Are the Democrats winning the shutdown battle? President Trump recently acquiesced to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and has decided to postpone the State of the Union speech until the government reopens. The media is portraying this as the president caving to Democrats — so are they right? Andrew Klavan reacted on Thursday’s episode of “The Andrew Klavan Show.”
“So right now we’ve got this incredibly weird back and forth going on about the State of the Union,” he said. “It started out when Nancy Pelosi said, ‘While the Government is shutdown, we can’t have the State of the Union in the House where it usually is because we can’t protect you.’ And then the Secret Service said, ‘Meh, we can protect him.’ And she said, ‘Well I don’t care.’ Because it’s about politics, if the government is shutdown, you can’t come.’ Then Trump said, ‘Well I’ll move this State of the Union somewhere else,’ because he could give it anywhere. There are people all over the country inviting him to give it in their state senates and things like that.”
“Yesterday, he said in what I assume for Trump was a final decision, he said that he was not going to make the State of the Union until the government opened,” Klavan continued. “Some of the press is playing this as if Trump caved in to Nancy Pelosi and ‘oh, how strong she is,’ ’cause it’s all about personality. It’s like, who is gonna win here?”
He noted that several prominent figures have suggested that Speaker Pelosi at least consider some of President Trump’s offers to make a budget with funding for a border wall.
“And she’s beginning to look bad,” he said. “See, I don’t think he’s caving in. I don’t think Trump really caves in. I don’t think that’s really in his repertoire, but I think that what Trump is doing is he’s trying to be reasonable. He’s coming across as reasonable. He understands that at some point, he believes people are going to say, ‘Well, he’s giving in, he’s giving some stuff and Nancy Pelosi is giving nothing.'”
“At some point, people just want the government to work,” he said. “The fact that these people, it’s like Nancy and Donald are fighting you know? The fact that they’re having a personality clash is not all that interesting to people who want the government to work, who want to get their checks, who want the government services that they use and all these things.”
Video and transcript below:
So right now we’ve got this incredibly weird back and forth going on about the State of the Union. It started out when Nancy Pelosi said, “While the Government is shut down, we can’t have the State of the Union in the House where it usually is because we can’t protect you.” And then the Secret Service said, “Meh, we can protect him.” And she said, “Well I don’t care.”
Because it’s about politics, if the government is shut down, you can’t come. Then Trump said, “Well I’ll move this State of the Union somewhere else,” because he could give it anywhere. There are people all over the country inviting him to give it in their state senates and things like that. Yesterday, he said in what I assume for Trump was a final decision, he said that he was not going to make the State of the Union until the government opened. Some of the press is playing this as if Trump caved into Nancy Pelosi and “oh, how strong she is”, cause it’s all about personality.
It’s like, who is gonna win here? I really do feel at this point that Nancy Pelosi is in a bind because first of all, she’s trying to keep the left wing of her party – which is in ascendency – but at the same time there are a lot of people on the right wing, the moderate wing if there is such thing in the Democrat party, who are saying “Trump has made a good offer here. He’s made a good offer, he’ll give DACA, the dreamers, three years grace. He’ll give other people some grace who are here illegally. But he wants his wall money.” And Nancy Pelosi is saying, “I’ll give him a dollar, that’s what I’ll give him. I’ll give him a dollar.” And she’s beginning to look bad.
See, I don’t think he’s caving in. I don’t think Trump really caves in. I don’t think that’s really in his repertoire, but I think that what Trump is doing is he’s trying to be reasonable. He’s coming across as reasonable. He understands that at some point, he believes people are going to say, “Well, he’s giving in, he’s giving some stuff and Nancy Pelosi is giving nothing.” At some point, people just want the government to work. The fact that these people, it’s like Nancy and Donald are fighting you know? The fact that they’re having a personality clash is not all that interesting to people who want the government to work, who want to get their checks, who want the government services that they use and all these things. There’s some people, the intellectuals, I heard Jonah Goldberg say this on TV last night, and you know I’m a big fan of Jonah’s, and he said he doesn’t care whether the State of the Union takes place.
Why intellectuals hate the State of The Union is because it seems monarchical, it doesn’t seem like good Republican government with a small “r”, the President is just supposed to be another guy, he’s like another citizen. He’s not the leader of the government. The lead of the government is supposed to be the legislature and it just seems like he is a king going out and addressing the people and so people don’t like the State of the Union. By the way, I’m sympathetic to that argument.
As Jonah pointed out, it was Woodrow Wilson, the worst president in American history, besides Jimmy Carter maybe, who actually started the tradition of addressing the public personally instead of just handing in a written State of the Union. But that is a little too intellectual for me, because to me it not only matters what happens, it matters how things happen. If President Ted Cruz said the State of the Union is too monarchical, I’m a republic guy and so I’m going to cancel my State of the Union and just hand in a piece of paper, that would be fine with me.
It shouldn’t end because we’re no longer practicing politics, which is negotiation and compromise. That’s what Democratic politics is, right? It’s negotiation and compromise. Everybody loses a little, everybody wins a little. When we’re not doing that, it all just becomes a personality contest. And that we should lose the State of the Union over that seems absurd.
.png)
.png)
