Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Martha Bárcena Coqui, worked to clarify elements of the recent US-Mexico immigration agreement that staved off tariffs on Mexican goods Sunday.

As part of the deal, Mexico has agreed to station 6,000 members of the National Guard around the country, most at the Mexico-Guatemala border. The tariffs would have placed a 5 percent tax on all Mexican goods starting Monday; that tax would have risen at regular intervals to 25 percent.

President Trump said the threat of tariffs was necessary to push Mexico to increase its efforts to reduce the flow of South American immigrants and asylum seekers traveling to the US-Mexico border.

Trump announced the deal Friday, but tweets he sent, as well as reporting that showed the National Guard agreement had actually first been made in March, led to some confusion about the compact.

Bárcena Coqui was asked to explain details of the agreement Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, and clarified statements Trump made on agricultural trade while elaborating on the role the National Guard will play in Mexican immigration enforcement.

Saturday, Trump tweeted that following the immigration agreement, Mexico planned to increase the amount of US agricultural product it buys.

The joint statement released by the US and Mexico did not mention any increase in agricultural orders, and as Bloomberg pointed out, Mexico does not have an official government body that would buy and distribute food products or farm equipment. The president later tweeted that “some things not mentioned in yesterday press release, one in particular, were agreed upon,” but did not clarify whether agricultural trade was one of those things.

When asked if Trump was correct, the diplomat did not answer directly, explaining that US farmers can expect trade growth once the pending US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) Agreement, the successor to NAFTA, is ratified.

“It is our understanding that without tariffs and with USMCA ratification, there will be increased rates, both in agricultural products and manufactured products,” Bárcena Coqui said. “Even now — ”

“But nothing that was actually agreed to as part of this negotiation,” host Margaret Brennan interrupted, “because the president’s been tweeting, saying that Mexico agreed to buy all sorts of agricultural products.”

“What I would say, is that even now, we are the second buyer of the US grains and meat and we have an integrated economy in the agricultural sector,” Bárcena Coqui responded.”

When asked specifically if any new transaction was agreed to as part of the immigration deal, the ambassador did not respond, before finally saying, “I am talking about trade, and I am absolutely certain that the trade in agricultural goods could increase dramatically in the next few months.”

It is not yet clear whether this projected increase in agricultural commerce is what Trump meant with his proclamation on Twitter.

One thing Bárcena Coqui did make clear is a distinction between Mexico’s new National Guard — which will deploy to its southern border — and the US force of the same name.

“It is not like the National Guard of the US,” the ambassador said. “It is a police force based on the models of the European military police like the [Italian] Carabinieri, like the [French] Gendarmerie, like the [Spanish] Guardia Civil Española. So we have to understand that when people talk about deployment of troops, they are wrong. What we are deploying is a police force, and we are deploying it to put order in the borders.”

Trump has said that tariffs remain on the table, and that if Mexico does not make progress in stemming migration, he will enforce them. The ambassador said Mexico has a timeline for seeing the results of its National Guard deployment, and said both countries should see a difference in immigrant numbers soon.

“We would hope that these will bring results in a very relative short term,” she said, “Like in a month or a month and a half.”

The two sides are set to meet again in 90 days to discuss progress in dealing with these issues. Trump has not said whether he will wait until that time before revising tariffs.

President Donald Trump announced planned tariffs on Mexican goods will not go into effect as scheduled after his administration and Mexican officials reached an agreement on immigration policy Friday. However, officials from both countries told the New York Times the concessions made by Mexico were not actually new, and had actually been agreed to by the neighbors in March.

The tariffs — which would have been put in place on Monday — consisted of a 5 percent tax on all imported Mexican goods, and would have risen at regular intervals to 25 percent. Trump announced the tariffs hoping to force Mexico to reduce the number of Central American asylum seekers and immigrants arriving at the US southern border. The tariffs would have been devastating for the Mexican economy, and as Vox’s Dylan Scott reported, could have cost the average American family $900 per year.

Last week, Mexican officials, including Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, met with Vice President Mike Pence and other members of the Trump administration to negotiate a deal to avoid the mutually harmful tariffs. Those talks reportedly led to an agreement, with both sides offering concessions to the other.

