Whenever he’s not too busy misspelling words or trying to find his third chief of staff, President Donald Trump is almost always talking about, or appearing on, cable news television. Such was the case on Tuesday, when he and Vice President Mike Pence sat down with incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) to discuss the country’s agenda. This included jabs at Trump’s long-promised border wall between the United States and Mexico and a potential government shutdown, which prompted a “temper tantrum” by the president.
Trump was especially angered by Pelosi’s referring to the looming shutdown as a “Trump shutdown,” not to mention her repeated attempts to correct his knowledge of the legislative processes in the House and Senate. “I can’t get it passed in the House if it’s not gonna pass in the Senate. I don’t want to waste time,” he said while interrupting Pelosi. “The House we can get past very easily, and we do, but the problem is the Senate because we need 10 Democrats to vote and they won’t vote.”
“We have a lot of disagreements here,” added Schumer, when Trump ultimately ignored Pelosi and instead deferred to him. “The Washington Post today gave you a whole lot of ‘Pinocchios’ because they say you constantly misstate how much of the wall is built, but that’s not the point here. We have a disagreement about the wall.” He then reminded Trump that he has called for a government shutdown “20 times,” while Pelosi interjected to tell Trump that he “will not win.”
“If we don’t get what we want one way or the other… I will shut down the government,” Trump responded. “I am proud to shut down the government for border security.” Amazingly, per CBS News, during the beginning of the same meeting, the president had said he’d “like not to see a government closing, a shutdown.” Schumer, meanwhile, later told reporters that “this temper tantrum that he seems to throw will not get him his wall.”
Unsurprisingly, the televised moment went viral on social media, earning Trump’s “tantrum” and Pelosi and Schumer’s various responses plenty of scorn, praise and jokes.
https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/1072536889754828801
WOW. Sitting in the Oval Office, Sen. Schumer looks to reporters and says, "When the president brags that he got North Dakota and Indiana, he’s in trouble…" President Trump: "I did!"
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) December 11, 2018
https://twitter.com/andylassner/status/1072547978278305793
https://twitter.com/MrDanZak/status/1072545893981786113
https://twitter.com/youngsinick/status/1072542035972886528
https://twitter.com/ScottWamplerBMD/status/1072549177274572801
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1072549197457620994
This is like when Jim stares at the camera on The Office pic.twitter.com/hhz1M6zS7o
— Shawn Reynolds (@ShawnReynolds_) December 11, 2018
the best evidence that Trump has always seen Ryan and McConnell as employees is that they didn't even get invited to the Oval Office.
— zeddy (@Zeddary) December 11, 2018
(Via CBS News)