Call for help after Trump tantrum
US HOUSE Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that President Donald Trump had thrown a temper tantrum at a meeting with Democratic congressional leaders a day earlier and that she wished his family or staff would conduct “an intervention” with him for the good of the country.
In a second consecutive day of tough words about Trump by the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, Pelosi accused Trump of obstruction of justice, which, she said, was an impeachable offence.
“Again, I pray for the president of the US. I wish that his family, or his administration, or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country,” Pelosi said.
On Wednesday, shortly before a scheduled meeting with Trump at the White House to discuss infrastructure investment legislation, Pelosi accused Trump of a “cover-up” in regard to investigations related to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US elections.
Her remarks rankled Trump and prompted him to walk out of the meeting after just three minutes, possibly sinking the legislation’s prospects. Trump said it was impossible to work on such legislation as long as Democrats were continuing their “phony” investigations of him.
At her weekly news conference yesterday, Pelosi remained on the attack, repeating her contention that Trump was incapable of working on complex legislative issues. “I can only think that he wasn’t up to the task of figuring out the difficult choices of how to cover the cost of… the important infrastructure legislation that we had talked about three weeks before.”
Although she raised the issue of obstruction, Pelosi said House Democrats were not yet prepared to launch formal impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Even though Trump has said he is not willing to engage in bipartisan work on legislation as long as House Democrats are investigating him, both Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer have challenged Republicans to leave the president behind and continue working on legislation without him.