Nancy Pelosi’s brilliant move
In her postponement of Trump’s State of the Union Address in the House to Congress on Jan. 29, 2019, Nancy Pelosi craftily took away from Trump, for now anyway, an event he loves.. The State of the Union Address has all the elements of pomp and circumstance in which the President is totally in the limelight -all Congress members in attendance – half of whom are partisan bound to applaud everything a President says and stand up when he/she puts forth a really big idea. All of the networks are on hand along with the foreign press plus Supreme Court members, military brass and a huge crowd in the balcony filled with supporters and important people. What a joy the Address offers Trump – the chance to read by teleprompter his propaganda to the nation and bask in the warm spotlight and faked adulation.
And yesterday Pelosi yanked the event right out from under him. She stated the reason was simple – that due to the shutdown Homeland Security could not adequately guarantee the security of Trump and all the VIPs attending the event.
Kirstjen Nielsen, Homeland Security Secretary, quickly tried to push back saying oh no, there would be enough security personnel to handle the event – even though they would all be working without a salary.. But alas (for Trump), last year Nielsen had released a federal policy that the State of the Union event would require the highest level of security. This level could obviously NOT be met during a shutdown . So Nielsen’s last minute effort to bring the Address back to life failed due to her own policy. Pelosi, of course, knew about the policy in advance and knew that it would curtail Nielsen from coming to the rescue. .
Here is the Washington Post article on Pelosi’s “brilliant” (Post’s word choice) maneuver.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/16/pelosi-asking-trump-postpone-his-state-union-is-her-latest-power-play-this-shutdown-impasse/?utm_term=.ff1b3b8221d6
Trump’s pettiness on full displayAnd after a 24 hour delay from Trump about the postponement, he finally sent a letter to Pelosi. In the letter he told Pelosi that she could not travel with the Congressional Delegation in a military plane to Afghanistan, Brussels and Egypt. Sadly, this trip had not been publicized due to security concerns so the letter from Trump effectively outed the trip to the world. The trip for now was canceled. Here is Daily Kos article on Trump’s response to Pelosi.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/17/1827112/-In-fit-of-rage-Trump-cancels-Pelosi-trip-to-Afghanistan-endangering-her-and-national-security
to ask him is why it is that McConnell’s connections to Russian oligarchs and Chinese officials has received such little media attention. Do the Dem Senators talk amongst themselves about his conflicts of interests? What is their opinion about McConnell’s connections?