Democratic congressional leaders walked out of a White House meeting with Donald Trump on Wednesday after they claimed he had a ‘meltdown’ and insulted Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi said almost immediately afterwards that she was praying for the president’s mental health.
‘We have to pray for his health – because this was a very serious meltdown,’ she told reporters in the Capitol building after her return from the White House.
The speaker told reporters at the White House she thought the president was shaken by a vote in the House of Representatives shortly before their meeting, where dozens of Republicans joined Democrats to condemn Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria in a 354 to 60 vote.
‘The president was very shaken up by the fact that 354 – I had to make sure I had the number correct – and that means the majority, a big majority of the Republicans,’ she said.
‘We couldn’t continue in the meeting because he was just not relating to the reality of it,’ she said.
But the White House claimed the Democrats ‘stormed out of the meeting’ to ‘whine’ while President Trump was ‘measured, factual and decisive’ during the sit down.
The White House also released an extraordinary letter Trump wrote to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan last Wednesday urging him not to invade northern Syria and saying: ‘Don’t be a tough guy! Don’t be a fool! I will call you later.’
Speaker Nancy Pelosi walks out of the White House with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Pelosi’s fellow Democratic Congressional leaders fumed about the president’s treatment of the speaker.
‘He was insulting. Particularly to the Speaker,’ said Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer.
‘She kept her cool completely. But he called her a third rate politician. He said that there are Communists involved and you guys might like that. This was not a dialogue. It was sort of a diatribe, a nasty diatribe not focused on the facts.’
Schumer, Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer spoke to reporters outside the White House after they left the meeting with the president.
Pelosi said she responded to Trump: ‘I wish you were a politician, Mr. President, then you would know the art of the possible.’
The White House press secretary disputed the Democrats’ version of events.
‘The President was measured, factual and decisive, while Speaker Pelosi’s decision to walk out was baffling, but not surprising. 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,’ press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement to DailyMail.com.
The meeting was a scheduled briefing for both Democratic and Republican congressional leaders on situation with Turkey.
Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to go to Turkey after tensions have ratcheted in the wake of Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and Turkish troops crossing into the country to attack the Kurds.
But, by the Democrats’ account, it quickly digressed.
‘You’re going to hear the president say we walked out,’ Hoyer said. ‘We were offended deeply by his treatment of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The president, in my view, has created a crisis in the Middle East. A crisis that undermines the world’s competence in America. This crisis required a rational, reasonable discussion between those of us elected by the American people to set policy.’
He added: ‘Unfortunately the meeting deteriorated into a diatribe, as the Leader Schumer has said, and a 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. Never have I seen a president treat so disrespectfully a co-equal branch of the government of the United States.’
Some Democratic lawmakers invited to the meeting did stay behind to continue the briefing on the situation with Turkey.
Speaker Pelosi said President Trump had a ‘meltdown’ in a meeting with Congressional leaders
Chuck Schumer said President Trump called Speaker Pelosi a ‘third-rate politician’
Tensions between Trump and Democratic leaders have been high since Speaker Pelosi formally launched an impeachment inquiry into the president last month.
This was Pelosi and Trump’s first face-to-face meeting since she launched the investigation.
But the Speaker said the topic of impeachment did not come up in the briefing.
‘No, it did not come up. Not at all. No, it did not come up. It did not come up,’ she said.
Pelosi’s public concerns for the president’s health just an hour after the White House revealed a letter showing how Trump tried to cajole Erdogan into negotiating with Syrian Kurds instead of invading, a letter released by the White House reveals.
‘History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen,’ the president wrote on October 9, as Erdogan’s forces prepared to cross into Syria.
‘Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!’ he wrote. ‘I will call you later.’
Trump told reporters during a press conference Wednesday that he hadn’t given Erdogan ‘a green light’ to invade, and claimed releasing ‘a very powerful letter’ would dispel misconceptions about the impact of his troop withdrawal from Syria days before he wrote it.
‘If anybody saw the letter, which can be released very easily if you’d like – I could certainly release it,’ he said.
‘But I wrote a letter right after that conversation – a very powerful letter. There was never given a green light.’
The letter was initially leaked to Trish Reagan, an evening anchor on the Fox Business Network, then confirmed by the White House as being genuine amid questions online over whether it was a parody.
Correspondence: The letter reveals how Trump asked Erdogan not to invade northern Syria
The letter appears to support the president’s contention that he didn’t give Erdogan his approval for the military campaign.
‘Let’s work out a good deal!’ he wrote. ‘You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy—and I will.’
Trump promised new concessions from Mazloum Kobani, commander of the Kurdish army known as the Syrian Democratic Forces.
‘General Mazloum is willing to negotiate with you, and he is willing to make concessions that they would never have made in the past,’ he wrote. ‘I am confidently enclosing a copy of his letter to me, just received.’
The U.S. has funded and trained Mazloum’s forces for at least five years. The SDF was America’s main proxy fighting the ISIS terror army in Syria.
The president has struggled to sidestep blame for the bloodshed that followed his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria.
‘Maybe they’re going to fight it out,’ he said of Syria and Turkey, ‘but our men aren’t going to get killed over it.’
‘And just one other thing,’ he added. ‘They’ve been fighting for hundreds of years. This has been going on for hundreds of years.’
Trump pledged during the 2016 campaign to disentangle America’s military from what he called ‘forever wars’ – longstanding conflicts that the Pentagon has stabilized, often with thousands, or tens of thousands, of servicemen and women.
