Beyond “putting her in her place,” it’s still unclear what Donald Trump hoped to achieve by canceling Nancy Pelosi’s “public-relations event” to a war zone in Afghanistan last week. If he thought the move would inspire the House Speaker to re-extend her invitation to the president to deliver a State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on January 29, he was sadly mistaken. (In fact, it likely had the opposite effect.) Pelosi is as resolute as ever, and public-opinion polling continues to look grim for the president. And so, with Democrats aligned against him, Trump is reportedly considering a new stratagem to get his urgent message to the American people: ignoring Pelosi’s letter barring him from Congress, and giving his SOTU speech anyway.

It’s unclear whether the White House is bluffing. According to Fox News’ John Roberts, the White House sent a letter to the House Sergeant at Arms to schedule a walk-through of the House chamber to ensure its security in advance of the speech. “Checking on the postponed SOTU walk-through meeting from last week. Given that we have lost valuable time over the past week my team would like to reschedule the walk-through for this Monday, if at all possible,” the White House’s director of presidential advance wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Washington Post. (Pelosi had reportedly canceled a walk-through scheduled for January 16.) Per the Post, Monday’s walk-through never occurred. But White House officials indicated that Trump remains dead set on giving his speech on January 29. “If the Secret Service can protect the president of the United States on a trip to Iraq, chances are they can protect the American president in the halls of Congress,” deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox News on Tuesday. Failing that, he added, “There are many ways [Trump] can deliver the State of the Union address.”

Additional reports confirmed that Trump is moving full steam ahead with his SOTU preparations:

Of course, if the government is reopened by the January 29, Trump will almost certainly be able to proceed as planned. On Tuesday afternoon, that became a smidgen more likely when The New York Times reported that Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer had reached an agreement to place Trump’s recent compromise proposal—$5.7 billion for the wall, extensions of DACA protections, but severe curtailing of immigrant children’s ability to claim asylum—as well as a bill passed through the House to reopen the government until February 8, on the floor for a vote. Yet both bills seem pre-emptively doomed: Democrats are unlikely to break in favor of Trump’s plan, and McConnell himself does not support the House bill, which G.O.P. aides say will not attract the necessary 60 votes in the Senate.

If both bills fail and the shutdown continues, Trump’s posturing may be useless. As Fox congressional correspondent Chad Pergram noted, the president cannot speak in front of Congress unless the Senate and the House approve a concurrent resolution allowing him to address a joint session—a move that Pelosi will likely refuse to entertain as long as the government remains closed. “If that doesn’t happen, the gig is up,” Pergram wrote on Twitter. “End of story.”

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