Southern border, Oval Office, Senate floor considered possible venues
Source: Jamie White at infowars.com
Update (3:12 PM CT): President Trump has responded to House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s rejection of the State of the Union address. “SOTU has been cancelled by Pelosi because she doesn’t want to hear the truth. She doesn’t want the public to hear what’s going on, & she’s afraid of the truth. The radical Dems, what’s going on in that party is shocking. I know many people that were Dems & they’re switching,” he told the press.
Republican lawmakers have offered President Trump numerous possible alternatives to deliver his State of the Union address after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the speech would not be held on the House floor.
Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Trump could deliver the address at the SuperDome in New Orleans.
“We are gonna be a little more free the next couple weeks than we should be after the Saints were robbed,” Scalise told The Hill Wednesday.
Several other lawmakers suggested the president deliver the SOTU at or near the southern border to help crystallize his argument about border security.
“…I could see the president doing it at the border or doing it at a stadium or someplace where a lot of people could come in and hear the address,” Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) said. “I think it ought to be held here, but if not, I’d like to see it out there somewhere in America and let the American people be involved in it.”
“I would like to see him do it at the edge. So, in a place like one of the places we were at yesterday,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said.
“You see the wall and you see this little-barbed wire fence on rickety sticks, the little gate was tied up with a rope with a slipknot on it in case anybody wants to cross the border illegally. They could just take the rope off and pull it down and go through.”
Other lawmakers said the SOTU should be held in a place of proper decorum, such as the Senate floor or Oval Office.
“You know, listen, there’s a number of options whether it’s on the Senate side, in the Oval Office or on the border,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said.
“I mean maybe the president goes to Texas or Arizona, you know, and makes an address — it wouldn’t be a State of the Union— but an official address from those places. At this point, I think everybody wants to hear what he plans to do for the upcoming year and it would be well received.”
Pelosi announced the SOTU would not go forward in a statement just hours after Trump declared he would go through with the address on the House floor despite her “security concerns.”
