White House staffers took turns during a farming event Thursday pushing back on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim that President Donald Trump threw a “temper tantrum” during a meeting.
Trump held an event with farmers and ranchers at the White House on Thursday and announced $16 billion in new farm aid. However, the president quickly turned his attention back to his feud with Pelosi after a reporter asked about her insistence that his family should host an “intervention.”
Trump called the remark a “nasty” comment.
The war of words between the two politicians kicked off on Wednesday morning when Pelosi accused Trump of a “cover-up,” causing the president to cut a planned infrastructure meeting with the Democrats short. Instead of negotiating an infrastructure deal, he held a press conference demanding that Democrats stop investigating him or else he would not work with them on legislative issues.
Pelosi claimed the president threw a “temper tantrum,” and he has since hit back multiple times, claiming he was “extremely calm.” During the farm meeting Thursday, he asked each White House staffer that was present to take turns corroborating their side of the story. (RELATED: Trump: ‘I Was Extremely Calm’ During Infrastructure Meeting)
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp, deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, and National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow all spoke in support of the president.
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“Kellyanne, what was my temperament yesterday?” Trump asked.
“Very calm, no temper tantrum,” Conway said, noting that there was a tape of the meeting.
Schlapp added, “You were very calm and you were very direct, and you sent a very firm message to the speaker and to the Democrats.”
“Mercy’s right, Kellyanne’s right, you were very calm and you laid out the case,” Kudlow agreed. “Much calmer than some of our trade meetings.”
Sanders chimed in too, explaining that she has seen the president angry, and he did not present that way at the infrastructure meeting.
The president reiterated that he intentionally was “calm” at the meeting because he knew the Democrats would try to paint the meeting in a different light. (RELATED: Pelosi Offers Prayers For Trump Again)
“It was sad when I watched Pelosi all moving, the movement, and the hands, and the craziness — that’s, by the way, a person that’s got some problems,” Trump said. “When I watched that this morning … it’s just a narrative they want to put out and I think it’s pretty sad when they have to play that kind of narrative.”