Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast and as you know, we start every show saying things

may have changed by the time you listen.

Once in a while, things change before we even post the show.

And that is again the case today.

So before the full episode, we're going to talk a bit about the breaking news that President

Trump is going to sign the compromise spending bill that does not give him the wall money

he demanded, but he's also going to go ahead and declare a national emergency to try and

build that wall anyway.

White House correspondent Tamara Keith is here.

Hey, Tam.

Hey, Scott.

Lucky for us and for listeners, you have spent a whole lot of time researching what exactly

these national emergencies mean.

Yes.

So a national emergency is something under the National Emergencies Act where the President

can say, hey, there's a national emergency and that then frees up all kinds of other

laws and statutes and things that give the President access to money or other things that he

wouldn't ordinarily have access to.

Now the original intent here, the idea is, oh my gosh, there's a fire, hurricane, terrible

national emergency.

I need to get funds and move it here really quickly and Congress doesn't have time to act.

Let's declare an emergency.

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