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“He was insulting, particularly to the speaker. She kept her cool completely, but he called her a third-rate politician,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told reporters, describing the interaction. “This was not a dialogue, it was sort of a diatribe. A nasty diatribe, not focused on the facts.”
Pelosi added, “What we witnessed on the part of the President was a meltdown, sad to say.”
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, the top congressional Democrats said that they walked out. Schumer said they did so “when he started calling Speaker Pelosi a third-rate politician.”
Pelosi later said that Trump had actually referred to her as a “third-grade politician.”
Pelosi said that she believes Trump was “very shaken up” by the Syria resolution vote and said that the impeachment inquiry did not come up during the conversation with the President.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland, said that Democrats “were offended deeply by his (the President’s) treatment of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.”
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham described the meeting differently, saying in a statement that Trump was “measured” and “decisive” and that Pelosi “had no intention of listening.”
“The President was measured, factual and decisive, while Speaker Pelosi’s decision to walk out was baffling, but not surprising,” Grisham said. “She had no intention of listening or contributing to an important meeting on national security issues. While Democratic leadership chose to storm out and get in front of the cameras to whine, everyone else in the meeting chose to stay in the room and work on behalf of this country.”
This isn’t the first time that a meeting between congressional Democrats and the President has ended dramatically.
Hoyer said that that the meeting “deteriorated” and said that there were “very offensive accusations being made by the President of the United States.”
“I have served with six Presidents. I have 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.”
This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.
CNN’s Eli Watkins contributed to this report.
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