by Stephen Dietrich, Managing Editor
A fleet of buses will shuttle 100 lawmakers from Capitol Hill to the White House Wednesday afternoon for a secret, closed-door meeting on the growing nuclear tensions with North Korea.
The move for an all-hands on deck meeting with every U.S. senator is extremely rare, and it has staffers for both Democratic and Republican senators scratching their heads.
So what’s behind the unusual setting for this North Korean meeting?
It’s simple: Leadership.
The move by President Donald Trump to summon every U.S. senator shows how serious the situation is with madman Kim Jong Un — and the White House is hosting as a way to get bipartisan support for his plans.
Because Trump is not confirmed to be attending, it’s a way for his administration to put aside political theater and break down to Congress what is really important.
Trump knows that liberal lawmakers are under immense pressure to fight Trump at every turn.
So, in the interest of America’s security, the president is giving his political opponents a break.
Traditionally briefings, like this North Korea meeting, are held at a secure meeting area on Capitol Hill. The location change has left outsiders confused.
But if the president attended a traditional meeting, it would be a high profile event. Secret Service and the presidential entourage heading towards Congress would make it obvious to media reporters surrounding the White House that Trump was addressing Congress personally on his plan for North Korea.
That would put liberal lawmakers, under attack from their angry base to oppose anything and everything put forward by the Trump administration, under pressure.
In a time of crisis, the White House needs everyone — liberals included — on board with his plan.
The administration knows that one misstep could result in nuclear disaster.
Trump is no fool. He knows what the political situation is in the United States.
So he’s gathering lawmakers from both sides of the aisle together at the White House for his North Korea meeting, instead of putting them on the spot.
The White House is being very coy about Trump’s attendance. “If he attends — which is not determined — it will just be a brief drop-by,” one official told The Washington Post.
Not everyone gets it, of course.
“I, frankly, don’t understand why it’s not easier to bring four people here than it is to take 100 there,” Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent allied with Democrats, told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Read between the lines, folks.
Congressmen like King are afraid to do anything except fight the president, for fear they’ll be thrown out of office.
The president and his security team know this is not time for political gesturing.
It’s time for leadership, not cheap political points.
In the interest of American security, Trump is taking the high road.
So he is holding the briefing without asking for credit.
“That meeting is a Senate meeting led by Leader McConnell, just utilizing our space,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters. “So that is their meeting. So we’re not there to talk strategy.”
Trump is setting the secret meeting at a neutral location that allows him to attend and address lawmakers without political theater.
It’s nice to have a leader interested more in America’s future than with political points.
— Stephen Dietrich is the Managing Editor of The Horn News