Trump battles with Democrats as impeachment pressure grows

President Trump has tweeted multiple times this morning expressing frustration at Democrats following their White House infrastructure meeting yesterday and his subsequent press conference.

Some background: In a “Dear Colleagues” letter yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi characterized Trump as having a “temper tantrum” during the meeting, which he continues to dispute today.

Today, Trump has taken to framing the Democrats as the “do-nothing party.” He also directed Democrats to “move quickly” in finishing investigations so they can “get the REAL work of the people done.”

Here’s a look at some of Trump’s tweets:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will take questions at 10:45 a.m. ET during her weekly briefing with reporters.

It comes after a tense day for both Pelosi and President Trump.

The Speaker, before a previously scheduled mid-morning meeting with Trump, said that the President has “engaged in a cover-up.” She did not say where she stands on impeachment.

But Trump grew furious when he heard what she had said and cut their meeting to a short 5 minutes. He declared he wouldn’t work with Democratic leaders while Democrat-led committees were investigating him, then gave surprise remarks in the Rose Garden where he said he doesn’t “do” cover-ups.

Judge Edgardo Ramos in Manhattan broadly sided with Congress’ argument that it has power to subpoena President Trump’s documents in investigations.

The House committees’ investigations have legitimate legislative purposes, Ramos said. He pointed out that legislation could arise out of the information Congress gets from Trump, and echoes how the House wants to investigate loans to Trump’s business and foreign money.

A federal privacy law Trump’s legal team had cited also can’t stop congressional subpoenas, the judge rules, in Trump’s challenge of House subpoenas of two banks he and his businesses have used. 

It’s not yet clear how Ramos plans to direct this stand-off over Trump’s financial records going forward, or what it means in practical terms. (Note: He is still reading his opinion from the bench.)

Keep in mind: Ramos is the second trial-level federal judge in one week to side with Congress’ powers in its pursuit of Trump’s financial records. 

It was a dramatic morning for President Trump, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the tension between them. There were exchanged insults, impromptu media briefings and a five-minute meeting between the two parties.

Here’s how it all went down:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a strong Trump ally in Congress, just tweeted that he’s “never seen anybody treated this way.”

The tweet comes just hours after Trump held a surprise speech in the Rose Garden, where he slammed Democrats and their pursuit of investigations into him.

Graham told CNN that he is sympathetic to Trump’s frustration but that the President should rise above and get some things done on spending and infrastructure. 

He said that he spoke to Trump this morning and he understands trump is frustrated that for Democrats it’s never enough. Graham said he can’t believe they are re-doing the Mueller investigation, but he said that he thinks Trump should still try to legislate. 

He said he did not know Trump would walk out of infrastructure meeting today.

Clarity into President Donald Trump’s financial situation is just one signature away in New York.

The state, where Trump holds residence and has headquartered much of his business interests, passed a law that would require the state’s tax commissioner to provide the state tax returns of any elected official to Congress upon request. 

The bill passed the NY State Assembly floor in a vote of 84 to 53.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said he will support the legislation, if it gets to his desk.

What it means: The bill would require the state’s top tax official to provide the returns at the request of the US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, the US Senate Finance Committee, or the Joint Committee on Taxation. 

New York Democrats have positioned the bill as a way to hold the President accountable to oversight.

Why it matters: Trump has broken with 40 years of tradition in refusing to release his federal tax returns. He has repeatedly stated that Internal Revenue Service audits prevent their release, despite the fact that no audit would do so.

Read the story

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking on stage at a Center for American Progress event, said her meeting with Trump at the White House meeting today was “strange” — but not surprising.

“It was very, very, very strange,” she said. She also described it as “sad” at one point. 

“We thought we had some level of agreement, but you never know with this President of the United States,” she also said. “So that’s what happened this morning.”

Pelosi described the moment that Trump walked out as “an orchestrated — almost to a ‘poor baby’ point of view” situation.

President Trump just sent a series of tweets about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer railing against Democratic overnight investigations into his administration.

In one, he says, “So sad that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will never be able to see or understand the great promise of our Country.”

In another, he warns, “You can’t investigate and legislate simultaneously - it just doesn’t work that way.”

See the tweets (read from bottom to top):

President Trump erupted this morning when he heard Nancy Pelosi accuse him of engaging in a cover up, according to a source familiar with his reaction.

Though he lashed out at the investigations overall in the Rose Garden, this person says he was the angriest about her remark.

Officials insist that if she had not said that, the infrastructure meeting would have gone on as scheduled. 

The official said “all was on track” until Pelosi made those comments this morning, setting Trump off.

Officials then scrambled to set up a Rose Garden event for Trump to address the media after his brief meeting with Democrats, as Kevin reported.

Trump met with the Democrats on infrastructure three weeks ago while the investigations were going on, and they were not brought up, the Democrats said. But Trump had voiced concern in recent days that he was being “played by Democrats” on infrastructure.

What Pelosi said: Pelosi on Monday night said the committees were on course to be successful and Democrats’ message must be “No one is above the law,” and that they are witnessing “the cover-up.” The California Democrat also said they all agreed they needed to get to the truth, but that the public believes kitchen table issues must also be dealt with.

To give a sense of the atmospherics around President Trump’s White House and its relationship with Congress and the Department of Justice, here are some of developments this week regarding the various investigations: