Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, President Trump said he would agree to delay the State of the Union address until after the government shutdown had been resolved.
Trump was informed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier in the day that she was rescinding her invitation to the president to deliver the speech at the end of the month. Trump correctly surmised that Pelosi was afraid of giving him an uninterrupted hour of prime time television space within which to make his case for the border wall (and make Democrats look like obstructionists with one fell swoop).
“The State of the Union has been canceled by Nancy Pelosi because she doesn’t want to hear the truth,” Trump said. “She is afraid of the truth and the super left democrats, the radical democrats…what’s going on in that party is shocking.”
Trump said that Pelosi’s decision was a black mark on the United States.
“I don’t believe it’s ever happened before,” he said. “It’s always good to be part of history, but this is a very negative part of history. This is where people are afraid to open up and say what’s going on.”
This week, House Democrats have been tossing around the idea of giving Trump the figure he’s looking for – $5.7 billion – for border security while attaching some kind of caveat that none of the funds should go to building a border wall. While that would be an improved figure from what Democrats were planning on endorsing beforehand, it’s unlikely to move Trump to grab his signing pen. He has made it abundantly clear that he wants his wall, and Democrats are going to have to find some way to make that deal a reality if they want to bring the shutdown to an end. Right now, they are seemingly convinced that giving Trump his wall would anger their base. They also seem to be certain that the longer this shutdown goes on, the more the blame will be levied against the president.
This is why, of course, Pelosi wants to prevent Trump from standing up in front of Congress and delivering a bombshell speech. That could move the needle in the opposite direction, especially if the speech is as good as his last two addresses to Congress. Trump knows how to seize the moment, and Pelosi is well aware of that. Thus, she has canceled this SOTU for blatantly political reasons – a fact that should not be lost underneath all of her nonsense security concerns.
“It’s really a shame what’s happening with the Democrats,” Trump said. “They’ve become radicalized.”
Well, they’ve been radicalized. One would have to consult the DSM-5 to determine what they’ve become these days.
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