Pelosi Knows How to Play Chicken. Trump Doesn’t.
The side that causes a government shutdown always takes more blame for the effects.
She has the upper hand.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump invited a bunch of Democrats to the White House in hopes of splitting the party. Not only did he fail to break Democratic unity, but none of the invitees even bothered to attend. Trump had a little better luck on Wednesday, when the bipartisan “Problem Solvers Caucus” came over, though Democrats in the group seemed more interested in giving him the message to reopen the government than they were in negotiating anything right now.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi struck back on Wednesday by postponing Trump’s trip to Capitol Hill for the State of the Union Speech. Pelosi even suggested that Trump might want to consider reviving the pre-Wilsonian tradition of submitting a report in writing instead of a televised speech.