WASHINGTON President Donald Trump found himself increasingly isolated on Wednesday as members of his own party joined a House resolution condemning his withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, congressional Democrats stormed out of a White House strategy session and top administration officials departed on an uncertain diplomatic mission to Turkey.
The rising tensions in the White House underscored the difficulty
Trump is facing in navigating twin crises that are inflaming all elements of government an impeachment probe at home and Turkeys invasion into Kurdish strongholds of Syria, a move triggered by Trumps abrupt troop withdrawal.
During a White House meeting with congressional leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., described Trump as having a meltdown, shaken by the House vote, and attacking her as a third-grade politician with communist sympathies.
This was not a dialogue. It was sort of a diatribe. A nasty diatribe, said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, blamed Pelosi, who tries to make everything political. He insisted the meeting was productive after she left.
Trump later tweeted a photograph of the meeting showing Pelosi standing and talking to him, which he described as showing her in a meltdown. Pelosi quickly adopted the photo for the top of her Twitter account.
The meeting was Trumps first face-to-face engagement with top Democrats since Pelosi launched the impeachment inquiry last month, though the speaker said impeachment was not discussed at the meeting.
Regardless of who was to blame, the aborted meeting suggested that even an international crisis is not enough to prompt cooperation between Trump and a Democratic-led House that is seeking to impeach him. As Pelosi left, Trump said, Goodbye. Well see you at the polls, a senior Democratic aide said.
Earlier in the day, even as Republicans voiced concern about Trumps withdrawal, the president offered a glib assessment of the United States onetime allies in the region, the Kurds, who are facing atrocities and the loss of limited autonomy that American troops had helped secure before Trump ordered the hasty withdrawal this month.
Theyre no angels, Trump said while meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the White House.
Its not our border, he added. Theyve got a lot of sand over there. Theres a lot of sand they can play with. He also asserted that the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, was worse than Islamic State militants.
Other American leaders disagreed, fearing a cascade of consequences from the withdrawal, including threats to remaining U.S. soldiers safety, the loss of American credibility in the region, an emboldened Russia and the escape of Islamic State militants in the chaos, which has already begun.
I firmly believe that if President Trump continues to make such statements this will be a disaster worse than President Obamas decision to leave Iraq, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has been a close ally of Trumps. I fear this is a complete and utter national security disaster in the making and I hope President Trump will adjust his thinking.
Trump dismissed the criticism, saying Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and will play a key role in the impeachment process, would prefer to keep U.S. troops in the Middle East indefinitely.
Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years with thousands of soldiers and fighting other peoples wars. I want to get out of the Middle East. I think Lindsey should focus right now on Judiciary.
