Rudy Giuliani, the always colorful and outspoken lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump, says he is afraid his tombstone some day will say, “Rudy Giuliani: He Lied for Trump.”

“I don’t think that will be it,” Giuliani told The New Yorker magazine in an interview. “But, if it is, so what do I care? I’ll be dead.”

Giuliani’s flip remarks about his gravestone came as the former New York mayor is again embroiled in controversy over comments he made about Trump’s links to Russia during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

Giuliani on Sunday told NBC’s Meet the Press that Trump’s discussions with Russian officials over construction of a Trump Tower in Moscow went on throughout the time he was campaigning for the White House leading up to the November election, months longer than previously acknowledged. The timeline was also at odds with then-candidate Trump telling voters three years ago that he was not doing any business in Russia.

“It’s our understanding that they went on throughout 2016,” Giuliani said of discussions former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen had with Russian officials, adding that there “weren’t a lot of them, but there were conversations. Can’t be sure of the exact date.”

Backtracking

By Monday, Giuliani sought to walk back his remarks.

“My recent statements about discussions during the 2016 campaign between Michael Cohen and then-candidate Donald Trump about a potential Trump Moscow ‘project’ were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the president,” Giuliani said. “My comments did not represent the actual timing or circumstances of any such discussions.”

Giuliani added, “The point is that the proposal was in the earliest stage and did not advance beyond a free non-binding letter of intent.”

Cohen has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trump’s Moscow business deal, telling a congressional committee discussions ended in January 2016, to comport with what Trump was telling voters as he sought the Republican presidential nomination three years ago. But the New York lawyer more recently said he thought the talks about a Moscow Trump Tower ended in June 2016.
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A Kentucky boys’ school shut down its campus on Tuesday as a precaution and a small protest was held outside their diocese as fallout continued over an encounter involving white teenagers, Native American marchers and a black religious sect outside the Lincoln Memorial last week.

President Donald Trump tweeted early Tuesday that the students at Covington Catholic High School “have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be” but says he hopes the teens will use the attention for good, and “maybe even to bring people together.”

The recorded images that initially generated outrage on social media were tightly focused on the students wearing “Make America Great Again” hats who seemed to laugh derisively as they surrounded an elderly Native American beating a drum.

Longer videos from wider perspectives emerged later over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. They revealed that the drummer — Omaha Nation elder Nathan Phillips — had intervened between the boys and the religious sect, at a moment when the teens seemed to be getting rowdier and the black street preacher with a megaphone who had been making racist statements against both groups was escalating his rhetoric.

Soon, all sides were pointing fingers , speaking their own truths about feeling victimized and misunderstood.

“We just don’t know what the volatility of the situation is with these people that react and they don’t know the full story. And it’s very scary,” Jill Hamlin of Cincinnati, who was there to chaperone as the boys attended an anti-abortion rally, told FOX News Tuesday morning.

The American Indian Movement Chapter of Indiana and Kentucky held a small protest outside the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington, with activists outnumbered by the media. Meanwhile, the school’s principal, Robert Rowe, said that “after meeting with local authorities,” they decided to close the campus “to ensure the safety of our students, faculty and staff.”

Phillips, for his part, offered Tuesday to come to the boys’ campus and join with them in a dialogue about cultural appropriation, racism and the importance of listening to and respecting diverse cultures.

“Let’s create space for the teaching of tolerance to happen,” his statement said, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. “I have faith that human beings can use a moment like this to find a way to gain understanding from one another.”

The diocese, which issued a weekend statement criticizing the boys’ behavior, was unavailable for comment Tuesday morning. Both the school and the diocese websites were taken offline.

Kentucky’s governor also weighed in, saying he was saddened by what happened.

“It was amazing how quick those who preach tolerance and non-judgment of others were to judge and label some high school students based on partial information,” Gov. Matt Bevin tweeted. “In a world where we have a wealth of information at our fingertips, we have increasingly little discernment and wisdom… Facts matter…The truth matters…Context matters… A little more genuine caring for one another and a little less digital vitriol would be good for all.”

