Nancy Pelosi uses State of the Union invite to twist the knife against Donald Trump
She’s impeached him in the House. She’s held up his Senate impeachment trial indefinitely. She’s driving him absolutely bonkers, to the point that he’s attacking widows and children and, well, ET the extra terrestrial. Now Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has found a whole new way to twist the knife against Donald Trump, simply by doing her job in a particularly auspicious way.
Nancy Pelosi just sent Donald Trump a letter inviting him to deliver his State of the Union address on February 4th. The letter emphasizes things like Congress being “co-equal” and the branches “acting as checks on each other.” In other words, she’s reminding him that she has all kinds of constitutional power over him. But the letter itself, which is a formality, is secondary to the timing.
Donald Trump is pushing Mitch McConnell hard for a swift Senate impeachment trial and acquittal. But McConnell can’t make that happen unless he makes at least some concessions to Pelosi about the fairness of the trial, or she’ll keep sitting on the articles of impeachment. Now Trump suddenly faces the very real possibility of having to give his State of the Union address at a time when he’s been impeached but hasn’t been acquitted.
If that happens, Donald Trump will use his speech to go embarrassingly bonkers. He’ll viciously attack House members to their faces during the address. He’ll further alienate the voters in the middle, who don’t like him much but haven’t decided whether or how to vote in 2020, who will decide his fate. If Trump’s handlers want to avoid such a scene, they’ll have to convince him not to show up for the State of the Union at all, which would also make him look bad. Or they’ll have to convince McConnell to cave to Pelosi, which would mean Trump’s own people testifying against him during the Senate impeachment trial, so it can take place before the speech.
