A White House meeting on Tuesday between President Trump and Republican congressional leaders was abruptly scrapped due to a dispute on the House floor over a resolution condemning the president’s attacks on a group of Democratic congresswomen.
The meeting has been postponed, according to a White House official, who did not specify a new date or time.
{mosads}House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) were still on the floor at 4 p.m., the meeting’s scheduled start time, as business ground to a halt amid a contentious partisan fight over the resolution.
The president set off a firestorm on Sunday when he tweeted that the group of progressive lawmakers, all of whom are women of color and U.S. citizens, should “go back” to their home countries.
After Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) condemned Trump’s tweets as “racist,” Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) in an extraordinary rebuke formally requested that her words be stricken from the record.
A White House official said earlier Tuesday that Trump and GOP lawmakers had planned to discuss “immigration priorities.”
The conversation was expected to center on a sweeping proposal drafted by White House adviser Jared Kushner on closing so-called loopholes in asylum laws and overhauling the immigration system.
The sudden postponement caused confusion among Republican senators. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Majority Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) had already left to go to the White House, only to return several minutes later saying they had been told the meeting was called off.
“It was a quick meeting,” Thune quipped as he returned to the Capitol along with Cornyn.
Cornyn said they didn’t immediately have a sense of when or if the meeting would be rescheduled.
“The meeting [was] canceled,” he said. “We don’t know why.”
Updated at 4:53 p.m.