Trump Hits Back at Pelosi, Threatening Her Trip to See Troops – The New York Times

Democrats, newly in control of the House and eager to use their power to challenge Mr. Trump, vowed that they would not be bullied into scrapping the trip altogether.

“We’re not going to allow the president of the United States to tell the Congress it can’t fulfill its oversight responsibilities, it can’t ensure that our troops have what they need whether our government is open or closed,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the chairman of the intelligence panel.

“We are a coequal branch of government,” Mr. Schiff said, suggesting that the president apparently did not understand the new reality in Washington. “It may not have been that way with the past two years when he had a Republican Congress willing to roll over anytime he asked, but that is no longer the case.”

Mr. Schiff was on the bus outside the Rayburn House Office Building near the Capitol when Mr. Trump fired off his letter, along with Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and several other lawmakers in what made for an unusual tableau.

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.

In the hallway one floor below, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, sputtered with anger.

“It’s petty, it’s small, it’s vindictive,” Mr. Hoyer said. “It is unbecoming of a president of the United States, but it is unfortunately a daily occurrence.”

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.