Republican leaders warned Thursday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., may have hobbled chances of critical bipartisan legislative agreements after she accused President Trump of criminal behavior before a bank of television cameras Wednesday morning.
Pelosi’s accusation prompted Trump to tell Democratic leaders he won’t work with them on infrastructure or other bipartisan legislation. Trump angrily walked out of a White House meeting with Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Pelosi, earlier in the morning, had accused Trump of engaging in “a cover-up,” after she emerged from a meeting with rank-and-file lawmakers to discuss impeaching the president.
Republicans denounced the impeachment talk but said Pelosi’s cover-up accusation could imperil key bipartisan cooperation needed to keep the government funded or to accomplish wish-list items like infrastructure.
“That is major,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said in response to Pelosi’s cover-up claim. “That’s blowing things up around here. That’s kind of like dropping the nuclear bomb to come out and accuse somebody of committing a crime, and not having anything to back it up.”
[Related: Trump to Pelosi and Schumer: No infrastructure deal unless the investigations stop]
The breakdown between House Democrats and the president comes at a critical time in the negotiations to secure a spending deal for the upcoming fiscal year.
Leaders in both parties were close to a deal with the Trump administration on Tuesday but talks broke down later in the afternoon and negotiators will have to hold another meeting, this time knowing Trump is now opposed to working with Democrats.
Both parties are also very eager to work out a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico. The accord must first be taken up in the House, where Pelosi controls the floor.
“It’s not a good atmosphere in which to do anything that requires bipartisan cooperation,” Thune said.
Pelosi and Schumer told reporters after the meeting they believe Trump never had any plans to work with them on infrastructure and was simply using the House investigations into his administration and personal business as an excuse to back out of an infrastructure deal.
[Also read: Pelosi: Trump infrastructure meeting was ‘very, very, very strange’]
Three weeks ago, Pelosi, Schumer, and Trump had informally agreed on developing a $2 trillion infrastructure plan but Trump would have to come up with the nearly impossible task of finding a way to pay for it.
Trump was expected to provide his financing ideas in Wednesday’s meeting. Schumer said he had prepared a 35-page outline on infrastructure. Trump, he said, appeared to stage the walkout, even affixing signs in the Rose Garden to accompany his address after he left the meeting.
“Now that he was forced to actually say how he would pay for it, he had to run away,” Schumer said after the White House meeting. “And he came up with this pre-planned excuse . It’s clear this was not a spontaneous move on the president’s part. It was planned.”
Democrats said Trump had no legitimate reason to suddenly end bipartisan talks with Democrats when the many House investigations of his business and administration have been plodding on for weeks and were active when Trump first agreed to the infrastructure deal with Democrats.
But Republicans believe Pelosi’s cover-up accusation pushed the president over the edge.
She accused Trump of a cover-up after leaving a closed-door meeting in the House basement with rank-and-file Democrats.
“We do believe it’s important to follow the facts, we believe that no one is above the law, including the president of the United States, and we believe that the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up — in a cover-up,” Pelosi said. “And that was the nature of the meeting.”
Democrats held the meeting to discuss their many investigations into the president and the possibility of opening an impeachment inquiry. Pelosi has steered the caucus away from impeachment but that has not stopped her from accusing the president of wrongdoing.
“Ms. Pelosi continues to slander him and I can understand why he’s not happy,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the GOP leadership, said. “Sometimes tempers flare around here and emotions get pretty high, but in the end we’ve got work to do and I think the best thing we can do for the people we work for is to make progress where we can. But that was fairly dramatic this morning.”
House Democrats are angry that Trump has refused to turn over his tax returns, financial records, and other documents to Democrats and has not allowed top administration officials to be grilled before House Oversight panels run by Democrats. Many believe his refusal to cooperate justifies opening an impeachment inquiry.
Thune said the pro-impeachment faction in the caucus in the meeting pushed Pelosi to attack the president. “I think she came out of the meeting and felt like she had to say something … and maybe she did it intentionally to be provocative, I don’t know.”
The cover-up accusation isn’t new. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., accused Trump on Tuesday of “conducting one of the biggest cover-ups of any administration in the history of the United States.”
But Pelosi’s status as speaker and chief negotiator elevates the claim, which she made on her way to the White House.
“I think it was unfortunate that Pelosi dropped that nuclear bomb before she went down to have a bipartisan meeting on infrastructure,” Thune said. “Hopefully when the smoke clears and the dust settles, people will be able to get back together and figure things out.”
