The blowup at the White House was reminiscent of a meeting in January when Mr. Trump erupted at Ms. Pelosi during the partial government shutdown as he sought money for his promised border wall. After she refused to go along, he said “bye-bye” and stormed out.
In this case, Mr. Trump has been in a foul mood since Monday, snapping at aides about his rally in Pennsylvania and complaining about news media coverage of the investigations. In his view, people close to him said, Democrats are seeking to render his presidency illegitimate.
While Democrats assumed he planned to stage a scene at the meeting all along, White House aides said it did not come up at an 8:30 a.m. meeting of the communications team. Instead, they said, Mr. Trump saw Ms. Pelosi’s comments, which she made around 10 a.m., and seethed with anger.
The president then met with a small group of aides in the Oval Office about 45 minutes before Ms. Pelosi was to arrive at 11:15 a.m. and talked through what he planned to do. He did not get pushback from the assembled aides, though others who were not in the room objected, according to an administration official. Another official insisted that was not the case.
When Mr. Trump entered the Cabinet Room for Wednesday’s meeting with the Democrats, he did not take his seat near the center of the table and instead stood at the end of the table and admonished his guests, according to an account from two people in the room, one Republican and one Democrat.
After Mr. Trump walked out, Ms. Pelosi turned to other Democrats there and recounted a story about how Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt had each brought people together to solve infrastructure problems.
“I knew he was looking for a way out,” Ms. Pelosi concluded. “We were expecting this.”
Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, was in the room. “Respectfully, Madam Speaker,” she asked, “do you have a direct response to the president?”