However, as the Times reported Saturday night, the resulting deal was actually one negotiated by Mexican Interior Secretary Olga Sanchez and then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen back in March. In talks that took place in Miami, Mexico agreed to send members of its newly formed National Guard to its border with Guatemala to help reduce the flow of migrants from South America.

That part of the Miami deal was framed as a new development in the announcement that came after the most recent round of talks.

In actuality, the purpose of the recent meeting was to press Mexican leaders to avoid the tariffs by working faster to fulfill their end of the March bargain. While Mexico agreed to deploy National Guard troops, only around 1,000 had been sent to its southern border by May. In last week’s talks, the country agreed to send more troops than it had originally pledged, and will now station 6,000 members of the National Guard around the country, with the majority being stationed at the Mexico-Guatemala border.

The Times also reports US negotiators hoped to press Mexico on declaring itself a “safe third country.” As Vox’s Matthew Yglesias has explained: “Such an agreement would stipulate that Mexico is a safe place for people fleeing Central America, and thus Central Americans arriving at the US-Mexico border are not entitled to asylum hearings.” Mexico has refused to name itself a safe third country in the past, and reportedly did so again during the most recent round of talks.

On Twitter, President Donald Trump called the Times’ reporting “another false report,” while also seeming to suggest the reporting on the origins of the agreement was correct, writing, “we have been trying to get some of these Border Actions for a long time.” Perhaps referencing Mexico’s initial limited deployment of its National Guard, the president also tweeted the new talks were necessary because “Mexico was not being cooperative.”

The president did not dispute reporting on the US’s part of the deal; it agreed to speed up processing of asylum claims. (The immigration advocacy group National Immigration Forum estimates the process currently takes between six months and several years.) The US will also expand its “Migration Protection Protocols,” a policy under which asylum seekers are sent back to Mexico while they wait for US officials to process their asylum claims.

As Vox’s Dara Lind reported, under the policy, asylum seekers must generally wait 45 days in Mexico before being allowed to present their case in US immigration court. This policy was challenged in US court; after being overturned initially, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the policy is to be allowed. It is currently in practice, although following the appeals court ruling, House Democrats crafted legislation that would block the policy. The bill has little chance of becoming law, as it would likely be ignored in the Senate and almost certainly would not be signed by the president.

Migrants waiting have said they have experienced hardship while on the Mexican side of the border; a man waiting in Tijuana told Vox in February that his friend had been robbed and harassed by police after being returned to Mexico. Border cities have also struggled to support the growing population of waiting asylum seekers.

In a statement, the US State Department said Mexico will address these issues by ensuring waiting asylum seekers are given “jobs, health care and education according to its principles.” In addition, the US has promised to fast-track distribution of $5.8 billion in funds it has set aside for addressing the problems that cause migrants to leave home to seek asylum in the first place.

The tariffs faced backlash, and could impact other trade negotiations

While Trump claimed that the tariffs would benefit Americans economically, Vox’s Dylan Scott reported it’s quite the opposite:

The auto industry is by far the most significant casualty; America’s biggest imports from Mexico are cars and auto parts. But data processors, telephones, televisions, and even beer are also moving all the time across the border. Whether it’s a car or a Corona, Americans are going to wind up paying the price for Trump’s trade war.

Americans would have paid more for major Mexican imports — everything from crude oil to produce like dates, figs, and pineapples; economists told Scott the tariffs would force the average American family to spend an additional $900 per year.

When he announced the tariffs in late May, Trump said they would encourage companies who have left the US for Mexico to return. But economists told Vox the tariffs would have actually sent those companies packing to another country instead of to the US, and that they could have sped up manufacturers’ pivot to automation.

“I don’t think the United States is a viable location for many of the production activities that are occurring in Mexico,” Kimberly Clausing, an economist at Reed College, told Scott. “A more likely response would be offshoring to another country, or turning to automation to do those activities in a less labor-intensive way in the United States.”

That is one of the reasons congressional Republicans came out against Trump’s tariff proposal — they said it would hurt the US economy and their constituents.

