency was legal even though he disagreed with it:
My initial assessment is that what Pres. Trump announced is legal. Whether or not it should be legal is a different matter. Congress has been ceding far too much power to the exec. branch for decades. We should use this moment as an opportunity to start taking that power back.
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) February 15, 2019
Fast forward to this week. A couple days ago we told you that there were negotiations going on between GOP senators and the president, to find a deal so that they could support Trump’s national emergency. Mike Lee was apart of those negotiations.
Well apparently they broke down and now Lee is going to vote against Trump’s national emergency when the resolution comes up for a vote in the Senate:
Republican Senator Mike Lee will vote for resolution ending Trump's national emergency declaration - spokesman pic.twitter.com/hd9DWrWIGB
— Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) March 13, 2019
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) says he will vote for the disapproval resolution: “We tried to cut a deal, the President didn’t appear interested.”
— Alex Bolton (@alexanderbolton) March 13, 2019
Alex Bolton is a staff writer for The Hill, just so you know.
This will no doubt upset a lot of Republicans who did not want to see Trump have to veto the disapproval resolution. But with four Republicans already set to vote no, the passage of the resolution is all but certain.
And then there were five: Lee, Tillis, Paul, Collins and Murkowski.