“Congress has the power to pass this resolution. I have the duty to veto it,” Trump said in an Oval Office veto-signing event. He was joined by law enforcement officers and so-called angel families, who related their personal experiences with the border crisis.

TRUMP WIELDS FIRST PRESIDENTIAL VETO TO NIX BORDER EMERGENCY REBUFF

Attorney General William Barr defended the veto decision, saying, “Mr. President, your declaration of an emergency on the southern border was clearly authorized under the law and consistent with past precedent.”

Trump warned in January that if members of Congress didn’t do their job, he would be forced to make up for their shortcomings by using his executive authority to secure the border.

At that time, the president gave lawmakers every opportunity to reach a compromise on security, even offering several options himself. But he was rebuffed in no uncertain terms by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and her fellow obstructionist Democrats.

Pelosi eventually backed down slightly, sending the president a half-baked, watered-down funding bill that fell well short of providing the resources necessary to adequately protect the border, with just $1.38 billion in border wall funding.

But when it comes to protecting the American people, Trump has made clear that there can be no compromise. This is why he stepped in to fill the funding gaps by reallocating previously appropriated money to supplement construction of the border wall. This action is fully within his constitutional powers.

Pelosi’s effort to overturn the emergency declaration was nothing more than a desperate political ploy to reclaim some of the leverage she lost when the president outmaneuvered her by finding a legal way to build the wall despite her opposition.

President Trump is looking out for the countless citizens all over the country whose communities are being overwhelmed by drug abuse, violent crime, and outbreaks of contagious Third World diseases because the federal government failed to control illegal immigration for so long.

The fact that a dozen Republicans in the Senate went along with the effort is testament to the behind-the-scenes political skills Pelosi has honed during her decades in Congress. But it wasn’t enough to keep her from being bested by Trump, a relative political novice who nonetheless found a way around Pelosi’s obstructionism using the very sort of procedural tactic that liberals often praise her for mastering.

There’s no greater duty of the executive branch than to defend the nation from outside harm. Hundreds of thousands of people illegally cross our southern border each year, and too many of those people bring drugs, crime, or disease along with them. This endangers American communities and contributes to thousands of deaths each year due to the epidemic of drug overdoses.

Trump is looking out for the countless citizens all over the country whose communities are being overwhelmed by drug abuse, violent crime, and outbreaks of contagious Third World diseases because the federal government failed to control illegal immigration for so long.

The senators who voted to overturn the president’s emergency declaration were really voting for even more American families to experience this type of suffering.

“Prominent legal scholars agree that our actions to address the National Emergency at the Southern Border and to protect the American people are both CONSTITUTIONAL and EXPRESSLY authorized by Congress,” the President tweeted shortly before the vote, reminding lawmakers that “today’s issue is BORDER SECURITY and Crime!!!”

Publicly, politicians in both parties have agreed that we must secure the border, but behind closed doors, they bickered and dithered without coming up with a realistic plan to do so.

Trump, on the other hand, promised during the 2016 campaign that he would put an end to this madness, and he kept his word by declaring a national emergency after Congress abdicated its responsibility to properly fund border security.

Thanks to a committed core of conservatives in Congress who will ensure that the president’s veto is sustained, the wall is going to be built despite the latest Democratic effort to prevent the enforcement of America’s immigration laws.

Congress had its shot at fixing the problem and failed. The fact that a dozen Senate Republicans supported the anti-wall resolution serves as a reminder of why the president had to use his legal authority to take decisive action to secure the border in the first place.

So it is worth noting McConnell’s absence from the government shutdown instigated by Trump. He has disappeared from the debate. In fact, McConnell didn’t even attend the president’s news conference Friday about the shutdown.

While the House Republican leadership was standing next to President Trump during the news conference, McConnell was nowhere to be found, even though he attended the White House meeting about the shutdown minutes beforehand.

Just before Christmas, the Senate passed legislation on a voice vote that would fund the federal government to stay open through Feb. 8 without the more than $5 billion that President Trump is demanding for his wall.

In her first act as speaker of the House last week, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., passed the same legislation in the House that the Senate passed in December.

Now McConnell refuses to bring the House legislation up for a vote in the Senate without Trump’s support. In response, Pelosi accused McConnell of abdicating his responsibility as Senate majority leader.

Why is McConnell ducking this fight now? Mitch McConnell has a problem – and it’s Donald Trump. Senate Republicans are facing a tough 2020 election with 22 seats to defend and they may be starting to realize Trump is a liability. In fact, one of those Republican senators up for re-election in 2020 is Mitch McConnell.

The cracks in the GOP veneer are evident. Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine – both up for re-election in 2020 – are calling for an end to the government shutdown and are supporting the House legislation they both voted for a few weeks ago.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who recently announced that he’s not running for re-election in 2020, said:  “There is no excuse for even a short-term, partial government shutdown … I’m not for a government shutdown under President Trump.”

Joining Alexander in announcing his retirement is Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. – and we’re just in the second week of 2019.

Freshman Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, set an independent tone for the new Senate term with his critical op-ed about President Trump in The Washington Post.

Romney wrote: “With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring …. To reassume our leadership in world politics, we must repair failings in our politics at home. That project begins, of course, with the highest office once again acting to inspire and unite us.”

Trump is even a factor in McConnell’s re-election in Kentucky, where the senator faces a potential primary challenge from Gov. Matt Bevin, a Trump devotee.

If McConnell draws a primary challenge from his right by Bevin that could pose the biggest political threat of all to the Senate majority leader. It is possible that McConnell, 76, may even decide not to run for re-election. Given all that has happened in the last two years, nothing can be ruled out.

McConnell is facing pressure from all sides and everywhere he turns there is Trump. The Senate majority is at risk, his iron grip on the Republican caucus seems to be slipping, and his own political future is potentially in jeopardy.

Meanwhile, Republican senators are starting to see Trump as a liability. An unpopular president, pushing an unpopular wall, and an unpopular government shutdown – all three opposed by the majority of Americans – combine to put McConnell in an untenable situation.

In addition, the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller of possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia to help elect Trump in 2016 continues. And House Democrats are planning to launch their own oversight hearings into the Trump administration.

All this means it’s only going to get harder for President Trump to fend off attacks and even harder for Senate Republicans to continue to support him.

It is January 2019 yet we may be seeing the beginning of the end for McConnell and the Republican majority in the Senate – and that may mean the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.

About a quarter of the government is shut down, with about 420,000 federal employees working without pay, while another 380,000 are furloughed.

TRUMP’S CHRISTMAS MESSAGE TO DEMOCRATS: GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN WILL LAST ‘UNTIL WE HAVE A WALL’

On Christmas Day, Trump said federal workers back what he is doing and have urged him to ‘stay out until you get the funding for the wall.’

“These federal workers want the wall,” he said. “The only one that doesn’t want the wall are the Democrats.”

WTOP-FM reported Wednesday that the mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, had written to Trump urging him to end the shutdown, saying that the city will be hurt if the impasse continues.

“Indeed, many DC residents, businesses including restaurants and hotels, and federal contractors will suffer severe impacts if the shutdown continues indefinitely,” Bowser wrote.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram, Greg Norman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.