24 January 2019 - Trump Delays State of the Union Address
Donald Trump delays State of the Union Address after Nancy Pelosi bars him from House chamber
Nick Allen (The Telegraph, 24/01/2019)
Donald Trump said in a late night Tweet on Wednesday that he would delay a State of the Union address until the government shutdown was over.
The move came in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's move to bar him from delivering the annual presidential address in its traditional location, the chamber of the House of Representatives.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Speaker of the House, announced the US president was not welcome for the planned major speech on Jan 29.
Trump says he won't deliver State of the Union address until shutdown is over
Sabrina Siddiqui (The Guardian, 24/01/2019)
Donald Trump has said he will wait until the government shutdown is over before giving his State of the Union address because nowhere could compete with the “history and tradition” of the House chamber.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi told the president earlier on Wednesday that she would block him from delivering the speech in the House chamber until the government has reopened.
It led to speculation that Trump could instead make his address from the Oval Office, the Senate chamber or even the Mexican border.
A Contest of Wills, and a Way Out
The Editorial Board (The New York Times, 23/01/2019)
It is beyond time for this pernicious shutdown to end. With each passing day, more Americans are feeling the pinch of having the federal government thrown into chaos by a political standoff over President Trump’s demand for a wall on the southern border.
The continuing battle increasingly resembles an episode of “Real Housewives,” with the attendant name-calling and hair-pulling. On Jan. 16, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, sent Mr. Trump a letter suggesting that he postpone his State of the Union address until the government reopened. The following day, Mr. Trump hit back, withdrawing military support for a congressional delegation that Ms. Pelosi was preparing to lead to Afghanistan.
Come Saturday, Mr. Trump introduced a new immigration plan that he touted as a grand compromise but that, in reality, included enough poison pills to gag all but fervent hard-liners. On Wednesday, he followed up with a letter to Ms. Pelosi, declaring his intention to deliver his big speech as planned in the House chamber, shutdown or no. The speaker promptly announced that she would not allow the president to speak on the House floor for the duration of the shutdown.
The Trump-Pelosi State of the Union letter duel, annotated
Philip Bump (The Washington Post, 23/01/2019)
A president’s State of the Union address is not generally something that spawns an ongoing political fight. That the president update Congress on the state of the union is written into the Constitution, so it can’t be avoided. In recent decades, though, that update has become a speech, televised live, centered on the president’s policy and accompanied by various expected bits of pageantry: Whom will the president invite? Which random Cabinet member has to go hide on the off chance that the entire Capitol falls into a volcano? That sort of thing.
In 2019, the State of the Union has spawned the first real feud between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Trump (excluding the shutdown, which began before she took the gavel). After inviting Trump, Pelosi uninvited him, citing the shutdown, now more than a month old. Trump first replied by taking away Pelosi’s ability to travel overseas and then, Wednesday, said he was going to show up to give his speech next Tuesday anyway.
There’s just one problem: Without the House’s approval — which is to say Pelosi’s — he can’t.