Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives Tim Moore invited President Trump to deliver the State of the Union address in the chambers of the state’s House of Representatives in Raleigh in a letter that was dated January 17 and released to the press Friday afternoon.
On Wednesday, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) asked President Trump to cancel his State of the Union address, scheduled for January 29, in the chambers of the House of Representatives, due to the partial federal government shutdown.
On Thursday, President Trump denied Pelosi access to a military plane for a planned seven day international trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan, also citing the partial federal shutdown.
The Constitution requires that the President deliver a written State of the Union report annually to the Congress. The State of the Union was not delivered in a speech to a joint session of Congress in the chambers of the U.S. House of Representatives until 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson was the first to do so. Every year since then, the president has delivered the State of the Union address in person to a joint session of Congress in the chambers of the U.S. House of Representatives, in addition to delivering a written report, as required by the Constitution.
There is nothing to stop President Trump from having a written version of the State of the Union address delivered to Congress while he is simultaneously addressing the country from a location other than the chambers of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
A.P. Dillon, the North Carolina bureau chief of The Tennessee Star, broke the story Friday afternoon:
Moore’s invitation comes on the heels of the U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi canceling the President’s SOTU speech.
“Dear Mr. President, It is my sincere pleasure as the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives to invite you to deliver your second State of the Union Address in our chamber of this state’s General Assembly,” wrote Speaker Moore.
“The majestic character of our state House chamber and the splendor of North Carolina’s breathtaking landscapes are a fitting venue to deliver your second State of the Union address,” Moore wrote.
Speaker Moore wrote to President Trump that he is always welcome in North Carolina and that in the past, President Bill Clinton had given an address at the North Carolina General Assembly.
“The President of the United States is always welcome in the Old North State, where the weak grow strong, and the strong grow great. In fact, President Bill Clinton addressed a joint session of the North Carolina General Assembly here on March 13, 1997,” Speaker Moore wrote to President Trump in the invitation.
Moore also tweeted out the invitation:
Today I extended an invitation to President @RealDonaldTrump to deliver his second State of the Union address in the chambers of the North Carolina House of Representatives. https://t.co/e6Ano6ohJ5 #ncga #ncpol
— Speaker Tim Moore (@NCHouseSpeaker) January 18, 2019
The White House has not yet responded publicly to Speaker Moore’s invitation.
Breitbart Contributor Michael Patrick Leahy is the CEO & Editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star.
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