“There is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that’s for sure,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday. “Most of us hope that this Mexican delegation that’s come up here and discussed the challenges at the border … will be fruitful, and that these tariffs will not kick in.”

Critics of the tariffs were also concerned they could impact the ratification of one of Trump’s signature goals — an overhaul of NAFTA that the president calls the United Stated-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Trump negotiated the agreement with Canadian and Mexican leaders, and it makes changes to current country of origin rules, expands intellectual property protections, and opens new markets to US farmers.

Congress has yet to sign off on the plan, and the new tariffs could have made it a tough sell in Mexico for Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“Among the indirect costs are likely to be a rejection (possibly by three legislatures) of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement,” Dan Ikenson, who leads trade studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Scott, “and the loss of all credibility that the United States is a reliable negotiator and trading partner.”

The plan has yet to be finalized, and it’s unclear whether the agreement will scuttle the deal. Trump, however, suggested that the US’ relationship with its southern neighbor is now back on track, tweeting praise for Obrador, writing that Mexico has now agreed to buy more produce, and claiming “Everyone very excited about the new deal with Mexico!”

However, Bloomberg notes it isn’t clear what Trump is referring to with his mention of a new agricultural agreement between the countries. The joint declaration issued by the US and Mexico does not actually make any mention of agricultural trade as part of the deal, and Mexico does not even have an official government body that would buy and distribute food products or farm equipment.

Sunday morning, Trump claimed that some elements of the agreement with Mexico were not in the joint declaration, and that they would be “announced at the appropriate time.”

Although Trump has suggested relations are back to normal, others in the Trump administration have been clear the president reserves the right to renew his tariff threats should he find the efforts of Mexico’s National Guard unsatisfactory. One official told the Times, “The tariff threat is not gone. It’s suspended.”

This sentiment was echoed by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who told Reuters: “Our expectation is that Mexico will do what they’ve committed to do and our expectation is that we won’t need to put tariffs in place, but obviously if that’s not the case, the president retains that authority.”

The president himself confirmed this position in Sunday tweets, in which he wrote, “There is now going to be great cooperation between Mexico & the USA, something that didn’t exist for decades. However, if for some unknown reason there is not, we can always go back to our previous, very profitable, position of Tariffs.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a close ally of President Donald Trump, suggested the president take a tough stance in dealing with the ongoing Venezuelan crisis: A US invasion similar to the one executed by Ronald Reagan in Grenada back in 1983.

“Trump said rightly, Maduro’s not the legitimate leader of Venezuela. The entire region supports the Trump approach, that Guaidó is the legitimate leader,” Graham said on Fox News Sunday. “I would do exactly what Reagan did. I would give Cuba the ultimatum to get out of Venezuela. If they don’t, I would let the Venezuelan military know, you’ve got to choose between democracy and Maduro. And if you choose Maduro and Cuba, we’re coming after you. This is in our backyard.”

Venezuela is currently in the midst of a presidential crisis following a massive economic collapse. The US has recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó, the head of the National Assembly, as the country’s rightful president.

Guaidó declared himself president this past January, arguing that the 2018 election that put President Nicolás Maduro in the executive’s chair was invalid, in part because members of the opposition were banned from running. As head of the National Assembly, Guaidó said he will serve as Venezuela’s president until new elections can be held. But Maduro refuses to step aside.

Graham called on the United States to be ready to intervene militarily in Venezuela last week in a piece in the Wall Street Journal. There, as in his Fox interview, the senator argued Cuba is helping to prop up Maduro, and that the US should use its military to counter what Graham called the “Western Hemisphere version of Iran.”

White House national security adviser John Bolton has said Cuba has at least 20,000 soldiers in Venezuela assisting Maduro; Cuban officials have called that figure outrageous, saying they have no troops in the country.

Graham is clearly disinclined to believe Cuba, and told McClatchy, “We’re not occupying Venezuela, but if Maduro refuses to go and the Cubans keep using their military apparatus to prop him up, it is in our national security interest to do in Venezuela what Reagan did in Grenada.”

