WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday that he was postponing an unannounced trip of hers to Afghanistan and Brussels because of the federal government shutdown, one day after Pelosi suggested that Trump delay his State of the Union address.
"In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure that you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate," Trump wrote in a letter to Pelosi, D-Calif., released by the White House.
Pelosi and other lawmakers were planning to leave Thursday afternoon for Afghanistan, a trip that would include a required stop in Brussels for pilot rest, her spokesman Drew Hammill wrote on Twitter. He said there was no plan to stop in Egypt, contrary to how Trump described the trip in his letter.
Trump didn't explain what authority he has to cancel Pelosi's trip, but it probably would require the use of military aircraft controlled by his administration. He said Pelosi could fly commercial if she chose. Trump characterized the trip as a "seven-day excursion."
Denying military aircraft to a senior lawmaker is rare, and Congress was caught off guard. A bus to ferry the legislators to their departure idled Thursday outside the Capitol.
Hammill said the speaker planned to travel to Afghanistan and Brussels to thank service members and obtain briefings on national security and intelligence "from those on the front lines." He noted that Trump had traveled to Iraq during the shutdown and said a Republican-led congressional trip also had taken place.
In Brussels, the group was to meet with top NATO commanders and military leaders "to affirm the United States' ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance," Hammill wrote.
Pelosi would normally make such a trip on a military aircraft supplied by the Pentagon. According to a defense official, Pelosi did request Defense Department support for overseas travel, and it was initially approved. The official wasn't authorized to speak by name about the matter, so spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official said the president does have the authority to cancel the use of military aircraft.
White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump wanted Pelosi to stay in Washington before Tuesday, a deadline to prepare the next round of paychecks for federal workers.
"We want to keep her in Washington," Sanders said. "The president wants her here to negotiate."
Trump was taken by surprise by Pelosi's move to postpone his address and told one adviser that it was the sort of disruptive move that he would do himself, according to a Republican who is in frequent contact with the White House and was not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
Trump grew weary of how Pelosi's move was being received on cable TV and reiterated fears that he was being outmaneuvered in the public eye, the source said. Trump was delighted at the idea of canceling Pelosi's trip, believing that the focus on the resources needed would highlight her hypocrisy for canceling his speech, according to the source.
Trump's letter came a day after Pelosi wrote to the president, suggesting that he postpone his Jan. 29 State of the Union address if the partial government shutdown doesn't end this week, citing security concerns because of Secret Service and other personnel who are going unpaid during the shutdown.
Trump has yet to respond to Pelosi's suggestion.
While Pelosi did not directly respond to being denied her trip, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, Rep. Steny Hoyer, called Trump's action "petty. It is small. It is vindictive."
And Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., slammed Trump for revealing Pelosi's closely held travel plans. (The president's trip to Iraq was not disclosed in advance for security reasons.)
"I think the president's decision to disclose a trip the speaker's making to a war zone was completely and utterly irresponsible in every way," Schiff said.
Pelosi was to have been joined on the trip by other lawmakers, including Schiff, the intelligence committee chairman, and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.
The president and congressional Democrats remain at an impasse over his request for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump had pledged during his presidential campaign that the wall would be paid for by Mexico.
Democrats are refusing to go beyond the current $1.3 billion annual level for border barriers and fences, a stalemate that has closed large parts of the government since Dec. 22. The funding lapse, which entered its 27th day Thursday, is the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
Pelosi told reporters earlier Thursday: "Let's get a date when government is open. Let's pay the employees. Maybe he thinks it's OK not to pay people who do work. I don't."
Trump declined to address the stalemate over the speech Thursday during a visit to the Pentagon, simply promising that the nation will have "powerful, strong border security."
In Trump's letter to Pelosi, he said, "I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown.
"I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive attention, funding and security it so desperately deserves," he added.
Trump's move drew a rebuke from one of his allies, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
"One sophomoric response does not deserve another. Speaker Pelosi's threat to cancel the State of the Union is very irresponsible and blatantly political," Graham wrote. "President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate."
While the shutdown dragged on, the State Department instructed all U.S. diplomats in Washington and elsewhere to return to work next week with pay, saying it had found money for their salaries at least temporarily.
In a notice to staff members, the department said it can pay most of its employees beginning Sunday or Monday for their next pay period. They will not be paid for time worked since the shutdown began in December until the situation is resolved, the notice said.
BACK-PAY
When funding is restored to federal agencies shuttered by the partial government shutdown, employees who have been on unpaid furloughs will receive back-pay, under legislation Trump signed Wednesday.
The measure extends to furloughed employees the same guarantee of eventual pay that already had applied to those who have remained on the job in unfunded agencies because of the safety- or security-related nature of their work.
Of the 800,000 federal employees in unpaid status since Dec. 22, more than half have continued to work. They have been assured of back-pay when funding is restored for their agency, but there had been no such assurance for those who were furloughed. In previous shutdowns, they, too, had been paid retroactively, however.
Back-pay is to be provided "at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates," under the bill.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said the bill provides "some long-term relief to furloughed workers, but we still need to reopen the government immediately. The promise of back pay will not cover the cost of rent or groceries today. It won't make a car payment or cover prescriptions."
'COMPLETELY WRONG'
Gary Cohn, Trump's former top economic adviser, said in an interview published Thursday that the partial government shutdown is "completely wrong" and that he is confused by the White House's strategy in the standoff with Congress.
"I don't understand what the outcome is here, and I don't understand where we're going with it," Cohn was quoted as saying in a Boston Globe article about his appointment as a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics. "I'm confused as to what the White House's strategy is on this a little bit."
In the interview, Cohn said the furloughing of thousands of federal workers "makes absolutely no sense whatsoever," according to the Globe.
Cohn, a free-trade advocate, stepped down as director of the National Economic Council on March 6 after Trump announced that he was imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
Information for this article was contributed by John Wagner, Erica Werner and Eric Yoder of The Washington Post; and by Catherine Lucey, Matthew Lee, Zeke Miller, Lisa Mascaro, Jon Lemire, Matthew Daly, Mary Clare Jalonick and Lolita C. Baldor of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/18/2019