Name-checked: Mazloum Kobani, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces was a key U.S. ally until earlier this month when Trump ordered a U.S. troop pullout. In the letter Trump claimed the commander would offer Erdogan unprecedented concessions
War: Turkish residents stood overlooking the Syrian border and the town of Ras al-Ein which is under attack by the Turkish military
‘I will do anything I can to help him, but I will also become President Trump’s worst nightmare,’ South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday
He said Wednesday that the initial pullback from Syria only affected 28 military personnel, but another 1,000 stationed further to the south and east will be moved out of Syria entirely.
That description came in the course of two extraordinary White House press availabilities – first in the Oval Office, then a formal press conference with Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella – which saw Trump launch a series of incendiary claims which roiled his party.
He attacked U.S. allied Kurdish fighters as ‘no angels,’ and described them as a mercenary force, even as critics from both parties lamented a policy shift as leaving them victim to slaughter at the hands of the Turks.
‘Syria has a relationship with the Kurds – who by the way are not angels,’ Trump told reporters.
‘Who is an angel? There aren’t too many around. But Syria has a relationship with the Kurds. So they’ll come in for their border. And they’ll fight,’ Trump said.
‘They may bring partners in, they could bring Russia in. And I say welcome to it,’ Trump continued, after earlier in the day comparing the area to ‘a lot of sand’ that various sides can play with.
But he is now facing Republican rebellion on a breathtaking scale.
Graham, who has been a Trump ally in fending off the Russia probe, blasted the president for abandoning Kurdish allies in Syria in an interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, where evangelical leaders have been voicing concern about the risk to minorities including Christians in the region.
‘I will do anything I can to help him, but I will also become President Trump’s worst nightmare,’ Graham vowed. ‘I will not sit along the sidelines and watch a good ally, the Kurds, be slaughtered by Turkey.’
Graham cautioned: ‘This is a defining moment for President Trump. He needs to up his game.’
Another forceful rebuke came in the vote tally for a House resolution to oppose ‘the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria.’
After getting fast-tracked to the floor by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the resolution was backed by 354 lawmakers – including more than 100 Republicans – with 60 House members voting against.
The resolution said the Kurds fought ‘courageously’ against the ‘brutality of ISIS.’
The resolution quotes from the surprise White House statement that announced the coming operation by Turkey and ‘calls on the United States to continue supporting Syrian Kurdish communities through humanitarian support, including to those displaced or otherwise affected by ongoing violence in Syria.’
It also calls on the White House to ‘present a clear and specific plan for the enduring defeat of ISIS,’ amid fears captured fighters will get the chance to renew territorial gains that had been wiped out.
‘Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years,’ said Trump. He urged Graham to ‘focus’ on his Judiciary Committee work, where his actions have insulated the president
This picture taken on October 15, 2019 shows smoke rising from the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain, from the Turkish side of the border at Ceylanpinar district in Sanliurfa, on the first week of Turkey’s military operation against Kurdish forces
UNDER CONTROL: President Donald Trump welcomed Russian intervention along with Syria to push back against Turkey’s incursion into Syrian territory. Of the overall conflict, he said: ‘It’s a very semi-complicated – not too complicated if you’re smart – but it’s a semi-complicated problem, and I think it’s a problem that we have nicely under control’
‘If Turkey goes into Syria it is between Turkey and Syria. It’s not our problem,’ Trump said Wednesday. Here a woman covers her face as she stands along the side of a road on the outskirts of the town of Tal Tamr near the Syrian Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain along the border with Turkey in the northeastern Hassakeh province on October 16, 2019, with the smoke plumes of tire fires billowing in the background to decrease visibility for Turkish warplanes that are part of operation “Peace Spring”.
The House voted 354 to 60 for a resolution opposing Trump’s moves in Syria
A T-155 Firtina fires at the points being specified as terror targets by the Turkish Armed Forces within Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring in Sanliurfa, Turkey on October 15, 2019
Among Republicans, 129 vote for it and 60 against.
The action came on a day when Trump blasted Graham, a frequent golf partner and ally in fending off the Mueller inquiry. Graham chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and has said he wants to probe the alleged FBI misconduct as Trump wants him to do.
‘Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years with thousands of soldiers and fighting other people’s wars,’ Trump snapped. ‘I want to get out of the Middle East. I think Lindsey should focus right now on Judiciary – like the Democrats, the do-nothing Democrats,’ Trump admonished Graham.
‘And I think Lindsey should focus on Judiciary. He ought to find out about what happened with Comey, what happened with McCabe, Lisa, what happened with Peter Strzok, what happened with President Obama, what happened with Brennan,’ Trump said, firing off names of national security and FBI officials from the Obama era who he blames for the Russia probe.
‘That’s what Lindsey ought to focus on. That’s what the people of South Carolina want him to focus on. The people of South Carolina don’t want us to get into a war with Turkey – a NATO member – or with Syria. Let them fight their own wars. They’ve been fighting for 1,000 years. Let them fight their own wars. The people of South Carolina want to see those troops come home. And I won an election based on that. And that’s the way it is, whether it’s good or bad. That’s the way it is.’
At a White House press conference Wednesday, Trump welcomed further Russian military intervention in Syria, as Moscow teams with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and U.S. rival Iran to counter Turkey’s attack on Kurds in Syrian territory – a conflagration about which Trump proclaimed ‘Welcome to it.’