What did Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer say about Donald Trump during a lunch interview?
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer sat down for their first joint interview and had some harsh words for former President Donald Trump.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sat down with CNN’s Jamie Gangel for their first joint interview after working together in Washington for over thirty years.
Between dumplings and pleasantries, the pair were asked about their relationship with former President Donald Trump and how it was working with him behind the scenes. For being the first interview of this kind, it takes on a more casual feeling, with both leaders willing to speak more candidly about how it was to work with the Trump White House. The interview’s tone matches the overall message that top Democrats have sent about Trump: whatever he does is not worth our attention.
The first meeting in the Trump White House
Gangel asked the two leaders about their first meeting with then-Presidnet Trump just after he had been inaugurated. Speaker Pelosi said that she was curious about how he would start the meeting and thought perhaps he would quote the Constitution or the Bible, but instead, he leaned over and said, “you know I won the popular vote.”
In retelling the story, Pelosi recalled responding, “Mr. President, that’s just not true.”
On the 2018 government shutdown
Chuck and Nancy, as President Trump called them, also spoke about a meeting with that took place before the 2018-2019 government shutdown. Knowing how unpopular shutdowns are with the public, Democrats did not want to take any responsibility, and the duo says they set Trump up to own it.
“I will take ownership of the shutdown,” both leaders remembered him saying, assurance enough that Trump could have his fight and the voters would know it was one he picked.
“Ultimately, he was a child.”
The harshest criticism of Trump came from Schumer, who compared the former president to a child.
The Senate Majority Leader knew from the jump that Washington outsider Trump “did not stand a chance” going up against Nancy Pelosi.
“I tell people, Nancy instinctively knew how to handle Trump,” said Schumer.
“For her first thirty-five, forty years of life, she raised five children. She knew how to deal with children, and that is what helped her deal with Trump because he untimely was a child.”
Pelosi also mentioned that she knew that she would have to take a different approach than Schumer, saying, “Chuck is a New Yorker [...], so they understood each other.”