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!