Hours after she was elected Speaker, Nancy Pelosi sent Donald Trump a letter formally inviting him to deliver a State of the Union address on January 29. Despite their disagreements, the message was cordial, recalling “the spirit of our Constitution.” It was also a symbolic reminder that the legislative branch shares equal power with the executive. The State of the Union address, despite the annual media spectacle, isn’t the president’s prerogative—it’s a constitutional requirement designed to keep the president accountable to Congress.
On Wednesday, with the federal government still shut down, Pelosi flexed that power by rescinding the invitation. “Since the start of modern budgeting in Fiscal Year 1977, a State of the Union address has never been delivered during a government shutdown,” she wrote icily, noting that the agencies needed to secure the event—the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security chief among them—have not been funded. “Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th.”
Pelosi’s use of the word “suggest” is misleading. In effect, the State of the Union has been suspended, pending an agreement to reopen the government. “The speaker is the one who invites the president to speak at the joint session, and she has said as long as government is shut down we’re not going to be doing business as usual,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer confirmed to CNN. Legally, Congress has no obligation to host Trump for a State of the Union address. According to House procedural rules, even if Trump were to barge in, Pelosi and the House sergeant-at-arms could literally remove him from the floor. There is, Hoyer concluded, nothing Trump can do: “The State of the Union is off.” At least until the shutdown is over, anyway.
This undoubtedly comes as a blow to the president, whose speechwriting team, led by Stephen Miller, had reportedly been hard at work for weeks, and planned to center the address around the government shutdown. Pelosi must know that stripping the pageantry from the State of the Union not only blunts Trump’s messaging around the border wall and visibly ups the stakes in the government shutdown, but robs the president of the chance to star in the sort of elaborate televised extravaganza he loves best.
What Trump will do instead is anyone’s guess. Denied the pomp and circumstance usually afforded the State of the Union, he could, per Pelosi’s suggestion, simply send Congress a written message—a practice that, as Claremont McKenna College professor Jack Pitney pointed out back in November, was the standard until Woodrow Wilson’s tenure. He could also forgo a congressional invitation altogether and deliver his speech elsewhere, though it’s difficult to imagine a format that would give him both a roaring crowd and the accoutrements of presidential power. If he forges ahead without Congress’s blessing (“He can make it from the Oval Office if he wants,” Pelosi told reporters), the results could be lukewarm at best. His last Oval Office address on the border crisis was deeply awkward, stuffed with misleading statistics, and had almost no impact on voters.
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