At the eleven minute mark (it should be set to start there) in the video above, Speaker Pelosi just responded to a question about whether the President will be allowed to deliver the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress next week with:
The State of the Union is not planned now. Get that. What I said to the President is when government is opened, we’ll discuss a mutually agreeable date, and I’ll look forward to doing that and welcoming the President to the House of Representatives for the State of the Union when we agree on that mutual date.
As I wrote on Wednesday when Speaker Pelosi clarified that their would be no State of the Union address next week:
The President needs to come to terms with a simple reality: he is not in control over this matter. Speaker Pelosi is both smarter than he is and a strategic thinker, which he isn’t. He has no power over her. And he has no power over the House of Representatives, provided it is is not being led by a figurative invertebrate, like Paul Ryan, who is afraid of mean presidential tweets, Gym Jordan, Mark Meadows, and the base of the Republican Party. While Senator McConnell may be willing to finish his project of transforming the Senate into a parliament subservient to the President as head of government provided the president is a Republican, Speaker Pelosi is not willing to do that with the House of Representatives. She is also not going to play the President’s games. She said no, she means no, and she has the ability, unlike the President’s other female targets and victims over the years, to actually enforce that no.
Anyone want to place bets on whether he refuses to sign the three week continuing resolution once it clears Congress this afternoon?
Open thread!
Gravenstone
Depends on whether he understands (or is made to) the reality that his little televised ego trip won’t happen until several more hostages are released via a reasonable CR being put in place before the SotU is even broached as an option.
randy khan
He’ll sign. If he doesn’t then it looks like it was all about the State of the Union and getting that platform, and even he knows just how bad that would look.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: I guarantee that Stephen Miller has now shared this with him and Anne Coulter has called him on his unsecured phone with the news.
OzarkHillbilly
If I were a gambling man, and I’m not, I would bet he will sign it. I also would bet that in 3 weeks he NOT shutdown the govt again, he’s already been beaten up by a girl once, no way he’s going to chance it again.
He MIGHT declare an emergency, then declare how hard he is fighting while it goes off to court for a protracted year+ battle that in the end he loses but by then he hopes everyone will forget what the fight was all about.
sukabi
Hahaha. It wouldn’t be prudent to have a SOTU and then have the president promptly indicted.
Quaker in a Basement
Refuse to sign?
No way! Golf withdrawal is killing him.
catclub
I am still at about 50-50 on this proposition. Ann Coulter gets to him, Stephen Miller gets to him, and he caves to them. Suddenly there will be SERIOUS reasons he was misled by McConnell and Pelosi.
I hope to be wrong.
Raoul
If the CR expires Feb 15, she could offer a date maybe the following week.
It’d be clear to the non-ignoramuses of the world that she’d again cancel his ass if he does another shutdown.
MattF
Going further into the weeds, it’s not at all clear what Trump would have done if Congress had put a no-wall CR on his desk. McConnell didn’t allow that to happen, and for reasons having nothing to do with walls or CRs. McConnell knows that Trump is a coward.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: Pelosi smacked McConnell around about that too:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-caves-ends-longest-government-shutdown-in-history-without-his-precious-wall
Tina Blair
I think he’ll sign and Nancy will push the SOTU back until after the next deadline in Feb to ensure he won’t try to shut it down again. At which time, Trumpov will declare the Emergency. I’m hoping in that case the DOD slow walks it so that nothing occurs so that injunctions will halt any action and the stupid Wall will never be built nor any funds get wasted.
What I REALLY want to know is whether I will get my birthday present of seeing Cohen testifying in front of Congress. Is there a specific date on that? And I want to know how the hell a sitting President (and Noseferatu,his lawyer) get away with threatening Cohen and his family on TV. I mean, where was the outrage for this kind of behavior?! Or was there a reaction in the Media and I just missed it (I don’t have cable, so entirely possible I did).
chopper
@Raoul:
i wouldn’t doubt at all that she offers a date after the 3 week CR expires, with the caveat that it’s only on as long as the government is open. that would be a smart move.
MattF
@Tina Blair: If Cohen is forced to testify at a Senate hearing, we’re going to hear mostly the 5th Amendment, IMO.
John Revolta
But she’s ooollllllllld! We need young blooooooodd!!
lgerard
He’ll sign
He has discovered that being spanked by the Constitution hurts a lot more then being spanked by Forbes.
The question is how many republicans will take the opportunity to show that they are true dead -enders by voting against this, then running to rush or fox to parade their patriotism
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: He’s already pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Pleading the 5th would get him at best a n hour or 2 (the time it would take to draw up a grant of immunity that his testimony can’t be used against him)
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: Well then, I just don’t know what would happen. Although Cohen will not want to irk either Mueller or a Federal judge.
Elizabelle
Have to view and read, but I would not let him have his SOTU until the whole funding the government is behind us. Nothing before 4 weeks or so out.
Come on Mueller. Maybe Trump will be in even more obvious legal trouble by the time the delayed SOTU rolls around. March at the earliest.
hilts
Kudos to Nancy Pelosi! Donald Trump has been neutered and spayed. He’s a pathetic, clueless weenie.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: I don’t know what would happen either. Not sure if DEMs would want to put him in that position. Was thinking maybe have him testify in secret, but there would still be Repubs there and who would trust a House Repub at this point?
hells littlest angel
NY Times headline (emphasis added):
Trump Agrees to Reopen Government for 3 Weeks in Surprise Retreat From Wall
Get a fucking clue already.
hoodie
@OzarkHillbilly:That sounds about right. He’ll declare an emergency, needlessly and wastefully shuffle Army Corp of Engineers units around, someone will file a lawsuit and a district court judge will enjoin any eminent domain confiscation of land for the wall under Youngstown Sheet & Tube. It will be the Muslim ban all over again.
