Washington: Top congressional Democrats walked out of a fractious White House meeting on Syria policy Wednesday when US President Donald Trump attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “third-rate politician.”
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One of the Democrats attending the meeting, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said Trump launched into a “nasty diatribe” against them, while Pelosi said the president experienced a “meltdown.”
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The toxic exchange was the latest sign of the dramatically deteriorating relations between Trump and Pelosi since she launched an impeachment investigation against him last month.
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“He was insulting, particularly to the Speaker…. He called her a third-rate politician,” said Schumer after they abruptly left the White House meeting on Trump’s controversial troop pullout from northern Syria.
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Other lawmakers from both parties remained inside, he noted.
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Pelosi said Trump appeared “very shaken up” by an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the House earlier Wednesday condemning his troop pullback, which critics say effectively gave Turkey a green light to invade northern Syria and attack Kurdish militia.
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“What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown. Sad to say,” Pelosi added.
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House veteran Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat, said he and others were “offended deeply” by Trump’s treatment of Pelosi.
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Trump has repeatedly disparaged Pelosi on Twitter in the weeks since the probe began.
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Hoyer sounded alarmed at the intensity of the White House confrontation.
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“I’ve been in many, many, many meetings like this,” he said. “Never have I seen a president treat so disrespectfully a co-equal branch of the government of the United States.”
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Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham rejected the Democratic version of events, saying the president had been “measured and decisive,” and that Pelosi walking out was “baffling but not surprising.”
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“Dem ‘leadership’ chose to storm out & whine to camera,” Grisham tweeted. “Everyone else stayed to work on behalf of our country.”
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Addressing reporters after the talks, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy likewise accused Pelosi of “storming out” and exhibiting behaviour “unbecoming of a speaker.”
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The meeting was the first face-to-face encounter between Trump and Pelosi since her explosive September 24 statement announcing a formal impeachment inquiry.
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Pelosi said the investigation did not come up during the meeting.
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