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Nancy Pelosi taunted Donald Trump as the crisis over his Senate trial headed into its third day, saying he will be 'impeached forever.' 

'He just got impeached. He'll be impeached forever. No matter what the Senate does. He's impeached forever because he violated our Constitution,' the speaker told the Associated Press in an interview. 

'If I did nothing else, he saw the power of the gavel there,' she said. 'And it wasn't me, it was all of our members making their own decision.'

Speaker Nancy Pelosi taunted President Donald Trump, saying he will be 'impeached forever'

President Trump has claimed Speaker Pelosi is afraid to send the impeachment articles to the Senate because of witnesses Republicans may call

Pelosi downplayed the latest crisis on Capitol Hill where a bicameral brawl broke out of the president's impeachment trial in the Senate after the speaker did not formally transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday they are at an impasse over the procedures for Trump's trial while the president demanded immediate action and claimed Pelosi hasn't sent the articles because she fears Republicans will call witnesses who will damage the Democrats' case. 

'Oh pfft,' Pelosi told Politico when asked if she was 'too afraid' to send the articles. 

'Fear is never a word used with me. You should know right away,' she said. 'I'm never afraid and I'm rarely surprised.'

She also got in another jab at the president in the interview, saying the fact that more than 30 House Republicans have announced their retirement means they know they are going to lose in next year's election.

'It means that they know they're gonna lose,' Pelosi said. 'And if you win, you're going to serve in the minority under a Democratic president. You may want to spend more time with your family.' 

Trump, Pelosi, McConnell and Schumer have been engaged in a war of words about the next steps in the impeachment case since the House approved two articles against the president - abuse of power and obstruction of justice - on Wednesday.

'The reason the Democrats don't want to submit the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate is that they don't want corrupt politician Adam Shifty Schiff to testify under oath, nor do they want the Whistleblower, the missing second Whistleblower, the informer, the Bidens, to testify!' Trump tweeted during Thursday evening's Democratic primary debate, getting in his latest salvo.

Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser, said Trump should want witnesses at his impeachment trial.

'I's important for the people that voted for President Trump, they believe in him,' Bannon told FOX Business Network on Thursday. 'He didn't do anything wrong.'

'He'll be exonerated by the Senate in front of the American people and the world. And then in November, he'll be vindicated at the ballot box,' Bannon added.  

Pelosi must formally send the articles to the Senate to trigger the start of the president's trial, but she's been holding onto them for leverage in the negotiations about how the trial will proceed. Democrats have made requests for additional witnesses and documents in the trial stage.   

She is closing in on the end of her first year of her second stint as speaker and has seen her national profile soar as she battles with Trump.

Pelosi gives as good as she gets, chiding back at the president as he tweets at her. 

But she gave no hint as what card the Democrats may play next as Congress leaves for its holiday recess with questions on the table about when Trump's Senate trial will begin and how it will proceed.

It's unclear what kind of negotiations will take place over the holidays. The House held its last votes of the year on Thursday. The Senate wraps up and leaves town on Friday. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed in a floor speech that Pelosi is afraid to send him the articles of impeachment that House Democrats passed Wednesday night

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused McConnell of offering no defense of Trump's actions

She said she cannot name impeachment managers - the Democratic House leaders who will present the prosecution's case on the Senate floor - until she knows the terms of a Senate trial.

'We said what we're going to say. When we see what they'll do, we'll know who and how [to appoint],' she told Politico.  

Trump's lawyers are exploring the legal question of whether or not Trump has even been impeached since Pelosi hasn't sent over the articles, Bloomberg News reported.   

The speaker down played that argument in her interview with Associated Press.

McConnell and Schumer met in a room off the Senate floor for 20 minutes on Thursday afternoon to discuss the procedure for a trial - and emerged with no deal in sight.  

 'We remain at an impasse,' the Senate Republican leader said Thursday night.

'I'm not sure what leverage there is in refraining from sending us something we do not want,' he said after his meeting with Schumer. 

The two Senate leaders need to agree on the parameters of Trump's trial - that includes the time frame and witnesses to call - that will pass muster with the rest of the chamber. All procedural actions regarding the trial must be approved by a majority of Senators - 51 votes. 

Thursday was a head-scratching day of legislative, legal and procedural arguments on Capitol Hill. 

McConnell argued to follow the 'precedent' of the Bill Clinton impeachment, when the two party leaders negotiated a procedure that won unanimous approval. He continues to cast aside Democratic demands to call White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and other top Trump administration officials. 

Trading barbs with Schumer, McConnell said: 'My colleague wants a special pre-trial guarantee of certain witnesses whom the House Democrats themselves did not bother to pursue as they assembled their case. Or he wants to proceed without giving any organizational resolution forever.' 

In the Clinton trial in 1999, senators did not call witnesses to testify on the Senate floor but did conduct videotaped closed-door depositions with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton's friend Vernon Jordan, and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal. Excerpts from that testimony were played on the Senate floor during Clinton's trial.  

'I continue to believe that the unanimous bipartisan precedent that was good enough for President Clinton, that ought to be good enough for President Trump,' McConnell said. 

He spoke after he and Schumer met in the Capitol to try to find a way forward, hours after Schumer accused McConnell of giving a 'thirty minute screed' about impeachment that was carried live by cable networks.  

The ongoing clash came as the House left town without voting on impeachment managers. Pelosi says she doesn't want to designate the people who will argue the Senate trial until she knows what the terms will be. 

Pelosi on Thursday slammed McConnell as a 'rogue leader'⁠—and he blasted her indictment of the president as 'slapdash' and 'unfair'. 

Schumer responded to McConnell through his spokesman, who said the New York Democrat asked McConnell to consider his own proposal – which provides for four witnesses – over the holidays.

Earlier McConnell threatened to cancel Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate if 'scared' Pelosi refuses to send him the formal articles of impeachment that Democrats passed Wednesday night.