 
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is laying out her strategy on health care and first up is improvements to “Obamacare” and legislation to lower prescription drug costs. “Medicare for all” will get hearings.

Pelosi and President Donald Trump have been sounding similar themes about the need to address the high drug costs. But her plans to broaden financial help for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act are unlikely to find takers among Republicans.

Either way, Democrats believe voters gave them a mandate on health care in the midterm elections that returned the House to their control.

Pushing her agenda, Pelosi is working from the ground up through major House committees. Her relationships with powerful chairmen and subcommittee chairs stretch back years. She’s “playing chess on three boards at once,” said Jim McDermott, a former Democratic congressman from Washington state, who predicts Pelosi’s most difficult challenge will be “herding new members” impatient for sweeping changes.

Responding to written questions from The Associated Press, Pelosi called the ACA “a pillar of health and financial security,” comparing it to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

“Democrats have the opportunity not only to reverse the years of Republicans’ health care sabotage,” she said, “but to update and improve the Affordable Care Act to further lower families’ premiums and out-of-pocket costs, and expand coverage.”

Legislation from Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., and Workforce and Education Chairman Bobby Scott, D-Va., would broaden the number of people who can get financial assistance with their premiums under the Obama health law, and undo the “family glitch” that prevents some from qualifying for subsidies. It would also restore the HealthCare.gov advertising budget slashed by Trump and block some of his administration’s health insurance alternatives.

Those issues are separate from legal questions raised by ongoing Republican litigation to overturn the health law. The Democratic-led House has voted to intervene in the court case to defend the law.

The 2010 health law belonged as much to Pelosi as to former President Barack Obama, said McDermott. “She’s taking `Obamacare’ and very carefully figuring out where you have to support it,” he said.

The House ACA package has little chance as a stand-alone bill. But parts of it could become bargaining chips when Congress considers major budget legislation.

On prescription drugs, Trump and the Democrats are occupying some of the same rhetorical territory, an unusual circumstance that could bring about unexpected results.

Both say Americans shouldn’t have to keep paying more for medications than consumers in other economically advanced countries where governments regulate prices.

The Trump administration has designed an experiment to apply international pricing to Medicare “Part B” drugs administered in doctors’ offices.

Pelosi wants to expand price relief to retail pharmacy drugs that seniors purchase through Medicare’s “Part D” prescription drug benefit, a much bigger move. A bill introduced by leading Democrats would authorize Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies using international prices as a fallback.

“President Trump said he’d `negotiate like crazy’ to bring down Medicare prescription drug prices, and since the midterm election he’s spoken about working with Democrats,” Pelosi wrote to AP. “We have an opportunity to enact the tough legislative negotiating authority needed to actually lower prescription drug prices for consumers.”

One of the top Senate Republicans on health care says he’s not inclined to do that. Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa says having private insurers negotiate with drug companies has worked.

“Part D is the only federal program I’ve been involved with that has come in under budget,” said Grassley. “If it’s working, don’t mess with it.”

Nonetheless, former Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, a Republican, said Medicare is “a good example of places where the administration might surprise.”

“Prescription drug pricing is in a category where both the president and the Democrats have made a commitment,” Leavitt added. “There will be a lot of division, but in the end there is a very good chance they will find a way that they can both claim victory.”

But the biggest health care idea among Democrats is “Medicare for all,” and on that, Pelosi is cautious. To those on the left, “M4A” means a government-run health care system that would cover every American. That would require major tax increases and a big expansion of government.

Pelosi has tapped two committees, Budget and Rules, to handle “Medicare for all.” Health care legislation doesn’t usually originate in either of them.

Says Pelosi: “We’re going to have hearings.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday described hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants working without pay during the partial government shutdown as “great patriots,” but there was no movement toward ending the record 31-day closure of a quarter of U.S. government operations.

Trump renewed his call for a wall along part of the U.S.-Mexican border, on Twitter.

About 800,000 federal workers have been affected by the shutdown, with more than half ordered to continue working without pay and the rest sent home.

