‘Bye bye’: Trump storms out of meeting with Democrats

Donald Trump has reportedly stormed out of a meeting with leading Democrats which was designed to bring an end to the partial government shutdown.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi and senate minority leader Chuck Schumer told reporters that the US president had thrown a “temper tantrum”, slamming his hands down on the table in the White House Situation Room before walking out.

Trump had offered to end the government shutdown if the Democrats would agree to fund his $5.7bn border wall. However, Pelosi repeated her stance that they are refusing to fund the wall, prompting Trump to leave.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“It wasn’t even a high-stakes negotiation,” Pelosi told The New York Times after the meeting. “It was a petulant president of the United States.”

Trump described the meeting as “a total waste of time”, with senior Republicans trying to downplay the incident and lay the blame for the shutdown on the Democrats. “I asked what is going to happen in 30 days if I quickly open things up, are you going to approve Border Security which includes a Wall or Steel Barrier? Nancy said, NO. I said bye-bye, nothing else works!” tweeted the president.

The Washington Post says the breakdown of the meeting left “no end in sight to the shutdown”, which will become the longest in US history on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, Trump had lunch with several Republican lawmakers, two of whom reportedly pleaded for him to end the shutdown as hundreds of thousands of federal employees are on the brink of missing their first pay cheque.