Allowed to Attend Infrastructure Meeting Without Chaperones, Trump Made Nice with Democrats

Some of Donald Trump’s alleged quotes from Tuesday’s infrastructure meeting with Democratic congressional leaders have leaked to the media.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported some of these quotes on The Lead with Jake Tapper. They included Trump allegedly telling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he “liked the $2 trillion number” she was floating as the total cost of the bill. He also allegedly called “stupid” an infrastructure bill using public-private partnerships as funding his administration floated almost two years ago and blamed his then-economic advisor Gary Cohn for having the idea in the first place.

Trump also reportedly said that he would “lead” on this bill, which will be news to all the Republicans on Capitol Hill who have tried to incorporate him into bill negotations in the past.

And finally, the president allegedly said, “I would like to do something, it may not be typically Republican.”

Collins noted that Republicans on the Hill, who were not in the meeting, were already trashing the idea of a huge bipartisan infrastructure bill before the meeting started. She also noted that Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s chief of staff and a diehard Tea Party member who opposes most government spending, was also not in the meeting. Instead he was in California criticizing Democrats for pushing forward on investigations of Trump while at the same time negotiating on an infrastructure plan.

“If I’m suing you on one deal, are you likely to do another deal with me at the same time? Probably not. That’s just human nature,” Mulvaney told an audience at the Milken Institute’s 2019 Global Conference.

In other words, Trump can say whatever he wants until his chief of staff and Fox News yank his leash.

Watch the video at the top of the post, via CNN.