Earlier today President Trump held a roundtable discussion on issues surrounding immigration and border security. At the beginning of the meeting the media remained present as President Trump made some remarks and took some questions:
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Earlier today President Trump held a roundtable discussion on issues surrounding immigration and border security. At the beginning of the meeting the media remained present as President Trump made some remarks and took some questions:
President Donald Trump sends a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi regarding concerns over the State of the Union and the temporary government shutdown. UPDATE: Speaker Pelosi responds; revokes initial invitation; refuses to call for joint session.
Dear Madam Speaker:
Thank you for your letter of January 3, 2019, sent to me long after the Shutdown began, inviting me to address the Nation on January 29th as to the State of the Union. As you know, I had already accepted your kind invitation, however, I then received another letter from you dated January 16, 2019, wherein you expressed concerns regarding security during the State of the Union Address due to the Shutdown. Even prior to asking, I was contacted by the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Secret Service to explain that there would be absolutely no problem regarding security with respect to the event. They have since confirmed this publicly.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivers remarks to the awaiting press pool on current events.
Yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a video-conference message to the assembly of international economic leadership in Davos. [Full remarks and transcript below]
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have come to a UniParty agreement to advance two simultaneous bills to end the government shutdown.
The first bill contains the Trump priority agenda; the second bill contains the Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell priority agenda. The senate will get to vote on both bills individually. It is possible, perhaps likely, both will fail. However, watch the defectors. If history is a guide, any defectors will come from the GOPe side of the equation.
(Washington DC) […] The first vote will be on President Trump‘s proposal to to reopen the government, provide $5.7 billion in funding for the border wall and extend legal protections to some immigrants for three years. If that fails, the Senate would then vote on a three-week continuing resolution (CR).
It looks like Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi has no intention of allowing the House chamber to be used for a State of the Union address.
Speaker Pelosi has informed the House Sergeant at Arms that no executive branch official will be permitted entry into the Capitol building.
Earlier Fox News reported Pelosi cancelled a walkthrough last week, and a second request for reconsideration from the White House is expected to meet the same fate. The House Speaker controls who is, and who is not, permitted entry to the House floor. Until Speaker Pelosi calls for a vote to support a joint session of congress, the President cannot enter the chamber.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley discusses the status of the current shutdown negotiations and the likelihood a SOU address will have to take place outside Washington DC.
There are two distinct narrative angles that are intersecting in the current weekend talk venues. One is the government shutdown and how the resistance is attempting to gain maximum political benefit against the White House. The second is how the larger ‘shutdown narrative‘ is being deployed as cover for revelations within prior testimony showing how the Obama DOJ and FBI weaponized against their political opposition.
In this regard, the shutdown (as planned by Speaker Nancy Pelosi) serves a dual purpose; it is helping to construct a larger oppositional narrative while burying a story the MSM are desperate not to cover. The two narratives are intertwined and it would be against the interests of Pelosi, Cummings, Schiff and Nadler, to reach a shutdown agreement.
HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff appears after VP Mike Pence on FtN and highlights this intended dual purpose. Schiff immediately transfers from the shutdown into a discussion of using Michael Cohen: the two narratives are intertwined.
After President Trump put an offer on the table that was rejected by democrat leaders, Vice President Mike Pence appears on CBS Face the Nation to debate the stalemate with resistance advocate Margaret Brennan.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley appears on Fox News with Jeanine Pirro to discuss the current partial government shutdown and the impasse between the White House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
30 Minutes before President Trump began to outline his compromise proposal (4:00pm, from the White House), Speaker Nancy Pelosi auto-published the response position of Democrats, NO DEAL:
(From The Speaker) “Democrats were hopeful that the President was finally willing to re-open government and proceed with a much-needed discussion to protect the border.
“Unfortunately, initial reports make clear that his proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives. It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House, and taken together, they are a non-starter. For one thing, this proposal does not include the permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS recipients that our country needs and supports. (read more)
President Trump outlined a common-sense bipartisan solution to reopen government. Nancy Pelosi took a zero-sum position and rejected the proposal. Without pressure from ‘moderate’ democrats (if any exist), the impasse continues.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Leader Steny Hoyer and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are on pre-scheduled vacation until January 25th.
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