President Trump said Wednesday he may do an “alternative” State of the Union after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blocked him from delivering the address in the House chamber while the government is shut down.
“We’ll do something in the alternative,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
He provided no further details about such an event but said they would be revealed “at a later date.”
Speaking at a meeting with conservative leaders, Trump called Pelosi’s decision a “disgrace,” accused her of not wanting “to hear the truth” and bowing to the “super-left” members of her party.
{mosads}Pelosi informed Trump in a letter earlier Wednesday that the House would not take the legislative steps necessary to host the address inside the House chamber next Tuesday.
The move denies Trump a major, nationally televised platform to deliver his annual message to the country.
It also ups the stakes in the battle of wills between Trump and Pelosi over the prolonged government shutdown, which was caused by an impasse over his demand for wall funding and has stretched into a 33rd day.
Trump said Pelosi “doesn’t want to know the truth” about the situation at the southern border and called her decision “a great blotch on the great country we all love.”
The Speaker wrote in her letter she would invite the president to deliver his speech “on a mutually agreeable date” but only “when government has been opened.”