However, can’t help feeling that other events will overwhelm all of this. For instance, there is reason to worry about Venezuela and, of source, Mueller is still hard at work.
feebog
@Elizabelle:
This. Full funding for the government at least through the fiscal year.
Another Scott
@Raoul: +1
Nancy is very good at thinking a few moves ahead.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gelfling 545
@Tina Blair: “Nancy will push the SOTU back until after the next deadline”
I vote for April 1.
John Revolta
@lgerard: @lgerard: He has discovered that being spanked by
the ConstitutionNancy hurts a lot more then being spanked byForbesStormy.FTFY
chopper
@hoodie:
likewise, ignoring the wall along texas, any attempt to replace the existing fence with a wall would run into legal trouble as well, as dems in congress would point out that there’s been no appropriation for any wall to begin with. this i think is a big reason why trump was pushing for a ‘down payment’ earlier. he figures that would be sufficient consideration for congressional intent to build it and he could use a declaration of emergency to move money around to get the whole thing built.
or not, i dunno. this is all nuts.
The Moar You Know
I love that shit-eating grin on her face. She took that fat dumb motherfucker to the shed and let him have it. And she’s got more.
ETA: I might add that Trumper Numero Uno in my office literally cried because she realized that Trump folded like a cheap pair of pants, and there was now never going to be a wall. I was very cheerful.
The Moar You Know
Nope, because he will. And he will sign the next one too. He doesn’t want to get hit again.
Paul W.
“Anyone want to place bets on whether he refuses to sign the three week continuing resolution once it clears Congress this afternoon?”
Sure, he will sign it! And then he will give in again after February 15th. He’s a coward, and no one is doing the hard work of how to translate inaction on government funding into a concrete bill for the wall for him… so it won’t get done. Put me down for two packs of bubble gum as my ante.
Paul W.
@OzarkHillbilly: Or, what Hillbilly said. He will use the 3 weeks as a way to find a climbdown on this whole thing, he has no plan and knows he can’t win and will try to move on to sometime where he can.
Duane
What would the fat orange bastard say at a SOTU address? Explain how the great businessman shut the place down in two years over lies he told that will never happen. Tell the truth about his Russian involvement? He could announce his resignation. By that time he may have no other choice.
Uncle Cosmo
@lgerard:
Neither document is the spanker; both are the chosen means to deliver the spanking. Prepositions, peeps! /pedant
eponymous coward
Watching someone seemingly effortlessly dunk on Trump over and over again is never going to get old. Speaker Pelosi may be the only person in America who will get tired of winning in Donald Trump’s America.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Gelfling 545: April 1st would be totally apropos!
ETA: Stupid form autofill put in my real name instead of my nom de plume
greengoblin
I liked how Nancy SMASH deflected the kudos and acknowledged the Democratic caucuses in both Senate and House.
I called my Congress-critters to thank them for standing strong and voiced support for holding off the SotU until funding is passed for the full fiscal year.
TriassicSands
No, but he has a lot more power than the Speaker of House has, no matter who is Speaker. He can make life miserable for any hostages he decides to take. The last month has made it clear he’s willing to do that. In the long run, Pelosi will probably get more accomplished if she manipulates the Idiot than if she does things that humiliate him and I think she’s smart enough to know that.
We don’t need a Donald Trump SOTU address. We know any speech given by Trump will be filled with lies. Since Trump isn’t needed in Washington, perhaps he should go on the road to a series of SOTU adoration rallies. He can use them to spew his noxious venom and lie about how much we need a better wall than the one Israel has. His supporters will eat it up and the rest of us will be spared.
Duane
@The Moar You Know: Were you able to collect the tears? Homegrown Trumpster tears are the sweetest of all.
greengoblin
Schumer too on sharing credit
Immanetize
@The Moar You Know:
Every time a Trumper cries, an angel gets her wings.
Immanetize
@Paul W.: I fear a the climb down will be an invasion of Venezuela.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Immanetize:
You win the intertoobs today, mi amigo.
Adam L Silverman
@Immanetize: There will be no invasion of Venezuela because 1) we don’t have the bodies to invade Venezuela and 2) Putin just sent a large group of Wagner Group mercenaries to prop up Maduro.
Mnemosyne
@eponymous coward:
LeBron James makes playing professional basketball look effortless. That doesn’t mean it actually is.
One of the reasons Trump is falling on his face, over and over again, is because he and his assholes keep assuming that if a woman and/or non-white person made something look easy, that means that doing that thing is just as easy for a mediocre white dude. Turns out, that ain’t it.
Luthe
My only regret about the shutdown ending is that my former employer will manage to avoid bankruptcy (they are HEAVILY dependent on HUD subsidies and have almost no operating reserve).
Cermet
The orange fart cloud took a humiliating beating at the hands of Smash! He’ll sign because he’ll get smashed again and far worse if he doesn’t; he has no upside to craving once again at some point (which will occur when both TSA and remaining Controllers walk out.) So, it will be signed by tomorrow afternoon at the latest – he doesn’t want talk radio dead heads beating him into the ground demanding he veto it.
WaterGirl
@Cermet: I think Trump will try to make Nancy pay for this – not in the $ sense, but in the trying to punish her sense. Time will tell.
Cermet
@Adam L Silverman: 3) Putin told his pet poodle that he can’t invade
smedley the uncertain
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, I hope you will enlarge on the significance of the Mercs. A Putin ‘foot in the door’ perhaps? It should give T pause. I still think saving our Diplomatic Corp among others would be the basis for lots of saber rattling and news worthy pontificating. I thought that after Pompeo told them to shelter in place.