During the weekend, Trump offered a compromise to resolve the shutdown spawned by a dispute with opposition Democratic lawmakers over his demand for $5.7 billion to build the border barrier to thwart illegal immigration.

In exchange for wall funding, Trump’s plan calls for three years of protection against deportation for hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the country illegally when they were children, as well extensions of protected status for people who fled Latin American and African countries because of violence or natural disasters.

Democrats object to the border wall as ineffective and immoral, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying Trump’s proposal is a “non-starter.

“They want Trump and Republicans to agree to reopen the government first and then discuss other border security initiatives, while offering $1.3 billion in new border security money, but none specifically for a wall.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he plans to bring Trump’s proposal to a vote in his chamber this week, although he will need some Democratic support to win approval.

Pelosi said she is planning votes this week on adding more immigration judges and money for scanning vehicles and drugs at the country’s ports of entry.

The House has already passed several measures that would reopen the government, but McConnell has refused to bring them up for a vote in the Senate, saying he will not consider any bill that Trump would not support.

Trump assailed Pelosi on Twitter on Sunday.

Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey, chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement there is “simply no reason” for the shutdown to continue while the two sides “are engaged in a complex policy discussion.”

She said protecting the immigrants from deportation “is the right thing to do.

“But Lowey said Trump “is wrong to hold them hostage over money for a wasteful wall that could be better spent on more effective border security measures. The president’s trade offer — temporary protections for some immigrants in exchange for a border wall boondoggle — is not acceptable.”

Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but major legislation in the chamber almost always requires a 60-vote majority. It is unclear if Trump will be able to convince at least seven Democrats to vote for his proposal.

Even if the Senate approves Trump’s plan, it would face defeat in the House. A Senate victory for Trump, however, could force new negotiations over his border wall plan and over reopening the government, as furloughed federal workers are set to miss their second paycheck next Friday.
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House Democrats are preparing to bring Education Secretary Betsy DeVos under the sharpest scrutiny she has seen since taking office.

DeVos has emerged as a common target for Democrats as they take charge of House committees that wield oversight powers, such as the authority to issue subpoenas and call hearings.

At least four committees are expected to push DeVos on topics including her rollback of regulation on the for-profit college industry.

Rep. Bobby Scott is a Virginia Democrat leading the House education committee. He says he’ll bring DeVos forward for hearings “as often as necessary.”

DeVos is also expected to face scrutiny from committees overseeing veterans’ affairs, government oversight and appropriations.

Education Department spokeswoman Liz Hill says DeVos will work with any member of Congress who wants to rethink education.
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House Democrats are preparing to bring Education Secretary Betsy DeVos under the sharpest scrutiny she has seen since taking office.

DeVos has emerged as a common target for Democrats as they take charge of House committees that wield oversight powers, such as the authority to issue subpoenas and call hearings.

At least four committees are expected to push DeVos on topics including her rollback of regulation on the for-profit college industry.

Rep. Bobby Scott is a Virginia Democrat leading the House education committee. He says he’ll bring DeVos forward for hearings “as often as necessary.”

DeVos is also expected to face scrutiny from committees overseeing veterans’ affairs, government oversight and appropriations.

Education Department spokeswoman Liz Hill says DeVos will work with any member of Congress who wants to rethink education.
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As Americans commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.’s contributions to the nation, Democratic presidential hopefuls are fanning out across the country to honor the civil rights leader.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., used the holiday to launch a presidential campaign that, if successful, would make her the first woman and the second black candidate to become president.

Meanwhile, an annual rally to observe King’s birthday held in the capital of South Carolina, a critical early-voting state in the Democratic primary, will feature two senators expected to seek the White House in 2020, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who’s weighing his own presidential bid, is set to speak at a King holiday event in Washington alongside former New York mayor and possible 2020 rival Michael Bloomberg. Two candidates who have already opened exploratory committees — Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — will also appear at King-centered events.

While the Democratic field for 2020 is only beginning to take shape, the year that would have marked King’s 90th birthday gives the party’s prominent members a valuable opportunity to address race and, potentially, draw a contrast between their own views and those of President Donald Trump, whose approach to questions of racial justice has sparked criticism from multiple minority groups since he took office.

