House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced,”the State of the Union is off”, Wednesday hours after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to postpone the address to a Joint Session of Congress scheduled, at Pelosi’s previous invitation, for January 29. Pelosi cited security concerns over the partial government shutdown. (Update at end: Hoyer spox clarifies.)
Hoyer told CNN’s Kate Bolduan in an interview that Pelosi was in fact canceling Trump’s speech because of the battle over government funding of the border wall and border security measures demanded by Trump to stem the crisis of illegal immigration and drugs coming across the southern border with Mexico.
"The State of the Union is off." @LeaderHoyer just now. pic.twitter.com/3DtSqAWFCK
— Kate Bolduan (@KateBolduan) January 16, 2019
Hoyer said the only way the speech will be rescheduled is if Trump reopens the government on the Democrats’ terms. A partial transcript was posted to twitter by CNN’s Ashley Killough.
Before Hoyer spoke to CNN, Pelosi spoke to reporters, reiterating her concerns about security issues and concluding by saying that Trump could give the speech from the Oval Office.
Speaker Pelosi reiterates potential security concerns of having State of the Union during shutdown.
Asked by @GarrettHaake if POTUS should view this as a consequence, Pelosi says it is a “housekeeping matter” and suggests Trump could do it from the Oval pic.twitter.com/iDAzFStsXp
— Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) January 16, 2019
The only time a State of the Union Address was postponed was in 1986 over the Challenger disaster.
VOTE NOW: Should Trump keep the Government closed until he gets the wall?
The only State of the Union postponement is Reagan in 1986, after the Challenger disaster. The White House put it off a week. https://t.co/3CtBl6hvOT
— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) January 16, 2019
UPDATE: Hoyer spokesperson clarifies, “Hoyer said on CNN that the SOTU is off, but his spox clarifies: “He hadn’t read the actual letter and misunderstood.” Still just a proposal from Pelosi, not a formal disinvitation.”
https://twitter.com/jim_newell/status/1085586630692491265
