Speaking of Nancy

Mr. Trump’s decision to upend Ms. Pelosi’s travel plans was a remarkable bit of one-upmanship in an increasingly bitter government shutdown drama in which Mr. Trump and Ms. Pelosi, the newly elected Democratic speaker, are the main antagonists.

The day before, Ms. Pelosi had suggested that the president cancel or delay his State of the Union address this month, citing security concerns amid a prolonged partial shutdown that has forced thousands of federal employees to work without pay. Mr. Trump at first said nothing, but 24 hours later, without mentioning her request, the president released a sarcasm-tinged letter in which he told her the trip was off.

[...]

Instead of heading for Joint Base Andrews and boarding a military plane, the lawmakers sat stunned on their bus, unsure of what to do next, until it eventually drove slowly to the Capitol driveway — some journalists jogging or riding electric scooters to keep up — to disgorge its perplexed passengers. At one point, the House sergeant-at-arms, the chamber’s chief law enforcement officer, turned up to puzzle over the security arrangements for the lawmakers, whose secret travel plans were now public. And the speaker, holed up in her office with aides as reporters mixed near the Rotunda with tourists oblivious to the drama, calmly plotted her next steps.

[...]

White House officials — including Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff — had been irked by Ms. Pelosi’s invocation of security concerns as her premise for urging Mr. Trump to move his speech, and sought to put her in her place after she had emphasized that she represented a coequal branch in governing, according to aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

Depriving Ms. Pelosi of an aircraft was the easiest way to remind her, they said. So Mr. Trump made a play for dominance and one-upmanship.

[...]

A White House spokesman said that all coming official visits by lawmakers, known as congressional delegations or “codels,” would be canceled until the shutdown is over, and by day’s end on Thursday, officials announced that Mr. Trump had also canceled plans to send Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

But Melania Trump, the first lady, kept her plans to fly on a military jet to West Palm Beach, Fla., to go to the family’s Mar-a-Lago compound.

  NYT

She really doesn't care. Remember?

I'm actually surprised to learn she was even at the White Houe. Did she come back for the hamberder dinner?

[Trump's] letter [grounding Pelosi] amounted to the latest reminder, if any was needed, that the stalemate over Mr. Trump’s demand that Democrats support his request for $5.7 billion to build a border wall has reached such a poisonous pitch that even the most tradition-bound rituals of government — the president’s annual address to a joint session of Congress, lawmakers’ periodic trips overseas to gather facts and perform oversight — have been consumed in a storm of ill will and competing agendas.

[...]

But there was some indication that House Democrats, increasingly concerned that they have not sufficiently countered Mr. Trump’s demands for a wall with ideas of their own, were privately weighing offering their own plan for more effectively securing the border.

[...]

The president, [Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon] said, “is making this about border security, but what he is proposing would not provide real border security — it’s a stupid, static wall which is a symbol, and it’s not a great symbol, and it would be ineffective.”

Among the investments that Mr. DeFazio said should be made instead are more money for Coast Guard equipment and personnel to intercept maritime drug shipments, better technology to scan vehicles legally crossing the border to detect illegal drugs, resources for costly reconfiguration of border crossings to make them more secure, and funds for additional personnel to police them.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.