Inside D.C.

Don, Nancy Play “Gotcha”

Again this week Congress proved why its public approval rating is less than 20% and President Trump did likewise by justifying his less than 40% approval.  Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) gave new meaning to the axiom “You can’t make this, er, stuff up.”

Trump and Pelosi, second in line of presidential succession, played childish power games throughout the week, leaving both their own parties and their opposition almost gobsmacked with how juvenile their respective actions were.

Early in the week, Trump tweeted praise for the armed guards around the White House; Pelosi, however, decided to poke the GOP bear, suggesting Trump “reschedule” his nationally televised January 29 State of the Union address until the government reopens.  If a mutually agreeable alternate date couldn’t be found, the Speaker suggested he could deliver printed copies of the speech to Capitol Hill. 

Pelosi explained to the White House it would be inappropriate to go ahead with the speech while federal workers labor without pay. She said in all earnestness she’s concerned about the added strain policing the Capitol would place on the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  

Gotcha!

Trump, rather than grabbing a lane on the high road and ignoring Pelosi’s schoolyard gambit, waited until an hour before take-off to withdraw permission for Pelosi and several House members to fly on military aircraft to Brussels to meet with NATO officials, Egypt and Afghanistan to meet the troops. 

In his personal letter to Pelosi, Trump wrote: “Due to the shutdown, I’m sorry to inform you that your trip…has been postponed.  We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over…I’m sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.  I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me…to end the shutdown.  Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.”

Oh, snap!

Pelosi and about 20 lawmakers – including several senior members and committee chairs – decided to call the president’s bluff, moving to book commercial flights for the CODEL – short for “congressional delegation.”  Wouldn’t you know it, the trip had to be cancelled a second time because, as Pelosi told reporters, “We weren’t going to go because we had a report from Afghanistan that the president outing our trip had made feet on the ground much more dangerous because it’s a signal to bad actors that we were coming.”

Trump critic Rep. Adam Schiff (D, CA), chair of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, who was to accompany Pelosi on the CODEL, pitched a major fit, saying the Trump move to cancel the military aircraft was “completely and utterly irresponsible in every way..as far as we can tell, this has never happened in the annals of congressional history.” Schiff said the trip was designed to “make sure that our service members have what they need” and that NATO members are “reassured” about U.S. commitment to the alliance.   

For herself, Pelosi called Trump’s alleged “outing” of the trip to be a “shocking breach” of protocol, adding maybe it was his “inexperience” that led him to leak the trip. 

The response from the White House was swift.  “When the Speaker of the House and about 20 others from Capitol Hill decide to book their own commercial flights to Afghanistan, the world is going to find out,” a senior White House official said, as reported in The Hill.  “The idea we would leak anything that would put the safety and security of any American at risk is a flat out lie.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R, SC) said publicly about Pelosi and Trump’s antics what a lot of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are thinking or speaking about privately. 

“One sophomoric response does not deserve another.  Speaker Pelosi’s threat to cancel the State of the Union is very irresponsible and blatantly political.  President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military aircraft to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate,” Graham said.