WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0As the scale of the Republican Party\u2019s losses came into focus late Tuesday, President Trump watched from the White House and went looking for someone to blame.<\/p>\n
First it was Fox News. Just before midnight, with Democrats projected to seize control of the House, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the network \u201cbears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.\u201d Then it was the fact that he had not been on the ballot, otherwise, he said, \u201cwe would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!\u201d<\/p>\n
Minutes later, Trump was on the phone with the same network he had just accused of sabotaging his party. And over a 22-minute interview, conducted before the Senate had been called for Democrats, his tone shifted from grievance to something closer to acceptance, though never to the idea that the election results were a rebuke on his administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations to the Democrats. They did a good job. They\u2019ve been looking for this one for 11 years and they finally got it,\u201d the president said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t view it as a hit on me. I think we\u2019ve had the greatest two years in the history of the president in terms of the economy, in terms of all the things that we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the losses, Trump largely put the onus on the candidates, some of whom he said he only endorsed for the good of the party.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to get people that, frankly, let\u2019s say that I didn\u2019t get along with. But for the purposes of the party I went along with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Trump said his supporters \u201cdidn\u2019t like the candidates,\u201d and that some of the nominees had failed to \u201cinspire\u201d the MAGA base, which over a span of 30 days he tried to engage in campaign rallies in Republican strongholds, including South Carolina, Texas and Kansas, where Democrats pulled off upsets against the GOP candidates.<\/p>\n
As Trump reflected on the election results, he offered a narrow acknowledgment that his war with Iran has played a role, saying voters \u201cprobably don\u2019t agree with the short-term consequences\u201d such as higher gas prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a short-term problem but for long term-gain,\u201d he said, and then argued that history would judge his actions in the Middle East as \u201cmuch more important than this evening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking ahead to what the election results mean for the last two years of his presidency with Democrats in control, Trump said he is willing to work with them \u2014 but that he will not hesitate to use the power of the veto.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have the power of veto, one of the strongest powers that a president has and they\u2019ll send over things that are insane and I will veto them,\u201d he said.\u201dAfter a couple of months of vetoes they will call, and they\u2019ll say, how do we get this stuff done? And we\u2019ll work together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump said he has \u201ca lot of friends who are Democrats.\u201d He said he talked to five Democrats \u2013 two senators and three representatives \u2013 on Tuesday night and that three others were about to call him.<\/p>\n
In the end, Trump said Democrats \u201cfought hard\u201d and did a \u201cgood job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0As the scale of the Republican Party\u2019s losses came into focus late Tuesday, President Trump watched from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[6521,486,12,45955,122757,3146,122758,887,64,122756,3945,13567,74,1091,987,512],"class_list":["post-292899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-donald-trump","tag-control","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-election-result","tag-fault-candidate","tag-fox-news","tag-good-job","tag-power","tag-president-trump","tag-republican-loss","tag-republican-party","tag-term","tag-trump","tag-veto","tag-white-house","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117558431277253459","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}