The Grenada invasion occurred in 1983, following a violent power struggle within the small Caribbean country’s Marxist government. The Reagan administration said the invasion was necessary to protect American citizens on the island; it initially sent in 2,000 troops, with the number eventually swelling to 6,000. Around 20 American troops were killed — though the regime was in fact overthrown within a matter of days.

Reagan later called the invasion an important check on communist influence, telling the American people “when the thugs tried to wrest control of Grenada, there were 30 Soviet advisers and hundreds of Cuban military and paramilitary forces on the island.”

Graham has not outlined how an invasion of Venezuela using Grenada as a template would work. In 1983, Grenada had a population of less than 100,000, and as Reagan noted, the island is roughly twice the size of Washington, DC. Venezuela, on the other hand, has a population of a little more than 28 million people, is larger than Texas, and has roughly 160,000 troops in its military.

In speaking with Fox, the senator did advise caution in another area of foreign policy, voicing misgivings about the new round of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which the Trump administration might execute using a legal loophole to circumvent Congress.

“I’ve got a real problem with going back to do doing business as usual with Saudi Arabia. Jordan is a great ally; the UAE has been problematic in Yemen, but a good ally,” Graham said. “Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, but the Crown Prince was, in my opinion, involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. And he’s done a lot of other disruptive things.”

At the same time, Graham also called for a greater presence of American troops in the Middle East, claiming increased troop presence would serve as a check on Iran while arguing against invading the country.

“I do support American troops going into the Mideast in larger numbers, to deter Iran,” Graham said. “President Trump is putting a lot of pressure on Iran. They’re trying to break our will, and this is an effort to deter Iranian aggression — not to invade Iran.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended President Trump’s summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Sunday, and said the two leaders are of like minds when it comes to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

On NBC’s Meet The Press Sunday morning, Sanders responded to a tweet Trump sent stating he trusts Kim and that praised the North Korean state media’s scathing assessment of Biden as a “fool of low IQ.”

“I think they agree in their assessment of former vice president Joe Biden,” Sanders said.

The press secretary clarified the president’s position when host Chuck Todd asked her, “Can you explain why Americans should not be concerned that the President of the United States is essentially siding with a murderous, authoritarian dictator over a former vice president of the United States?”

“The president’s not ‘siding’ with that,” Sanders said. “But I think they agree in their assessment of former vice president Joe Biden. Again, the president’s focus in this process is the relationship he has, and making sure we continue on the path to denuclearization.”

North Korea’s state-run media recently referred to Biden as an “imbecile,” “thoughtless guy,” and “fool of low IQ” after the candidate criticized Kim in a campaign speech. Rüdiger Frank, a North Korea expert at Austria’s University of Vienna who spoke with Vox’s Alex Ward about the insults, said, “I think if Trump reads the commentary, he’ll be happy about it.”

Trump was happy, tweeting he “smiled” while reading the insults, which seem almost to tailor-made to curry favor with the president, who uses similar language when ridiculing his political adversaries.

Sanders also addressed the recent short-range missile tests Trump referred to in his tweet. “The president’s focus in all of this process is on continuing the very good relationship that he has with Chairman Kim. And he feels good that the Chairman will stay firm with the commitment that he made with the president, and move toward denuclearization,” she said.

North Korea reiterated this week that it wants the US to make changes to its negotiating strategy before denuclearization talks resume. Previously Kim said he planned to give the US “till the end of this year” to present him with negotiating terms he finds acceptable.

Despite these warnings and recent weapons tests, Sanders called the Trump administration’s North Korea policy successful, arguing that critics need to readjust their focus.

“For a significant period of time, there was no missile testing, we got hostages back home to the United States, and remains of American war heroes,” Sanders said. “To me that is certainly something.”

It’s worth noting, however, that one of those repatriated American hostages was Otto Warmbier, a college student who was returned to the United States in a coma, and later died at the age of 22. Trump initially said he didn’t hold Kim responsible for Warmbier’s death, but soon reversed that position after facing public backlash.

An investigation into the Russia investigation

Todd also asked Sanders about the Trump administration’s latest reaction to the Russia investigation: authorizing Attorney General Bill Barr to declassify information related to how the investigation was begun and conducted.

