By early Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had traded insults several times. Pelosi called for a delay of Trump's planned Jan. 29 State of the Union address as long as portions of the government were shut down. The president then revoked military support for her weekend trip to visit troops in Afghanistan.
A couple days earlier, the House rebuked Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, for a history of racially and ethnically charged remarks, the latest his questioning of how "white supremacy" had become offensive.
"We have just been through a very difficult week," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. lamented. Could it get worse? Yes, it can. It almost did. And it still might.
Hoyer's comments came Thursday as he tried to restore calm to a rambunctious House after a fairly innocuous set of votes turned the chamber into a tinderbox of raw emotions. Republicans accused Democrats of trying to steal a vote, Democrats accused Republicans of not paying attention to the floor proceedings and, finally, a GOP lawmaker shouted "go back to Puerto Rico."
Tensions flared and lawmakers walked toward each other in the well of the House.
The chance of physical confrontation seemed to grow by the second, a cross between a Spike Lee movie where one remark turns an entire neighborhood into flames and a moment inside the regular brawls that occur in Taiwan's parliament.
Cooler heads prevailed, mostly because of Hoyer and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and their agreement to a do-over vote Wednesday. Scalise joked that maybe he could whip enough votes for the minority to actually win.
"I don't want to get too carried away," Scalise told Hoyer, "but I appreciate that we were able to resolve this, and I know tensions got a little heated."
The tension is only going to grow in coming days. The partial shutdown of federal agencies is now in its fifth week, an unprecedented duration. No serious negotiations have taken place since Trump walked out of a meeting of bipartisan congressional leaders after Pelosi said she had no intention of funding a border wall. READ MORE
