Nancy Pelosi piles on after Donald Trump caves
Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Donald Trump’s bluff on Wednesday, and he caved like the world’s worst poker player. He announced that he would show up and give the State of the Union address without her approval, and she responded by reminding him that he can’t do it without her approval. So he admitted defeat, and that’s when she piled on.
Sometime after 11pm eastern time, Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he was agreeing to Nancy Pelosi’s demand that he postpone the State of the Union until after he ends his disastrous government shutdown. Then just before midnight, Pelosi responded accordingly. Speaker Pelosi posted this in response: “Mr. President, I hope by saying “near future” you mean you will support the House-passed package to #EndTheShutdown that the Senate will vote on tomorrow. Please accept this proposal so we can re-open government, repay our federal workers and then negotiate our differences.”
We still don’t know what the Republican Senate will do on Thursday. The bill to reopen the government with wall funding is obviously DOA. The other bill, which reopens the government without any wall funding, could go either way. Republican Senator Cory Gardner announced on Wednesday night that he would vote for it, but the Democrats would need a handful more GOP votes to put it over the top.
If the Senate passes the no-wall bill, the House will do the same. It would then be up to Donald Trump to decide whether to sign the bill or veto it. If he does veto it, there don’t appear to be enough votes to override his veto. But in so doing, Trump would be admitting that he’s singularly to blame for the shutdown, after both parties and both houses of Congress came together to try to reopen the government.
