Rep. Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana, urged President Trump to delay the State of the Union until after his impeachment trial in the Senate wrapped up.
“Speaker Pelosi, by delaying delivering articles of impeachment, is hoping ongoing Senate trial and impeachment cloud hangs over the president during his State of the Union address to Congress,” Banks wrote Tuesday on Facebook and in tweets about the scheduled Feb. 4 speech.
“President Trump should tell her ‘no games’ and tell her he’ll deliver the State of the Union only after our country clears the divisive impeachment hurdle. It’s not just America watching the State of the Union each year. Tehran is watching. Hong Kong is watching. Taipei is watching,” wrote Banks, 40, who has represented a Fort Wayne-based district in the eastern part of Indiana since 2017.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday she will send over the articles of impeachment on Wednesday. The pair of impeachment articles, relating to the Ukraine military aid affair, passed the House Dec. 18. The Senate had already begun planning to start the trial on Jan. 21, after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas previously told the Washington Examiner he was open to the White House and Pelosi agreeing to delay the State of the Union, calling the circumstances of an impeached president giving remarks in the chamber that impeached him “awkward.”
But not all congressional Republicans agree with Rep. Banks and Sen. Cornyn on the speech being delayed.
“Even if he is yet to be exonerated over in the Senate, it’s going to be viewed as a president who has been harassed and falsely accused from the day he entered into office — actually, prior to that, prior to the inauguration,” North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows told the Washington Examiner. “I don’t know that it’s going to matter. The Democrats are going to still sit on their hands when he says something that everybody should applaud. They’re going to continue to sit there on their hands as they’ve done every other State of the Union address that he’s made.”
