Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi accuse each other of ‘meltdowns’ after row in Syria briefing

David Gardner17 October 2019

A meeting between Donald Trump and top congressional leaders over the Syria crisis descended into chaos with the US President hurling insults at Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who accused him of having a “meltdown”.

The briefing at the White House was held to explain Mr Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from Syria but Mrs Pelosi walked out with the top Democrat in the Senate Chuck Schumer, who said the meeting had become more of a “nasty diatribe” than a “dialogue”.

Mr Trump triggered the verbal spat by accusing Mrs Pelosi of being a “third-rate politician”.

Donald Trump
Alex Wong/Getty Images

After leaving the meeting, she said: “I pray for the President all the time, and I tell him that. I pray for his safety and that of his family. Now, we have to pray for his health because this was a very serious meltdown on the part of the President.”

Not to be outdone, Mr Trump insisted that it was in fact Mrs Pelosi who had had a “meltdown” and posted three photos from the meeting.

The first was captioned: “The Do Nothing Democrats, Pelosi and Schumer stormed out of the Cabinet Room!” Another picture showed Mrs Pelosi on her feet, pointing at Mr Trump in what appeared to be a heated exchange. The President titled the photo: “Nervous Nancy’s unhinged meltdown!” The third was a shot of the two empty seats the Democrat leaders had vacated in the walk-out.

Nancy Pelosi speaks with reporters after the meeting with Donald Trump
Alex Brandon/AP

“Nancy Pelosi needs help fast! There is either something wrong with her ‘upstairs’, or she just plain doesn’t like our great Country,” Mr Trump tweeted. “She had a total meltdown in the White House today. It was very sad to watch. Pray for her, she is a very sick person!”

However, Mrs Pelosi had the last word, making the photo of her pointing at the President the banner picture at the top of her Twitter profile.

Turkey-Syria Conflict - In pictures

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Mr Trump defended his decision to pull US troops out of northern Syria after Republicans sided with Democrats in the House to vote overwhelmingly by 354 to 60 to condemn his move.

Mr Trump said Turkey’s offensive into Syria was “not [on] our border” and insisted the Kurds, who until recently fought side-by-side with the Americans against Islamic State, were “no angels”.

Within hours of the American withdrawal, Turkey launched an assault to push Kurdish fighters back from the Syrian border.

But the President called his decision “strategically brilliant”, adding: “Our soldiers are out of there. Our soldiers are totally safe. They’ve got to work it out. Maybe they can do it without fighting. We’re watching and we’re negotiating and we’re trying to get Turkey to do the right thing, because we’d like to stop wars regardless.”

Mr Trump also took flak for what he called a “very powerful” letter he sent to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Grammatically questionable and dated October 9, the day Turkey launched its offensive, it gave Mr Erdogan an ultimatum: “Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool! You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy — and I will.”

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