3 Minutes: Trump meeting with Dems goes bust in a flash

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President Donald Trump will meet with House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to discuss the $2 trillion infrastructure program unveiled by the Trump administration earlier this month. (Source: CNN/POOL)

Trump's angry walkout on Wednesday left behind a shattered bipartisan infrastructure effort and an escalation of tension between the president and the congressional Democrats investigating him. He barked at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for earlier suggesting he was involved in a "cover-up" and headed to the Rose Garden for an impromptu news conference in which he declared that he would not work with Democrats if they continue with their probes.

"I don't do cover-ups," Trump said. "You can't do it under these circumstances. So get these phony investigations over with."



The president reached a boiling point just a few hours before the meeting when he saw media coverage of Pelosi's remark. She told reporters after a private meeting with House Democrats that Trump was "engaged in a cover-up" even as she tried to temper impeachment talk in her own party. Trump told aides that he would refuse to work with Democrats and, over some advisers' objections, called for the Rose Garden news conference.


Senior White House counselor Kellyanne Conway then whirled to Pelosi and asked if she had "a direct response to the president." Pelosi replied: "I'm responding to the president, not staff."

Moments later, as the room emptied, Conway, miffed that Pelosi chose not to respond directly to her, turned to the speaker and said: "Really great, that's really pro-woman of you."

White House reporters were summoned for an unscheduled news conference in the Rose Garden, photographers jockeying for position in the moments before the president appeared. A printed sign that read "No Collusion" and "No Obstruction" was hastily posted on the president's lectern. And Trump held up a printed version of an ABC News graphic depicting the cost and breadth of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, but notably did not highlight its second page — the one that listed the number of indictments Mueller produced.


"He just took a pass," Pelosi said. "And it just makes me wonder why he did that. In any event, I pray for the president of the United States and I pray for the United States of America."

Prospects for the meeting's success were never high: Neither side wanted to unveil its plan to pay for the ambitious program while the term "Infrastructure Week" drew snickers from White House aides and reporters alike who recalled how other efforts at the initiative inevitably were overshadowed by chaos.

That happened again Wednesday, and as Washington reeled from the Rose Garden spectacle, Trump turned to Twitter to make his sarcastic retort: "Nancy, thank you so much for your prayers, I know you truly mean it!"



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