President Trump reportedly opened a meeting Friday with congressional leaders with an incendiary rant before saying he preferred the word “strike” to refer to the ongoing government shutdown, according to multiple reports.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump began Friday’s heated closed-door negotiations with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and newly minted Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) with a 15-minute, profanity-laced rant. Sources familiar with the meeting also confirmed the account to CNN and the Daily Beast.
{mosads}The president’s speech centered on his $5.6 billion demand for a border wall, according to CNN. The outlet reported that Trump said he would be unwilling to negotiate for any less.
The Daily Beast reported that Trump also blamed Pelosi, without being prompted, for freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) vowing at a party on Thursday that House Democrats would “impeach the motherf—er.”
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
Trump reportedly told lawmakers that he was too popular to impeach, a claim he has repeated frequently on Twitter.
“How do you impeach a president who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong (no Collusion with Russia, it was the Dems that Colluded), had the most successful first two years of any president, and is the most popular Republican in party history 93%?” Trump tweeted Friday morning before the meeting.
Pelosi, in response, told the president that they were gathered to discuss the shutdown, which entered its 14th day Friday, not his impeachment, sources told CNN.
The president reportedly used the word “f—” during the meeting, according to multiple reports.
He also said he preferred the word “strike” to “shutdown.”
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been furloughed or forced to work without pay due to the partial government shutdown, which began Dec. 22 amid a standoff over Trump’s demand for billions of dollars in border wall funding.
Trump on Friday also threatened to keep the government closed for “years,” if needed, in order to get his long-desired border wall, something he confirmed to reporters from a press conference in the White House Rose Garden.
A source said Democrats in Friday’s meeting were shaking their heads at the president’s behavior.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — one of the Republicans in the room — did not speak much during the meeting, the Daily Beast reported.
Leadership from both parties is expected to meet with Vice President Pence on Saturday morning to continue negotiations.