Amid shutdown drama, Trump retaliates by blocking Pelosi’s Afghan trip

Washington: US President Donald Trump has barred Speaker Nancy Pelosi from flying on a Pentagon plane to Afghanistan in a tit-for-tat for her blocking his State of the Union Address as a new act unfolded in the farcical drama of egos playing on the sidelines of the government shutdown paralyzing all but vital operations. Mirroring her reasons for canceling Trump’s ceremonial speech to Congress, the President wrote to Pelosi on Thursday that “due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed”. “We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over,” he added.

On Wednesday, Pelosi had written to the President that he could not deliver the address because security cannot be assured due to the shutdown. Trump has announced he was cutting the number of US troops by half to 7,000 in Afghanistan while its government is battling the Taliban and other terrorist organizations, some backed by Pakistan. He also grounded his Cabinet members — Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross — who were to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Even Republican leaders criticized Trump’s response to Pelosi. “One sophomoric response does not deserve another,” Senator Lindsey Graham said, while fellow Republican Senator John Cornyn remarked that there was too much “childishness” in the Trump-Pelosi fight. Trump ordered the flight canceled just as Pelosi was preparing to fly out to visit American troops in Afghanistan on a mission that had been kept secret for security reasons. Buses were even waiting outside the Capitol with some members of her entourage already on board to take them to a military base for the flight when cancellation was announced. Trump sarcastically suggested that she could fly to the war zone on commercial planes.

Pelosi’s spokesperson Drew Hamill said that the stop in Brussels that Trump mentioned was to give the pilot a break and while there she had planned to meet NATO leaders. The trip was to “express appreciation and thanks” to the troops in Afghanistan and to get security and intelligence briefings, he added. (IANS)

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