Infuriating the Orangutan...

Why Pelosi is so good at infuriating Trump

The speaker stands firm against the president like few others.

By JOHN BRESNAHAN and BURGESS EVERETT

Something about Nancy Pelosi just gets under Donald Trump's skin.

On Wednesday, for the third time in barely six months, a meeting between the president, the speaker and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blew up in spectacular fashion.

And in each case, Trump handed Pelosi a huge gift, a priceless moment that helped unify the Democratic Caucus behind her at a crucial time.

“She’s smarter than him, and she’s tougher than him, and I think that bothers him,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), a Pelosi ally. “It's hard to get inside that head of his and figure out what drives him, other than an oversized ego and an undersized sense of ethics.”

Trump doesn’t have a condescending nickname for the speaker as he does for other Democrats. He even appears to have a grudging respect for Pelosi, the first woman to serve as House speaker. He treats her as a peer who commands her chamber with a firm hand, and he knows she can deliver on votes, and that she is willing to call any bluff at any time.

The latest episode of “Trump vs. Pelosi” featured Trump storming out of a planned White House meeting with Pelosi, Schumer and other top Democrats over a proposed $2 trillion infrastructure package.

It was just the type of explosion that allows Democrats to portray the president as unreliable, tempestuous and impossible to negotiate with. And Trump's refusal to cut any deals with Democrats while they engage in oversight — something every president has to live with — backs up what Democrats have said since the 2016 campaign: Trump is only out for Trump, not the American public.

“Guess what? He behaves like a child. This is what we have in the White House now,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who served under Pelosi in the House. “I’m used to it. I’m not expecting a grown-up any longer. I’m not expecting him to grow into the role.”

And for Pelosi, the timing is perfect. As the drumbeat for impeachment grows within her caucus, she can argue that what they’re doing is already working. Trump clearly doesn’t know how to respond to the barrage of Democratic investigations; they’re winning in the courts and he’s throwing fits. So why bother with impeachment, especially when Democrats know that a GOP-run Senate isn’t going to remove him from office?

Meanwhile, the Trump-Pelosi confrontations are getting to be recurring spectacles, and even Republicans know it hurts the president's image.

"It's a disaster," said a senior Republican who requested anonymity. "It plays right into her hands."

Last December, Trump clashed with Schumer and Pelosi over his border wall in front of TV cameras. Then during talks to end the ensuing government shutdown in January, Trump slammed his hand on the table and walked out when Pelosi refused to yield on funding for the wall.

“It seems like anytime she strikes a nerve... he freaks out,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). “I think he realizes the walls are closing in on him."

Wednesday’s blow-up also has very real implications for the president's near-term agenda.

Democrats and Republicans were nearing a two-year budget deal with the White House; Pelosi and Schumer had been in general agreement with Trump on the need to do infrastructure; and the president was beginning an urgent campaign to get his new trade agreement through Congress. All these efforts could be stalled if Trump follows through on his threat to refuse any deal-making — which would only damage the president's reelection campaign.

Still, the collapse of yet another infrastructure week wasn’t a complete surprise.

It was clear by Tuesday night that Trump was having second thoughts about the gathering, which grew out of a surprisingly cordial White House meeting several weeks ago in which the president rebuffed some of his own advisers to set a massive, $2 trillion goal with Democrats.

Trump warned in a letter that night that he would do an infrastructure deal only if Congress first passed the new North American free trade agreement he negotiated with Mexico and Canada. Pelosi and other Democrats have serious concerns about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, so they were already wary about a potential Trump ambush as they headed to the White House on Wednesday.

Republicans, who were excluded from the infrastructure talks, have been playing down Trump and Democratic leaders’ bipartisan aspirations for weeks.

“Meetings that don’t include the leadership of both parties are unlikely to go anywhere but take a negative turn,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).

But what actually set off Trump on Wednesday was a comment from Pelosi earlier in the day. Coming out of a closed-door session with fellow Democrats in which she argued against beginning an impeachment inquiry against Trump, Pelosi said the president “is engaged in a cover-up” of improper behavior.

That was all the president needed to torpedo the Cabinet Room session. An angry Trump accused Pelosi of saying “horrible, horrible things” and being “disrespectful,” then stormed out of the room for a Rose Garden news conference.

“It is the nature of this president’s temperament to blow up with frequency. And perhaps Nancy and Chuck are catalysts of that from time to time,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who was present for Wednesday's drama.

After Trump said he wouldn't discuss infrastructure or any other legislative priorities until the investigations ended, the meeting ended with a pointed exchange between Pelosi and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

Conway asked the speaker to respond to Trump, who had already left the room.

“I’m responding to the president, not staff,” Pelosi said.

Conway countered sarcastically: “That’s really pro-woman of you.”

Out in the Rose Garden, Trump railed against special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, then took a shot at Pelosi. “This whole thing was a take-down attempt of the president of the United States,” Trump declared.

"I don't do cover-ups," Trump added.

Pelosi punched back when she returned to Capitol Hill, saying she prays for Trump and the entire country.

“For some reason, maybe it was lack of confidence on his part that he couldn’t match the greatness of the challenge we have… he just took a pass,” Pelosi said at a news conference.

Trump’s Republican allies, meanwhile, quickly fell in line behind the president, at least publicly, in the latest sign that Pelosi’s probes have zero support on the other side of the Capitol.

“Ridiculous. To accuse the president of the United States of a cover-up is absolutely inappropriate,” said Sen. David Perdue of Georgia.

“The president’s just tired of getting verbally assaulted every day. … To have her continue that kind of slander is probably hard to take,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn.

Pelosi, though, knows that Trump can rail against her on TV and Twitter, but he still needs her to do anything important, including keeping the federal government open or raising the nation’s debt limit.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had urged a speedy conclusion to budget negotiations, perhaps in an acknowledgment of how critical it was to seize the bipartisan moment given the up-and-down nature of Trump’s relationship with Democrats.

Now some on Capitol Hill worry that the president will disengage from spending negotiations, too, since House Democrats have no intention of breaking off their investigations.

“Whether he likes it or not, sequestration is coming roaring back. We have a debt ceiling we’ve got to raise. And we have a budget deal we’ve got to reach. Or we face a real risk,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) “Robust congressional oversight is part of the structure and history of our country. And he’s going to have to answer some questions.”