In a rare moment of silence mid-presser when reporters stopped asking President Donald Trump questions Tuesday as he departed Washington for Los Angeles, Trump turned a question to the media asking about Sen. Chris Murphy’s, D-CT, meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

“I can’t believe so quiet all of a sudden. I saw that there’s this Senator Murphy met with the Iranians. Is that a fact? I just saw that on the way over. Is there anything that I should know because that sounds like to me a violation of the Logan Act,” Trump said.

He continued, “What happened with that? Did you read about Senator or hear about… Senator Murphy met with the Iranians. Well, they oughta find out about it. If it’s true, I don’t know. It just came out as I was leaving the car.”

The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway first reported Monday that Murphy, along with several of his Democrat colleagues, met with the Iranian FM at last week’s Munich Security Conference.

1/ Attached is my usual account of my latest trip abroad, this one to Ukraine and Munich. I met w the Iranian Foriegn Minister in Munich. It’s dangerous not to talk to adversaries, esp amidst a cycle of escalation. Quick thread on what I told Zarif.https://t.co/2oYjiXfZ7J — Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 18, 2020

3/ Congress is a co-equal branch to the executive. We set foreign policy too. Many of us have met w Zarif over the years, under Obama and Trump. So though no one in Congress can negotiate with Zarif or carry official U.S. government messages, there is value in having a dialogue. — Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 18, 2020

Murphy defended himself on Twitter Tuesday: “It’s dangerous not to talk to adversaries, esp amidst a cycle of escalation” and that Congress has the power to “set foreign policy too.”

The conversation between Murphy and Zarif, according to Murphy’s Twitter thread, included Murphy “urging” Zarif ‘to control Iranian proxies in Iraq’ posing as threats to the U.S. and our allies, ‘pressing him to release American citizens being unlawfully detained in Iran,’ and ‘pushing him to end the Houthi blockage of humanitarian aid in Yemen.’