this. and what do you say, congressman actually it s sort of two-fold, one, to, you know, the brave members of the military who are in the thousands still in afghanistan, their families back here at home as they hear the president refer to this as a public relations event, a? b, when you think of the 800,000 federal workers who are still going to work and not getting paid and all their families who are dealing with all of that because of both parties, what s your message there? well, look, this shutdown should be ended immediately. they should reopen the government. that said, the president traveled during the shutdown. he went over to iraq over the holidays, christmas holidays and nancy pelosi s traveling now to afghanistan. i think the president and members of congress should go to places like that where our troops are serving, but the bigger issue is, i am just alarmed by the lack of urgency that all parties seem to be
position and her responsibilities. he s calling it a public relations event. i suspect the troops in afghanistan and the military families who have their troops in that war zone feel very differently about that. such a strong, such a strong point. and i m just wondering as you and i are talking, do you think the folks in the pentagon are do they get a heads up that of all of this? do we know? or are they learning as we re talking? reporter: let me be very candid with, everyone. i mean this quite seriously. we re talking 20,000 people. so somebody knows. somebody knows. reporter: i mean that seriously. the military aircraft that carry congressional members around the world, most of the time are based out of joint base andrews here just in the suburbs of washington where we see air force one often take off and land. so the air force which runs that
former spokesperson at the pentagon and can also just speak as a military veteran, admiral, when you first heard this news that the president is now informing the house speaker that her trips to egypt, brussels and specifically afghanistan, which our folks on capitol hill were surprised, this wasn t out there, the fact that she was going to this war zone has all been postponed and he referred to it as a public relations event. what are you thinking? i have to pick up on what gloria is suggesting. the denigration of this all into politics and that s really unfortunate because there are people who are really still serving our national security interests that are suffering here. i would never call a trip by congressional delegation to a war zone as a p.r. stand. they go there because they need to understand the missions that they re funding and that they re sending their constituents off to fight. that s a real that s a
the weekend, he took immediate action, according to a senior administration official. president trump s feud with congress i congressional democrats over the government shutdown taking a dramatic turn. late today, the white house issued this new letter, responding to house speaker nancy pelosi s request that trump postpone his state of the union address because she claimed federal workers weren t getting paid and, thus, it could be a security issue. now, the white house using that same excuse citing the 800,000 great american workers not receiving pay in order to pull authorization for pelosi s planned congressional trip to brussels, egypt and afghanistan just hours before she planned to leave. calling the official trip that includes a stop in a war zone a public relations event, even though trump also travelled to iraq early in the shutdown. the letter coming after more than a day of silence from the white house in response to pelosi. that s why i said to the
why do you think the president decided to cancel this trip only a half hour before nancy pee pe, adam schiff and other members were about to board a bus on capitol hill to take them to joint base andrews to fly out? because he can t help himself. that s the answer. we were just discussing this before. this is petty, as lindsey graham said earlier today, this is sophomoric. if you read the letter itself, it also shows you that the president really has no idea that congressional delegations to places like afghanistan are not exactly a day at the beach and that the service members really appreciate when you visit them and that they re fact finding, because you are in congress you have the power of the purse and you want to know what you re voting on. he called it a public relations event and a seven-day excursion, as if it s a day at the beach for nancy pelosi.