How Democratic contenders, both those officially in the race and those still mulling campaigns, celebrated the King holiday:

Kamala Harris

Harris, a first-term senator and former California attorney general known for her rigorous questioning of Trump’s nominees, opened the holiday by declaring her bid on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” She abandoned the formality of launching an exploratory committee, instead going all in on a presidential campaign.

“I love my country,” she said when asked what qualifies her for the presidency. “And this is a moment in time that I feel a sense of responsibility to stand up and fight for the best of who we are. And that fight will always include, as one of the highest priorities, our national security.”

Harris, 54, is a daughter of immigrant parents who grew up in Oakland, California. She cited her years as a prosecutor in asserting: “My entire career has been focused on keeping people safe. It is probably one of the things that motivates me more than anything else.”

The senator plans a formal campaign launch in Oakland in a week and will have her headquarters in Baltimore. She’s already planning her first trip to an early primary state as a declared candidate. On Friday, Harris will travel to South Carolina to attend the Pink Ice Gala in Columbia, which is hosted by a South Carolina chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, which Harris pledged as an undergraduate student at Howard University. The sorority, founded more than 100 years ago, is a stronghold in the black community.

 
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Doris Cochran, a disabled mother of two young boys, is stockpiling canned foods these days, filling her shelves with noodle soup, green beans, peaches and pears – anything that can last for months, or even years. Her pantry looks like she’s preparing for a winter storm. But she’s just trying to make sure her family won’t go hungry if her food stamps run out.

For those like Cochran who rely on federal aid programs, the social safety net no longer feels so safe. As the longest government shutdown in U.S. history stretches into a fifth week with no end in sight, millions of poor Americans who depend on food and rental assistance are becoming increasingly worried about the future. Most major aid programs haven’t dried up yet. But each day the stalemate in Washington drags on, the U.S. inches closer to what advocates call a looming emergency. Those dependent on the aid are watching closely under a cloud of stress and anxiety.

“I just don’t know what’s going to happen,” Cochran said, “and that’s what scares me the most.”

With no indication of an imminent compromise, the Trump administration in recent weeks has scrambled to restore some services across the government. But two agencies crucial to the federal safety net – the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Agriculture Department – remain largely shuttered.

USDA announced earlier this month that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food aid to roughly 40 million Americans, will be fully funded through February. But should the shutdown stretch into March its status is unclear: with just $3 billion in reserves, USDA won’t be able to cover the roughly $4.8 billion it pays in monthly benefits.

The department was able to stretch the program for another month based on a loophole in a spending bill. But as a result of congressional rules, food stamp benefits allotted for February are being given out early, before Jan. 20. There is no guarantee recipients will get food stamps for March, but if even if the program continues without a lapse, recipients would have to stretch their current allotment for at least six weeks, rather than four.

The impact of any lapse in these programs would be dramatic and unprecedented: USDA says there has never before been a break in food stamp benefits since the program was made permanent in 1964.

Food banks are already stretched thin thanks to a notable spike in demand from furloughed federal employees, contractors and others out of work due to the shutdown, said Carrie Calvert, the managing director for government relations at Feeding America, a hunger relief organization. For every meal Feeding America’s network of food pantries serves, federal food aid provides 12.

“This is a potentially catastrophic situation. This could be an immediate emergency that grows exponentially,” Calvert said.

Since the shutdown began, HUD has been unable to renew hundreds of contracts with private building owners who receive significant federal subsidies to provide housing to low-income families, the elderly and people with disabilities. Under these contracts, tenants pay a portion of the rent and the federal government covers the rest. But between December and the end of February, roughly 1,700 contracts are slated to expire, meaning that HUD won’t be able to make their payments. The agency has asked landlords to dip into their reserves to cover rental costs until the government reopens, with a promise of reimbursement.

Similarly, come February, 700 rental assistance contracts administered through a USDA program that offers aid to low-income people in rural areas, will also expire. A spokesman said the office “is exploring all options to mitigate any potential negative impact” to tenants.

