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White House Moves Forward With State Of The Union Plans After Pelosi Urged Delay

President Trump delivers his first State of the Union address on Jan. 30, 2018, in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol. The White House is moving forward with plans for this year's speech on Jan. 29, but it's unclear whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will agree to it amid the partial government shutdown.
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President Trump delivers his first State of the Union address on Jan. 30, 2018, in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol. The White House is moving forward with plans for this year's speech on Jan. 29, but it's unclear whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will agree to it amid the partial government shutdown.

After a week of tit for tat with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, amid a monthlong government shutdown, the White House is now moving ahead with plans for the president's State of the Union address, proceeding as if it were happening as originally planned next week.

White House officials are aiming for the speech to occur before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Jan. 29. But it is far from guaranteed. The House must pass a resolution to call a joint session with the Senate before the president can come speak.

It's unclear whether that will happen; Pelosi hasn't yet weighed in on whether she will allow it.

White House and House Democratic aides confirm to NPR that the White House requested a security walk-through of the U.S. Capitol on Monday. That was declined because of the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

The original security check was canceled last week after Pelosi sent a letter to Trump suggesting that he reschedule his State of the Union address, or submit it in writing because of security concerns resulting from the government shutdown.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pushed back on the security concerns, saying in a tweet last week that even if they weren't getting paid, the U.S. Secret Service and others in the Department of Homeland Security "are fully prepared to support and secure the State of the Union."

While there has been no official communication between the White House and the speaker's office since last week, President Trump did tweet a response to Pelosi over the weekend, criticizing her for walking back the invitation and leaving the outcome uncertain.

"I'll get back to you soon!" the president wrote.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Kelsey Snell is a Congressional correspondent for NPR. She has covered Congress since 2010 for outlets including The Washington Post, Politico and National Journal. She has covered elections and Congress with a reporting specialty in budget, tax and economic policy. She has a graduate degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. and an undergraduate degree in political science from DePaul University in Chicago.
Tamara Keith has been a White House correspondent for NPR since 2014 and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast, the top political news podcast in America. Keith has chronicled the Trump administration from day one, putting this unorthodox presidency in context for NPR listeners, from early morning tweets to executive orders and investigations. She covered the final two years of the Obama presidency, and during the 2016 presidential campaign she was assigned to cover Hillary Clinton. In 2018, Keith was elected to serve on the board of the White House Correspondents' Association.