Trump on Schumer's tears: Who is his acting coach?

President Donald Trump on Monday accused Sen. Chuck Schumer of crying “fake tears” at a news conference criticizing his controversial executive order on refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations.

“I noticed Chuck Schumer yesterday with fake tears,” Trump told reporters at a listening session with business leaders in the White House on Monday. “I'm going to ask him who is his acting coach.”


“'Cause I know him,” Trump added of the top Senate Democrat. “I don't see him as crier. If he is, he's a different man. There's about a 5 percent chance it was real. But I think they were fake tears.”

Trump’s order, which temporarily bars people from seven Muslim-majority nations from traveling to the U.S. and bans Syrian refugees from resettling here indefinitely, prompted a wave of protests around the country and confusion at airports after the president signed it Friday. Officials, unsure of how to implement it, detained travelers and refugees from those countries after they arrived, even if they had already gotten permission to move to the U.S.

Schumer appeared to cry at a press conference on Sunday about the order, which he charged is “mean-spirited and un-American.” He called for its immediate reversal and vowed that Senate Democrats would introduce legislation to counter it.

By Sunday, the White House appeared to walk back part of the order, with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus clarifying that it does not ban green card holders from entering the country.

Trump, though, took to Twitter to defend it, writing on Monday, “Only 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning. Big problems at airports were caused by Delta computer outage, protesters and the tears of Senator Schumer.”

Schumer’s office, meanwhile, is calling Trump’s attempt to blame the weekend chaos on the minority leader crying “laughable.”

“The Tweet on its face is laughable,” Matt House, Schumer’s communications director, told POLITICO in an email Monday morning.

“The President’s policy, which will make us less safe, is not,” he added.

Louis Nelson and Nolan D. McCaskill contributed reporting.