President Donald Trump abruptly walked out of a closed-door meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday in the White House Situation Room.
ADVERTISEMENTPresident Donald Trump abruptly walked out of a closed-door meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday in the White House Situation Room after Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she wouldn't fund his border wall if he ended a government shutdown first.
"She said 'No,'" Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, adding that Trump slammed the table. "He said, 'Then we have nothing to discuss' ... He just walked out of the meeting."
Trump quickly confirmed Schumer's version of events in a tweet, making the details of the testy exchange the only thing the president and his Democratic counterparts could agree on in their fight over reopening a partially closed federal government and funding a border wall.
Several federal agencies have been shut down since December 22. Trump has demanded that Congress include $7 billion in border security and humanitarian aid — including $5.7 billion in money for the wall — in any spending bill to re-open the parts of the government that have been shuttered for nearly three weeks.
As he met with Republican and Democratic leaders and Vice President Mike Pence, the White House issued a threat to veto a series of House spending bills that would open individual agencies because they don't include money for the wall. The threat said Trump's advisers "would recommend" that he veto the bills, rather than using the stronger language that the "president would" veto the bills that the Office of Management and Budget sometimes uses.
Pelosi opened her remarks after the meeting by describing the discussion as frigid.
"It's cold out here, and the temperature wasn't much warmer in the Situation Room," she said outside the White House.