“We already know that there was an outrageous amount of corruption that took place at the FBI,” Sanders claimed. “They leaked information, they lied. They were specifically working, trying to take down the president, trying to hurt the president. We’ll leave the final call up to the attorney general, and he’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Sanders, Barr, and the president himself have attacked the FBI and the Obama-era Department of Justice in recent weeks, accusing the agencies of “spying” on the Trump campaign. Although no evidence has been offered to suggest this was the case, the president has stated the accusation as fact, and a little over a week ago, took to Twitter to accuse individuals he believes were involved in this “spying” with treason.

As Vox’s Aaron Rupar has explained, the US Constitution maintains a deliberately narrow definition of the word “treason” itself, in order to prevent the charge from being abused against political opponents:

“So for FBI officials to be guilty of treason, that means they would have been literally acting on behalf of a country or entity (like ISIS) at war with the United States. That clearly did not happen. In short, Trump’s accusation is meritless. For Trump, however, the legal merit of his accusation isn’t what’s important. The most important thing is the narrative he’s pushing about the FBI purportedly being out to get him. But that narrative, like his treason accusation, is baseless.”

Sanders was more cautious than the president when asked if the public should expect Obama-era officials like former FBI Director James Comey to be charged with crimes and imprisoned.

“We’re gonna let the attorney general make that determination, as he gets to the conclusion of this investigation,” Sanders said.

President Donald Trump arrived in Japan Saturday for a state visit with the country’s leaders, including its new emperor, but launched his trip with a reassuring message to an adversary: North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

In a tweet, Trump wrote he has “confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me;” that promise is that North Korea will not test long-range weapons or nuclear missiles. The country has not violated that promise at the moment, but as Vox’s Alex Ward has reported, it has conducted tests of what are believed to be short-range ballistic missiles in recent weeks.

Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo does not share Trump’s confidence in Kim. While Abe responded to recent tests by saying they had “no immediate impact on Japan’s security,” he also called them “extremely regrettable” and a “breach of UN Security Council resolutions.” Abe wants UN resolutions governing North Korean behavior to be more strictly enforced; however, Trump has made it clear, as he did in his tweet, that he is not “disturbed” by the country’s recent weapons tests, suggesting Abe will have to look elsewhere for support.

Trade has been another sticking point in the US-Japan relationship, particularly with respect to cars. The countries have yet to agree on a bilateral trade agreement following the Trump administration’s exit from the Obama administration’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, and Trump placed Japanese auto makers on edge in May when he called imported vehicles a threat to national security. This declaration came as the Trump administration announced a six-month hold on new tariffs that would negatively affect the Japanese auto sector.

Shortly after landing in the country, the president met with Japanese business leaders at the US ambassador to Japan’s residence, and gave remarks suggesting trade would be a prominent topic of discussion during his trip.

“I would say that Japan has had a substantial edge for many, many years, but that’s okay,” Trump said. “Maybe that’s why you like me so much.”

The president went on to sound a note of optimism, though: “With this deal we hope to address the trade imbalance, remove barriers to United States exports and ensure fairness and reciprocity in our relationship. And we’re getting closer.”

After spending some time with Abe, Trump announced trade negotiations will actually be on hold for a few months, until a Japanese election in July.

The trade progress that has been made was highlighted at a lunch following a round of golf between the two leaders, when cheeseburgers made with US beef were served. Until early May, US beef imports had been restricted in Japan, following a mad cow disease outbreak in the early 2000s.

As Vox’s Alex Ward has reported, Trump and Abe have a warm working relationship, and these ties were deepened during Trump’s trip.

The two leaders took time away from their official duties to build bonds through sport, first with a round of golf. Later they took in a sumo wrestling match while sitting on special wooden chairs rather than on the traditional floor cushions. Trump also presented sumo star and the day’s champion Asanoyama with a “President’s Cup” trophy.

The president is set to meet with Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako on Monday.

A federal judge in California issued a ruling Friday night that blocks a plan by the Trump administration to channel federal money towards the construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border. President Trump used a national emergency in February to begin the process of diverting the funds from the military and other sources; for now, at least some of that money must stay where it is.