Those unknowns are causing anxiety and anguish among America’s most vulnerable.

Eneaqua Lewis, 36, lives in a HUD-subsidized apartment on Roosevelt Island in New York City. She said she found out earlier this month her building’s HUD contract expired January 9. A single mother raising a 10-year-old, Lewis was laid off from a construction job in December. Without an income or any significant savings, Lewis said she’d be forced to drain her meager retirement fund to cover the full amount due with no rental assistance subsidy offsetting the expense.

“People are really afraid right now and just don’t know what to do,” Lewis said. “I can’t afford market rate rent here. Where would I go, where would everyone go? One side of the building is all elderly or handicapped. The other side is all families. Where would we all go?”

For Cochran, the mother stockpiling food, a disruption could throw her life into chaos.

She lives in subsidized housing in Arlington, Virginia, with her six- and eight-year-old sons. She used to drive a truck, but recent health issues have left her unable to work. She relies solely on government subsidies to survive, cobbling together just enough to support her children using social security payments, food stamps and cash assistance payments. If any one of those federal programs were to stall, Cochran could end up on the street.

Cochran said she’s trying to sell some homemade crafts, and clothes to secondhand stores to squirrel away a few extra dollars. She returned the toys she’d bought for her sons for Christmas-a Hot Wheelz racetrack for the eight-year-old, a Mighty Beanz game for the younger boy-so she could buy them shoes.

“It was hard, but you have to make choices,” she said. “I’m experiencing quite a bit of anxiety.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani says Trump’s discussions with Russian officials over construction of a Trump Tower in Moscow went on throughout the time he was campaigning for the White House in 2016, months longer than previously acknowledged.

“It’s our understanding that they went on throughout 2016,” Giuliani told NBC’s Meet the Press. Giuliani said there “weren’t a lot of them, but there were conversations.  Can’t be sure of the exact date.”

“Probably could be up to as far as October, November — our answers cover until the election,” Giuliani said, referring to written questions Trump has answered from special counsel Robert Mueller, who for 20 months has been investigating Trump campaign ties to Russia and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe.

“So anytime during that period they could’ve talked about it,” Giuliani said. “But the president’s recollection of it is that the thing had petered out (subsided) quite a bit,” and the construction project never materialized.  During the early stages of the 2016 race for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump often said he had no business ties to Russia.

Giuliani, a former New York mayor, said that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, “would have a much better recollection of [the Moscow negotiations] than the president. It was much more important to him. That was his sole mission. The president was running for president of the United States.  So you have to expect there’s not going to be a great deal of concentration on a project that never went anywhere.”

‘Big news’

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the lead Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee that has been investigating Trump campaign ties to Russia, said on the NBC show the length of Trump’s efforts to build a Moscow skyscraper, extending into the November 2016 national election, was “news to me, and that is big news.  Why, two years after the fact, are we just learning this fact now when there’s been this much inquiry?”

Warner added, “I would think most voters — Democrat, Republican, independent, you name it — that knowing the Republican nominee was actively trying to do business in Moscow, that the Republican nominee at least at one point had offered, if he built this building, Vladimir Putin, a free-penthouse apartment, and if those negotiations were ongoing up until the election, I think that’s a relevant fact for voters to know.  And I think it’s remarkable we are two years after the fact and just discovering it today.”

Cohen has pleaded guilty to, among other offenses, lying to Congress about the extent of Trump’s involvement with the Moscow project, telling a congressional panel that Trump’s efforts ended in January 2016, just as the Republican presidential nominating contests were starting three years ago.  He has said he lied to comport with Trump’s own public comments to voters, but more recently has said he recalls the Moscow discussions extending to June 2016, a shorter time frame than Giuliani acknowledged Sunday.

The online news site BuzzFeed said last week that Trump had directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Moscow timeline, but Mueller’s office late Friday said the report was “not accurate.”  BuzzFeed said it continues to stand by the story.

In a separate interview on CNN, Giuliani said he had “no knowledge” of whether Trump talked to Cohen before his congressional testimony.

