(Video) Rajya Sabha TV (RSTV) The Big Picture: US Shutdown and Emergency

Topic: US Shutdown and Emergency

Guest:

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, (Foreign Editor, Hindustan Times)
Ashok Sajjanhar, (Former Ambassador)
Harsh V. Pant, (Head, Strategic Studies, ORF)
Sreeram Chaulia, (Dean, Jindal School of International Affairs)

Topic Description:

President Donald Trump, facing the prospect soon of the longest U.S. government shutdown in history, was considering declaring a national emergency that would likely escalate a policy dispute with Democrats over his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall into a court test of presidential power. To escape a political trap of his own making, Trump suggested strongly on Thursday that he might declare an emergency so that he can bypass Congress to get funding for his wall, which was a central promise of his 2016 election campaign. Trump is demanding that Congress provide $5.7 billion in U.S. taxpayer funding for the wall. That is opposed by Democrats in Congress, who call the wall an ineffective, outdated answer to a complex problem. The standoff has left a quarter of the federal government closed down and hundreds of thousands of federal employees staying home or working for no pay.