By Meg Wagner, Veronica Rocha and Amanda Wills, CNN
From CNN's Manu Raju
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just held a private meeting with Democrats.
She discussed her request to delay the State of the Union, according to a source in the room, and said this:
Maybe the President is comfortable not paying his employees for their work, but Democrats aren’t.
She also said that law enforcement would rise to the challenge — but they would be doing so without pay.
Any minute now, Pelosi will take reporters' questions at a press conference.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is scheduled hold her weekly news conference at 10:45 a.m. ET.
She'll likely be asked about the letter she sent to President Trump yesterday, in which she asked him to move the day of the State of the Union address or deliver it in writing, citing security concerns from the ongoing government shutdown.
In the end, this is a decision that's up to Pelosi and the House. It’s Pelosi's prerogative to invite and, while there’s no precedent for it, if she decides the President shouldn’t speak at the Capitol on Jan. 29, the President won’t be speaking at the Capitol on Jan. 29 (at least not to address a joint session of Congress).
The House and the Senate have to pass resolutions to actually green light the State of the Union. Neither have done so yet and, well, Speaker Pelosi controls whether the House passes one at all.
Eric Young, a father of three and a corrections officer who is working without pay during the shutdown, said he's burning through savings to help pay for his son's college education.
Young said his wife is out of work with an injury, so he's the family's sole breadwinner. His son just graduated from basic training.
"I'm .... digging out of savings to basically try to cover expenses, like registration fees for college tuition,"
Watch more:
From CNN's Manu Raju
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said this morning that the White House has yet to respond to her request for delaying the State of the Union address.
"No, no response," she told CNN.
Yesterday, Pelosi asked that the White House work with her on finding a new date for Trump's State of the Union address.
Keep in mind, in order to green light the State of the Union, both the House and the Senate have to pass resolutions. Neither have done so yet — and Pelosi controls whether the House passes one at all.
From CNN's Phil Mattingly
Speaker Nancy Pelosi shook things up by suggesting President Trump work with her to reschedule the Jan. 29 State of the Union address — or just submit it in writing.
The stated reason was security concerns — both the Department of Homeland Security and US Secret Service currently aren’t funded during the shutdown — but it was widely viewed as a move to jam the White House and shake up a dynamic that has been firmly set in “frozen” for weeks.
The lack of official White House response (or fiery tweet in response) has surprised Democrats up to this point, according to several aides.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan proposal in the Senate to get out of the shutdown circulated Wednesday. The plan promised border security negotiations in exchange for an immediate re-opening of the government.
The White House lobbied Republicans against signing the letter. Democrats wanted at least 20 GOP signatures to prove it had legs, but the signatures fell far short of the goal. Consider the letter dead.
The bottom line is this: On the 27th day of the government shutdown, we're at a point where it's all power plays and positioning. In other words, there is still no end in sight.
From CNN's Faith Karimi
Cardi B is upset and worried. And she wants the world to know.
In a profanity-laced video, the rapper on Wednesday night addressed the ongoing government shutdown.
"I just wanna remind you that it's been a little bit over three weeks," she says in the video. "Trump is now ordering ... federal government workers to go back to work without getting paid. ... This is serious. Our country is in a hellhole right now. All for a ... wall."
Cardi B said she's feeling anxious and helpless as the shutdown drags on.
"I feel like we need to take some action," she says. "I don't know what type of action ... because this is not what I do. But ... I'm scared."
From CNN's Greg Wallace
The Trump administration has been calling back furloughed workers and changing their status to essential. They are still working without pay — but the move is allowing the government to do more functions during the shut down.
It turns out the administration has fairly wide latitude to determine what governmental functions are essential and which can be suspended during a shutdown, according to Alice Rivlin, who led the Clinton White House's Office of Management and Budget through what is now the second-longest shutdown.
"The law itself is pretty vague. It’s a question of what's essential and what isn't," she said. "In the end it's a judgement call."
For example, when the government shutdown under Clinton during the holidays, there was a lot of debate about the Christmas tree.
"I said I didn't think the Christmas tree was essential. That one got a lot of screams and a lot of volunteers (to keep it lit and operating)," she said. "I thought that was unfortunate. I thought we wanted to make as clear as possible that the shutdown was inconveniencing people."
From CNN's Jim Acosta
A White House official familiar with preparations says “at this point” Trump still plans to deliver his State of the Union speech as scheduled at the Capitol on Jan 29.
“The State of the Union address is on the 29th,” the official said. That’s the plan “at this point,” the official added.
On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wrote Trump a letter asking him to move the day of the State of the Union address or deliver it in writing, citing security concerns from the ongoing government shutdown.
Remember: It's actually up to Speaker Pelosi and the House if the President speaks in the chamber. It's Pelosi's prerogative to invite and while there’s no precedent for it, if she decides the President shouldn’t speak at the Capitol on that Jan. 29, the President won’t speak at the Capitol on Jan. 29.
The House and the Senate have to pass resolutions to actually green light the State of the Union. Neither have done so yet, and Speaker Pelosi controls whether the House passes one at all.
From CNN's MJ Lee
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that President Trump should stop negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and instead ramp up the pressure on rank-and-file Democrats.
Gingrich, Trump's ally who in the 1990s presided over one of the longest government shutdowns in US history, said he would advise Trump to hold political rallies in Democratic districts where the President performed well in 2016, with the goal of winning just enough Democratic support to break the current impasse.
"My advice would be: Why don't you schedule three rallies in three Democratic districts and have people show up — see how Democrats feel about that kind of direct pressure?" Gingrich told CNN in a phone interview Wednesday. "He ought to start planning right now. Reaching out to individual Democrats and ignoring Pelosi and Schumer."
Asked when he believed a new threshold would be reached when it comes to the length of the shutdown, Gingrich responded, "Late February."