Mueller is believed to be writing a report on his findings from his lengthy investigation.  He and other federal prosecutors have secured convictions or guilty pleas from several key figures in Trump’s orbit, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, campaign aide Rick Gates, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former foreign affairs adviser George Papadopoulos and Cohen.

 
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With a partial U.S. government shutdown in its fifth week, Democrats are rejecting President Donald Trump’s offer of limited and temporary protections for some immigrants to America in return for billions of dollars to extend barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports the political stand-off endures and hundreds of thousands of government workers are likely to miss a second paycheck this week.
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U.S. President Donald Trump assailed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday for rejecting what he is calling a compromise to end the record 30-day partial government shutdown, with $5.7 billion for his barrier along the U.S.-Mexican border and three years of protection against deportation for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

“Nancy Pelosi and some of the Democrats turned down my offer yesterday before I even got up to speak. They don’t see crime & drugs, they only see 2020 – which they are not going to win. Best economy!” Trump said on Twitter, referring to next year’s presidential election. “They should do the right thing for the Country & allow people to go back to work.”

Trump, now halfway through his four-year White House term, offered his plan to end the longest government closure in American history in a speech Saturday. But Pelosi, leader of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, called it a “non-starter” before Trump spoke.

Pelosi responded to Trump on Twitter, saying, “800,000 Americans are going without pay,” the furloughed government workers and civil servants forced to work without being paid.  “Re-open the government, let workers get their paychecks and then we can discuss how we can come together to protect the border.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he plans to bring Trump’s proposal to a vote in his chamber in the coming days, although he will need some Democratic support to win approval.

Watch related video by VOA’s Michael Bowman:

Trump defended his call to offer deportation protection to 740,000 immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children and thousands more from Latin America and African nations who have been living in the United States temporarily, but are facing orders to return home.

Conservative critics of Trump’s plan said the protections against deportation amounted to amnesty for lawbreakers.  But Trump tweeted, “No, Amnesty is not a part of my offer … Amnesty will be used only on a much bigger deal, whether on immigration or something else.  Likewise there will be no big push to remove the 11,000,000 plus people who are here illegally-but be careful Nancy!”

Vice President Mike Pence, in a Fox News Sunday interview, said, “This is not amnesty.  There’s no pathway to citizenship.  What the American people heard yesterday was statesmanship.”

Pence said Trump “set the table for a deal.  The president is offering a solution, the Democrats just sound bites” in television interviews.

Democrats have demanded Trump reopen the government and then negotiate border security provisions, while rejecting a wall as ineffective and immoral.  They are offering $1.3 billion in new border security funding, but none specifically for a wall.  House Democrats plan to offer more border security legislative proposals this week.

Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but major legislation in the chamber almost always requires a 60-vote majority.  It is unclear if Trump will be able to convince at least seven Democrats to vote for his proposal.

“As the president says, ‘We’ll see,'” Pence told Fox News. “Now people will start voting and we’ll see where they stand.”

Even if the Senate approves Trump’s plan, it would face defeat in the House, where Pelosi-led opposition runs strong.  A Senate victory for Trump, however, could force new negotiations over his border wall plan and over reopening the government, where the furloughed federal workers are set to miss their second paycheck next Friday.

Trump tweeted, “Nancy Pelosi has behaved so irrationally & has gone so far to the left that she has now officially become a Radical Democrat.  She is so petrified of the ‘lefties’ in her party that she has lost control … And by the way, clean up the streets in San Francisco, they are disgusting!”  The California city is Pelosi’s home town.

As tensions over the border wall and the government shutdown continued unabated last week, Pelosi demanded Trump postpone his scheduled Jan. 29 State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress until after the government is reopened, submit it in writing to Congress or make the speech at the White House.  Trump, in turn, postponed her fact-finding trip with other congressional leaders to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Trump had not directly responded to her call to delay the State of the Union speech till after the shutdown ends.

But on Sunday, he said, “Nancy, I am still thinking about the State of the Union speech, there are so many options – including doing it as per your written offer (made during the Shutdown, security is no problem), and my written acceptance.  While a contract is a contract, I’ll get back to you soon!”

 
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