The decision by Judge Haywood Gilliam, who was appointed to the federal bench during the Obama administration, specifically blocks the “reprogamming” of $1 billion in Army personnel funds for wall projects in Yuma, Arizona and El Paso, Texas.

The suit was brought by the Southern Border Communities Coalition, a group of activists in the border region who work with the American Civil Liberties Union (which acted as counsel), and the Sierra Club. The plaintiffs contended that harm would be done to their communities by the wall construction projects; they argued the projects were illegal due to the manner in which the administration sourced its funding.

In his decision, Gilliam explained that he issued an injunction halting the use of the money because the Trump administration sought to circumvent Congress’s role as the branch of government with the power to appropriate federal funds.

“Congress’s ‘absolute’ control over federal expenditures — even when that control may frustrate the desires of the Executive Branch regarding initiatives it views as important — is not a bug in our constitutional system,” Gilliam wrote in a 56-page decision. “In short, the position that when Congress declines the Executive’s request to appropriate funds, the Executive nonetheless may simply find a way to spend those funds ‘without Congress’ does not square with fundamental separation of powers principles dating back to the earliest days of our Republic.”

As Gilliam notes, the executive branch did try to go through Congress in getting border wall funding. Vox’s Dara Lind reports that lawmakers gave the White House $341 million in 2017 and $1.375 billion in 2018 to upgrade and repair to existing wall infrastructure. A fight over wall funding that led to an extended government shutdown early in 2019 ended in an agreement for an additional $1.375 billion. This was far less than the $5.7 billion Trump hoped to receive, and after the government reopened, he declared a national emergency, announcing plans to use the powers given to him by the National Emergencies Act to use federal funds to make up the difference.

Gilliam took aim at this use of presidential emergency authority — which by statute is meant to be invoked during “unforeseen” circumstances — writing that the issue of border wall money was in no way unforeseen.

The judge noted Trump first began discussing possible ways of paying for an extended US-Mexico border wall during his 2016 campaign and that he looked to Congress for wall money on multiple occasions: “Defendants’ argument that the need for the requested border barrier construction funding was ‘unforeseen’ cannot logically be squared with the Administration’s multiple requests for funding for exactly that purpose dating back to at least early 2018.”

Gilliam also wrote that although the Department of Defense (DoD) was asked to take the unusual step of reallocating the $1 billion in funds and making them available to the Department of Homeland Security without first asking Congress if it could do so (as is custom), the fact that the situation is extraordinary does not make it unforeseen.

“There is no logical reason to stretch the definition of ‘unforeseen military requirement’ from requirements that the government as a whole plainly cannot predict (like the need to repair hurricane damage) to requirements that plainly were foreseen by the government as a whole (even if DoD did not realize that it would be asked to pay for them until after Congress declined to appropriate funds requested by another agency). Nothing presented by the Defendants suggests that its interpretation is what Congress had in mind when it imposed the ‘unforeseen’ limitation, especially where, as here, multiple agencies are openly coordinating in an effort to build a project that Congress declined to fund.”

In another interesting shot, Gilliam pointed out in a footnote that the government hasn’t actually done much with the money that Congress did appropriate for barrier construction: “The Court observes that, although Congress appropriated $1.571 billion for physical barriers and associated technology along the Southwest border for fiscal year 2018, counsel for the House has represented to the Court that the Administration has stated as recently as April 30, 2019 that CBP represents it has only constructed 1.7 miles of fencing with that funding … This representation tends to undermine Defendants’ claim that irreparable harm will result if the funds at issue on this motion are not deployed immediately.”

The administration has used the funds appropriated in 2017, having nearly completed the work on the 40 miles of wall that $341 million was meant to cover; it planned to begin using the money reprogrammed from the Army personnel funds Saturday.

The executive branch is now left with a few options: It can appeal the decision; it can also work to find other sources of funding for the projects blocked by the injunction; and, it could also move its focus to other areas of the border beyond Yuma and El Paso, the two areas mentioned in the ruling.

President Trump signaled on Twitter the White House will pursue the first option, writing, “This is a ruling against Border Security and in favor of crime, drugs and human trafficking. We are asking for an expedited appeal!”

