Democratic leaders fixated on the decor of the room after President Trump abruptly shut down an infrastructure meeting at the White House on Wednesday.
Two lawmakers — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. — noted how the Cabinet Room was set up in an uninviting fashion when they arrived.
“It’s clear that this was not a spontaneous move on the president’s part. It was planned,” Schumer told reporters. “When we got in the room, the curtains were closed. The president — there was a place for him at the front so he could stand and attempt to tell us why he wouldn’t do infrastructure. And of course then he went to the Rose Garden with prepared signs that had been printed up long before our meeting.”
In an interview with MSNBC, Hoyer also mentioned the curtains, as well as the lack of a certain chair.
“When we walked into the Cabinet Room, it was different,” Hoyer said. “And what was different was the curtains were drawn on the windows looking out on the Rose Garden. So — which I said, ‘That’s kind of funny. I wonder if somebody was taking pictures or something and made a mistake and didn’t put the curtains back in place.’ So we could not see outside of the room.”
While they waited for the president, whom Hoyer said was 10 minutes late, he also noticed there was no chair where he usually sits.
“So there is no doubt in my mind this was a show with no go on infrastructure,” he added.
WATCH: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer describes the scene inside the White House before the president walked out on Democrats #MTPDaily@LeaderHoyer: “When we walked into the Cabinet room… the curtains were drawn on the windows looking out on the Rose Garden.” pic.twitter.com/by0lb8ckHH
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) May 22, 2019
After a brief three-minute encounter, Trump left the room and addressed reporters in the Rose Garden. He said he was particularly upset about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., suggesting he engaged in a “cover-up.”
“Instead of walking in happily into a meeting, I walk in to look at people that have just said that I was doing a cover-up. I don’t do cover-ups,” Trump said. Trump said Democrats would have to drop investigations before he could work with them.
Pelosi told reporters after the scrapped meeting that Trump “wasn’t really respectful of the reason — of the Congress and the White House working together.”
“He just took a pass,” she added. “And it just makes me wonder why he did that.”
[Read: Pelosi: Trump infrastructure meeting was ‘very, very, very strange’]
