Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday said the president called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) a “third rate politician” during a private meeting on the unfolding situation in Syria. According to Pelosi, she responded to the president: “I wish you were a politician so you would know the art of the possible.” Standing outside the White House, Schumer, Pelosi, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters that the impeachment inquiry did not come up during the meeting. But it appears the subject may have been on his mind, according to Pelosi’s summation of the president’s state. “What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown, sad to say,” Pelosi said. The lawmakers told reporters that Trump also told them that “some of ISIS were communists,” claiming “that might make you (Democrats) happy.”

After the Democrats’ statement, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) suggested it was Pelosi who derailed the meeting. “I see a pattern of behavior with the Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she storms out of another meeting... very productive with the Democrats who actually stayed in the meeting, unfortunately the Speaker tries to make everything political... her whole focus has to be on impeachment,” McCarthy said. “... It’s just unbecoming.”