Boehner Won’t Withhold SOTU Invitation for Obama: Why Deprive Him of Opportunity to Become More Unpopular?

In the wake of President Obama’s unilateral executive action on immigration, some Republicans are pushing Speaker John Boehner to fight back in one of the few ways he can – by withholding the traditional congressional invite to present the State of the Union address to Congress in January.

But the House leader had a novel reason for continuing to extend the invitation this year: It’ll give the president a chance to become even more unpopular.

Earlier this week, Georgia Republican congressman Paul Brown called on Boehner to keep Obama from addressing Congress, a sentiment echoed by some conservatives — including the editor of National Review.

But when Boehner was asked about the plan, he dismissed the idea with a brutal shot at the president. “Listen, the more the president talks about his ideas, the more unpopular he becomes,” the speaker quipped. “Why would I want to deprive him of that opportunity?”

Other GOP lawmakers, including Kansas’s Tim Huelskamp, want the House to defund Air Force One and other White House functions in retaliation for Obama’s perceived executive overreach on immigration.