President Trump said Monday that there’s only a “5 percent chance” that Sen. Charles E. Schumer’s tears were real a day earlier, when the New York Democrat held a news conference to complain about the administration’s new “extreme vetting” policy.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Schumer have quickly emerged as the most important adversarial relationship in Washington, chiding each other over their moves so far.

Speaking at the White House, Mr. Trump mocked Mr. Schumer for the tears, saying he didn’t think of Senate Democrats’ floor leader as a man who’d cry.

Democrats have reacted angrily to this weekend’s airport snafus, which saw more than 100 travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries detained as Mr. Trump’s new executive order kicked in late Friday.

Members of Congress have said they’ll try to pass legislation to revoke the order.

Mr. Trump, though, accused Democrats of generating false outrage, saying things went pretty well and defending his decision not to alert airport and border officials earlier. The president said doing so would have invited a flow of potential bad actors to surge into the U.S.

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