House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) were visibly furious after emerging from a meeting about Syria with President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
The Democratic leaders told reporters that they walked out of the bipartisan meeting with Trump and other Republicans after the President called Pelosi a “third-rate politician” in an apparent fit of rage.
Schumer says Trump called Pelosi a "third rate politician" during a disastrous meeting pic.twitter.com/ikYKEGClTo
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 16, 2019
“This was not a dialogue,” said an incensed Schumer. “It was sort of a diatribe, a nasty diatribe not focused on the facts.”
Hoyer forcefully condemned Trump’s “treatment” of Pelosi.
“I have served with six presidents. I have been in many, many, many meetings like this,” Hoyer declared. “Never have I seen a president treat so disrespectfully a co-equal branch of the government of the United States.”
Pelosi said she believed Trump was “very shaken up” that a large majority of House Republicans had voted to oppose his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.
Pelosi says she thinks Trump was "very shaken up" by most House GOPers voting to oppose his Syria withdrawal pic.twitter.com/t1GWZDHuOo
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 16, 2019
“We witnessed on the part of the President was a meltdown,” she said. “Sad to say.”
The Democratic leaders said that Trump had also implied that they were Communists, or at least had Communist sympathies.
“Some of ISIS were Communists, and that might make you happy,” he allegedly told them, according to the Democrats.
According to Pelosi, the House impeachment inquiry did not come up during the meeting.
Pelosi says Trump had a "meltdown" during their meeting pic.twitter.com/4rdwh4vDfc
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 16, 2019
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) accused Pelosi of trying to make the meeting “unproductive.”
“You see a pattern of behavior with Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” McCarthy told reporters. “She storms out of another meeting, trying to make it unproductive.”
“The other Democrats, they actually had a very productive meeting,” he added.
McCarthy accuses Pelosi of making the contentious meeting with Trump "unproductive" pic.twitter.com/YgmWnUAqWk
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 16, 2019
