Jeff Merkley: “In 1996, Congress tried to give the President a line item veto and the Supreme Court struck it down.”

“And unconstitutional because the Constitution creates a separation of powers with the power of the purse belonging to Congress, not the President. Now, this has been tested a few times. In 1996, Congress tried to give the President a line item veto and the Supreme Court struck it down. They struck it down as unconstitutional because it violated the constitutional's separation of powers. And yesterday, the independent nonpartisan Government Accountability Office reaffirmed that this strategy by Trump called a pocket rescission, a fancy name for a line item veto is illegal.” (01:20–01:29)

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