‘Who Gives a F*ck’: Dems Defend Infrastructure Meeting With Trump
Things were loose and light at the White House on Tuesday as President Donald Trump hosted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and a delegation of Democratic lawmakers for a meeting billed as a discussion of infrastructure policy.
The president handed out Tic Tacs, peppered a Michigan lawmaker with questions about invasive fish, got reprimanded by Pelosi for having a loud side conversation with Schumer, and even declared that he wanted a bill that “may not be typically Republican.” One source familiar with the meeting called it “uncharacteristically muted.” And when it ended, the parties had come to an unexpected agreement on a $2 trillion price tag for an infrastructure package—an ambitious, tentative agreement that is widely expected to hit the skids.
It was a rare bit of ostensible productivity made all the more remarkable for the fact that it came in the middle of the stormiest stretch yet for relations between Democrats and the president. There was, on Tuesday, no mention of Democrats having spent the last two weeks debating whether to impeach the president, or that the administration was in the middle of an epic stonewall of Democratic subpoenas and requests for documents, or that Trump’s personal lawyers had filed a lawsuit against the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
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