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Are you all following this SOTU/NATO trip thing? Because wow, what a doozy, and even Trump's closest elected buddies seem to be like DUDE WHAT ARE YOU DOING
Weirdly, one of the more concise descriptions of the volleys between Trump and Pelosi is a WaPo opinion piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
So, Pelosi postpones the SOTU until the govt's open again, and tells Trump he can submit his remarks in writing. This is, of course, the thing that's going to piss him off most because 1) someone's telling him what to do, 2) that person is female, 3) missed camera opp.
So, Trump responds with a letter, replete with errors, canceling the trip she and others were going to take to visit with troops in Afghanistan and NATO leaders.
Like, this is bonkers and just SILLY. And I'm not sure there's any way to make this look good, given that he acted like a critical diplomatic & intelligence trip was a vacation. 
Plus, he doesn't actually have the authority to cancel the trip (possibly to not let them use military aircraft, but not to dictate whether or not they go).
Like, he just handed Democrats the opportunity to look noble and committed and self-sacrificing, because they were just like, "we're going anyway, I guess we'll fly commercial."
And then, after attempting to cancel a critical diplomatic and intelligence visit, designed both to keep the US safe and benefit troops, he's sending Mnuchin to hobnob with oligarchs at Davos.
(The Davos trip got canceled, but not before it went public.)
But holy shit, it gets worse. National security protocols say you don't disclose where officials are going when they're visiting a war zone.
This is so bad that LINDSEY GRAHAM is calling him out.
And then, it gets WORSE. Trump leaked their commercial travel plans, putting them, the airline, and the other passengers in enough danger that they had to cancel.
It's actually hard to get one's head around this level of absurdity. (And when I call it absurd, that's not to minimize how bad this is.) It's also kind of satisfying to see Pelosi basically just using her Mom Voice on him, which is probably the most rational response.
But wow, not that it wasn't obvious before, but stuff like this SO blatantly exposes that Trump thinks of holding a government role as something you do for the perks, acting like telling congresspeople they can't go on a NATO trip is *punishment.*
Anyway, thank you for joining me for today's edition of "Jessica eats breakfast, reads the news, and spit-takes her tea."
