House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters that the public should see Pelosi’s letter as disinviting Trump from the traditional event.
Hoyer, D-Md., said Democrats want to send a signal to Trump that Congress will not conduct business as usual if the government remains closed.
But Pelosi later told reporters, “No, no, no” when asked if she was disinviting Trump.
“It’s on the strength of the statement of the secretary of Homeland Security about all of the resources that are needed to prepare for a State of the Union Address, which she calls an event of special security,” Pelosi said. “And … these people are not working.”
Asked if she hopes Trump sees her letter as “a consequence” of the shutdown, Pelosi also denied that was the case.
“This is a housekeeping matter in the Congress of the United States so that we can honor the responsibility of the invitation we extended to the president,” she said.
“He can make it from the Oval Office if he wants.”
Pelosi’s letter noted that the Constitution “calls for the President to ‘from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union.'”
But Pelosi also pointed out that “during the 19th Century and up until the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, these annual State of the Union messages were delivered to Congress in writing.”
After President John Adams gave his State of the Union address in 1800, President Thomas Jefferson discontinued the practice of speaking directly to Congress in person.
Wilson resumed the practice in 1913. It has been the norm for presidents since then to give their State of the Union address in person each year, with rare exceptions.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC about Pelosi’s letter.
The shutdown is the result of Congress’s inability to pass a short-term funding bill for the government that Trump would be willing to sign.
The president has insisted that such a bill contain more than $5 billion in funding to build a border wall. Democrats have refused to agree with that demand.
Read House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s letter to President Trump here
from Viral News Reports http://bit.ly/2QS9Suj
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