“It was, Sit down, no, I’m not gonna sit down. You sit down — OK, I’ll sit down, but not because you’re telling me to,” said one of those sources.

The president also fumed over his two impeachments, relitigating the Republicans who voted to convict him and his “perfect” call with Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump also complained about the “87 indictments” he said were subsequently thrown at him.

Cassidy, in particular, has drawn the president’s ire for his 2021 impeachment vote, and Trump ran a successful primary challenge against him over it.

“We covered a lot of territory,” said one source who described Trump’s remarks as winding. “He talked a lot about Iran, aired a bunch of internal grievances within the conference.

“It’s Trump, so there was a lot of weave,” the source added.

“He, as he usually does, spoke more off-the-cuff, instead of from a prepared speech,” said the second source.

The meeting opened with Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), the host of the lunch, advocating the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election bill that has stalled in the Senate. Scott discussed the ways Republicans could pass the bill, including eliminating the filibuster and an open-ended period of debate that might allow them to sidestep it. Trump then closed the lunch with a “parting message,” warning that voters won’t turn out in November if the Senate does not find a way to get the bill to his desk.

The president cited the election of “communists” in New York on Tuesday night and “how we need to stick together and fight against them,” according to Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH). Trump also asked Republicans to “stick together” on Iran as the administration attempts to broker a final peace deal.

That call for unity came as Trump injected a dose of chaos into the fate of a bipartisan housing bill, abruptly cancelling a signing ceremony at the Capitol Wednesday in a bid to pressure Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act. The move deepened tensions with Senate Republicans who were already reeling from his decision to torpedo an off-ramp to renewing a key spy program.

“We’ll have to find out over time,” Scott said when asked whether the meeting was as “unifying” as he had hoped.

“We had frank conversations,” added Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), quipping that he was “a little nervous when they didn’t use plastic knives.”

Cassidy acknowledged that he and Trump got into a spat, at one point calling the president “brother.” He said the feedback he got from “several senators” afterward was encouraging, but lamented that he lost his temper.

“It’s the Irish in me,” Cassidy said. “But I again matched his tone and his volume, and it went back and forth.”

Otherwise, Trump dominated the meeting with unrelated concerns, and one source said Republicans were barely able to get a word in edgewise.

“Every once in a while, somebody would interject a word or two, but that was the only line of significant dialogue,” said the source.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), the lead sponsor of the SAVE America Act, did not get a chance to speak, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) stayed silent. Earlier on Wednesday, Thune told the Washington Examiner that he hoped the president would not veto the bipartisan housing bill he derailed.

The two have separately been at odds over the expired spy program and immigration funding, and the impasse has gotten so severe that virtually every priority has become complicated by Trump’s preoccupation with the SAVE America Act.

THUNE URGES TRUMP NOT TO VETO BIPARTISAN HOUSING BILL: ‘HOPE HE DOESN’T GO THERE’

One of the sources said the way the meeting went is evidence that Trump and Senate Republicans need to meet together more regularly, and that it would be beneficial for Vice President JD Vance to come to the Capitol more frequently as well.

“It reaffirms to me the notion that we need to have the president and senators spending more time together,” the source said. “I think there’s a lot to be gained by keeping those communication lanes wide open.”