Pelosi, Trump trade meltdown barbs
Top Senate Republican wants stronger resolution
WASHINGTON, Oct 17, (Agencies): US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democratic leaders cut short a meeting with Republican President Donald Trump after he had a “meltdown” over a House of Representatives vote condemning his Syria withdrawal and showed no signs of having a plan to deal with a crisis there.
Trump called Pelosi a “third-rate politician” and the meeting in the White House deteriorated into a diatribe, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters.
Later, in remarks to reporters on Capitol Hill, Pelosi said that Trump actually called her a “third-grade” politician.
“What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown. Sad to say,” Pelosi had said upon leaving.
Trump posted on Twitter on Wednesday night – “Nervous Nancy’s unhinged meltdown!” with a photo of Pelosi standing up and pointing at him during the meeting.
The Democrats exited the meeting complaining that they were expecting to hear Trump provide details on a plan for dealing with an unfolding “crisis” in Syria but instead were subjected to “derogatory” language from him about congressional Democrats and Democratic former president Barack Obama.
White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham, in a statement, called Pelosi’s decision to walk out “baffling but not surprising.”
She added that after Democratic leaders “chose to storm out,” remaining Republican leaders held a productive meeting.
Trump’s decision to withdraw American forces ahead of a Turkish offensive last week into northern Syria against USallied Syrian Kurdish fighters, removing their protection, has been roundly criticized, even by fellow Republicans. The Americans and the Kurds had fought alongside each other against Islamic State militants, some of whom were captured and jailed under Kurdish control in Syria.
A Democratic source familiar with the meeting said Trump referred to fewer than 100 Islamic State (ISIS) prisoners escaping after the president’s decision and that those were “the least dangerous” ones.
The source said that Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed the number of fewer than 100 but did not acknowledge that they were the least dangerous of those being held in prison.
The source added that Schumer pressed Esper on whether Turkey or Syria have ensured that the remaining prisoners be kept in jail. Esper, the source said, told lawmakers he did not have such intelligence reports.
Pelosi said Trump was upset at the start of the closed meeting because so many Republicans joined Democrats to vote for a resolution condemning his decision to withdraw US forces from northeastern Syria.
The vote was 354 to 60, with dozens of Trump’s fellow Republicans joining the majority Democrats. The split underscored deep unhappiness in Congress over Trump’s action, which many lawmakers view as abandoning loyal Kurdish fighters.
“I think that vote – the size of the vote, more than 2-1 of the Republicans voted to oppose what the president did – probably got to the president. Because he was shaken up by it,” Pelosi said after emerging from the White House.
“And that’s why we couldn’t continue in the meeting because he was just not relating to the reality of it.”
The Democratic source familiar with the meeting said that when Pelosi and Hoyer were getting ready to walk out, Trump said to them: “I’ll see you at the polls.” Nineteen Democratic contenders are seeking their party’s nomination to run against Trump in the November 2020 presidential election.
US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday he would like the Senate to pass a resolution on Syria that is stronger than the measure approved a day earlier by the US House of Representatives.
“My preference would be for something even stronger than the resolution the House passed yesterday, which has some serious weaknesses,” McConnell said in floor remarks.
He said the House measure, which passed on Wednesday with overwhelming bipartisan support, failed to address the plights of minority Sunni and Christian communities in Syria and was silent on whether to sustain a US military presence in the country.
Seeking to leverage his experience in foreign policy, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Wednesday ripped Trump’s withdrawal of US military forces from Syria as the latest proof that the president is a “complete failure” who is gutting American credibility around the world.
Biden used a 40-minute speech in Iowa to excoriate Trump for withdrawing American forces and leaving Syrian Kurds, key US allies in the yearslong fight against the Islamic State group, open to attacks from Turkey.
“It’s more insidious than the betrayal of our brave Kurdish partners; it’s more dangerous than taking the boot off the neck of ISIS,” the former vice-president said. “Trump is demolishing the moral authority of the United States of America” while emboldening US adversaries, including Russia and Iran.
Biden’s speech marks his latest attempt to push foreign affairs to the frontburner of the 2020 campaign. The core of Biden’s message to voters from the start has been that Trump is unfit for the job, and Biden often references foreign affairs as he campaigns, but the 76-year-old candidate and his aides see the Syria situation as a new crystallization of what’s at stake.