I imagine they’d just stay with him regardless of what he tells them to do. There is no chance the president can out run his SS detail.
IIRC one of the things I have heard several presidents say they missed while being president was driving. They just can’t do it (except on secured property so I suppose they could drive around the White House driveway).
They can get him a truck with no gas in the tank so he can sit in the driver’s seat and blow the horn and make engine noises.
Trump really doesn’t know how to choose his battles. He’s “insisting” on doing it from the House. If he shows up, I imagine the lights will be off and the doors locked.
Did you read his letter to Pelosi? It was very obviously written by him, complete with the use of the word “sad” and random capitalization.
So, his comm team is no longer doing pressers, and now they’re apparently not even writing official correspondence for him. What the fuck are we paying them for?
Reminds me of this:
State Opening of Parliament - Wikipedia’_chamber
Perhaps decades hence, we will have a ceremony of the Orange Tool.
It’s only been since Woodrow Wilson that the SoTU was delivered as a speech to congress. Before that is was a written report which he can certainly still do (indeed, constitutionally, has to do).
He doesn’t have to do it now. Just “from time to time.” Doesn’t get vaguer than that.
And, I don’t see what anyone could do if he decided to skip a year or two. Kind of like the Senate not holding hearings or a vote on a judicial nomination. Yeah, they’re* supposed* to do it, but they don’t really have to.
Anyway, he’s really ramping up a fight he cannot win. He’s going to look like a bigger loser at the end of this than he did already.
The debate over whether the President can be indicted precedes Cheney. It goes back at least to Nixon, and I suspect at least as far as Andrew Johnson.
I’m hoping this pressure play by Trump backfires badly. She can flip the narrative by stating that there should be no grand-standing speeches made until everybody is back to work and getting paid. I truly hope she doesn’t cave on this, no matter what the pressure.
And it has not been answered definitively.
Rachel Maddow did a podcast called Bag Man which followed the fall of Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew.
Agnew made the argument that he could not be indicted as a sitting vice president. Federal prosecutors felt he could be. In the end neither tested it and they came to an arrangement that included Agnew resigning.
The federal prosecutors had him dead-to-rights but felt it was important to get him out before Nixon went down and he became president so they agreed to the deal.
In the end Agnew was not sure enough of his presumed immunity to see it through. To date no one has felt sure enough to test it.
(As an aside it sounds like a dull topic for a podcast but it is actually really interesting…not least because it all happened at the same time as Watergate.)
If there is no invitation and Trump shows up anyway, demanding admittance, it could be regarded as a House invasion in which Pelosi is not just entitled but obligated to “stand her ground”. For best television effect, she greets him with a two-handed 50 caliber machine gun, turret-mounted to the podium, and dares him to “make her day.”
Eh…she’ll just tell the Sergeant at Arms to lock the door and not let anyone in and that would be the end of it. I seriously doubt the Secret Service will try to bash the door in.
Seems to me Trump would do best to move the speech to the senate where they will let him in.
The House Chamber will be empty anyway. Let him in and have the cameras rolling as he wanders around an empty room looking lost and alone.
What if all the republicans show up?
I guess that’s possible. I don’t know what powers the Speaker has to say they’re not in session at any particular time and what the means the Members can and cannot do.
Why couldn’t Trump simply give the SOTU address in Senate Chambers? True, it’s smaller, and even without Dem Senators, not everybody could squeeze in, but it could be done, right? He could even make some snide comment about how sorry he is everyone couldn’t fit in, but the SOTH is apparently not interested in performing her duties, or some such claptrap.
Mind you I hate that scenario, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t expect such an invite from McConnell any day now.
Funny thing is, Truman did almost exactly that shortly after he took office. The Secret Service White House detail had gotten used to the relatively immobile Roosevelt and when Truman walked past an agent early in the morning and announced he was going for a walk, it created a major stir. For a few minutes, Truman was outside of the White House with only a single agent on him. Quickly, the Secret Service manage to organize itself to protect Truman during his morning constitutionals, which he took frequently, and about which the service was rather less than thrilled.
It’s my understanding that the Speaker is in control of when and if the cameras are turned on in the House chamber, and whether any other cameras (generally prohibited) are allowed in. (Alas, I’m not having much luck in determining the veracity of this understanding.)
Make Trump’s head explode. Tell him he can come give his speech, but the cameras won’t be turned on.
Since this isn’t really likely to change any hearts or minds, I’d be tempted to tentatively agree to the STOU only to formally disinvite Trump on the 29th right before the main event.