While launching new wall projects elsewhere along the border remains an option, doing so could prove be a difficult proposition — Gilliam wrote the plaintiffs could return to court seeking new injections if that happens.

This is likely to be just one step in what is likely to be an ongoing legal fight. Indeed, House Democrats have also filed a lawsuit against the White House’s emergency wall funding efforts — using a precedent established by House Republicans during the Obama years, in seeking to stop administration spending efforts. In a hearing this past Thursday, though, Trump-appointed Judge Trevor McFadden expressed skepticism about involving the judiciary in the fight, asking if Congress had, “utilized all the tools at its disposal before rushing to court.”

Former vice president Joe Biden’s status as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 is highlighted in a new poll, which suggests he is not only the current favorite in the crowded field of candidates, but that he would remain the favorite even if he were running against a single Democratic opponent.

The poll (conducted by Republican firm Echelon Insights) asked 1,005 Democrats — and independents who favor Democrats’ policies — about their preferred 2020 candidates. The poll found 38 percent of respondents would vote for Biden if the primary were to be held right now. This is well in line with other polls; as Vox’s Dylan Scott reported, most polls show around 40 percent of voters saying they are backing the former vice president.

The Echelon poll found support for Bernie Sanders to be at 16 percent, and that four candidates: Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, and Kamala Harris were each supported by 5 percent of respondents. No other candidate was at more than 2 percent, with 16 percent undecided.

This poll went a step further, by testing Biden in head-to-head matchups against four other Democratic candidates — and showed him coming out ahead in each trial, although in each of the hypothetical contests, the majority of respondents weren’t “definitely” for either candidate.

• In a matchup against Sanders: 39 percent of respondents were definitely for Biden; 22 percent said they would “probably” vote for him. Only 14 percent of respondents said they would definitely vote for Sanders, with 10 percent answering they would probably cast their ballot for him. Some voters — 14 percent — said they weren’t sure who they’d vote for between the two.
• In a matchup against Harris: 37 percent of those polled said they would definitely vote for Biden, and 26 percent said they’d probably pull a lever for him. Harris had only 9 percent of respondents say they were definitely for her, with 11 percent answering they were probably probably for her. And 17 percent of those polled said they were unsure who they favored.
• In a matchup against Buttigieg: 39 percent were definitely for Biden, with 25 percent probably for him. Buttigieg had 8 percent definitely for him, and 9 percent probably for him. Nearly one-fifth of respondents — 19 percent — said they were unsure who to vote for between the two men.
• In a matchup against Warren: 40 percent said they would definitely vote for Biden, and 25 percent said they would probably vote for him. Warren had 7 percent definitely for her, and 12 percent probably for her. In the Warren/Biden head-to-head, 15 percent of respondents said they were not sure who they would rather vote for.

These numbers suggest there is not much of an anti-Biden vote a rival candidate could work to consolidate should some of the candidates with high name recognition drop out of the race. It would also seem to suggest that voters who currently support candidates to Biden’s left might not transfer their support to another left-wing candidate should their preferred candidate leave the race, but may well pitch in with Biden himself.

Biden also tops the field in having a ready-made personal favorability, higher than the other candidates:

• Biden: 40 percent found him “very favorable;” 40 percent found him “somewhat favorable,” and 3 percent found him “very unfavorable”
• Sanders: 29 percent found him very favorable; 41 percent found him somewhat favorable, and 4 percent found him very unfavorable
• Harris: 17 percent found her very favorable; 33 percent found her somewhat favorable, and 2 percent found her very unfavorable
• Buttigieg: 15 percent found him very favorable; 25 percent found him somewhat favorable, and 2 percent found him very unfavorable
• Warren: 20 percent found her very favorable; 34 percent found her somewhat favorable, and 5 percent found her very unfavorable

With numbers like these, it appears that Biden would remain the candidate to beat even if the race gets narrowed down to just one or two opponents. However, it is worth remembering the first primary is more than eight months away, which leaves Biden’s rivals plenty of time to break through in states with early primaries and caucuses, such as Iowa or New Hampshire, and then ride momentum from there. It’s possible — but it’s also a very tall order.