USA TODAY International Edition
Pelosi urges State of Union delay due to the shutdown
WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked President Donald Trump to reschedule his State of the Union address this month if the government remains shuttered – or deliver it in writing.
“Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government reopens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has reopened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to Trump on Wednesday.
The partial government shut-
down is in its 26th day, the longest in U.S. history. Trump demanded $5.7 billion to pay for a wall along the U.S. Mexican border and vowed to veto any legislation that does not include the sum. Democrats have opposed a wall and refused to appropriate the money.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.
Pelosi cited Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s designation of State of the Union addresses as a “National Special Security Event,” which requires a high level of security. The Secret Service is responsible for such events, but the agency, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, is affected by the shutdown.
After sending the letter, Pelosi said the State of the Union requires hundreds of people to work out logistics and security, and most of them have been furloughed or are working without pay because of the shutdown. “The point is security,” she said. Trump “can make (the speech) from the Oval Office if he wants,” she said.
Nielsen took issue with Pelosi’s concerns about security.
“The Department of Homeland Security and the US Secret Service are fully prepared to support and secure the State of the Union,” she wrote on Twitter. “We thank the Service for their mission focus and dedication and for all they do each day to secure our homeland.”
Written State of the Union-type addresses were once presidential practice.
The nation’s first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams, delivered annual messages to Congress in person. Successor Thomas Jefferson began submitting his in writing in 1801, a routine that continued for more than a century.
President Woodrow Wilson revived the practice of in-person speeches, his first coming in 1913.
The U.S. Constitution says presidents “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union,” remarks formally known as the “Annual Message” for decades. President Franklin Roosevelt began describing the speeches as the “state of the Union,” a term officially adopted in 1947 during Harry Truman’s administration.
The last president to submit only a written State of the Union was lame duck Jimmy Carter in January 1981, four days before he left office.
Trump met Wednesday at the White House with the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of House members, to discuss the shutdown.