This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019. I'm Caleb Brown.

It has never been a better time than now for the president to decide to deliver the State of the

Union address by mail or possibly Twitter.

Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute.

He discusses why Nancy Pelosi gave the president a good opportunity to mail it in.

So, am I to understand correctly that Nancy Pelosi canceled the stay of the Union address or delayed it?

She hasn't canceled it but last week she sent President Trump a letter calling on him

to consider delivering his State of the Union address in writing to Congress.

She cited the shutdown and security concerns due to the fact that the Secret Service hasn't been funded during fully funded during the

shutdown but that all seems to be bogus a pretext of the DHS has said they're ready for it but she's called on him to delay it or

consider delivering it in writing.

All right so what was the general reaction from the president's friends in the House and Senate?

Well, they kind of went apoplectic.

Minority leader Kevin McCarthy called it unbecoming of the speaker in the

Washington Post the former George W Bush speech writer Mark Thiessen said it was

unprecedented and outrageous and accused Pelosi the kind of norm-shattering behavior

that Trump always gets blamed for.

So they weren't happy with it at all.

Although whatever her reasons for doing it, even if she is just playing

politics as it seems like she is, it's a good idea. The State of the Union in general is just a series of extended applause lines for whoever the President is, it gives partisans an opportunity to either scoff a bit or cheer. It creates a lot of

sound bites for the next day, but there doesn't, there's no substance to it. could very well be delivered by hand

yeah it would give us all a break if it was the Constitution the original

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