WATCH: Democrat on phone call with Trump: Tell him he’s brilliant and hang up
A key Democratic senator who attended Tuesday’s meeting on tax reform with Trump administration officials recounted to The Hill trying to get off the phone with President Trump.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and White House legislative affairs director Marc Short came ready to listen; the president — who joined by phone — less so.
Trump “was ready to talk and talk and finally … after 15 minutes,” Carper said he turned to Cohn to tell him, “We’re not going to have a real conversation here — can’t you just tell the president that he is brilliant and say we’re losing … the connection and then hang up?”
Carper and a handful of other Democrats met with Cohn and Short on Tuesday to discuss possible bipartisan agreement on tax reform.
“Gary Cohn and Marc Short were in a ‘receive’ mode, which is good,” the veteran senator said. “What I told them at the end of the meeting: I think maybe what has to happen for us to have a true bipartisan effort … the Republican effort in the House and the Senate to do this on their own, that has to prove to be unsuccessful. When it is, we will engage in a bipartisan way,” Carper recalled.
Watch the video above to hear Carper in his own words.
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