Trump slams GOP House losers
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump suggested House Republicans lost seats in the midterm elections because they didn’t embrace his presidency, singling some of them out by name Wednesday.
“The candidates that I supported achieved tremendous success,” Trump said.
Others, the president said during a White House news conference, may have lost their seats because they kept their distance. Trump called out several by name, including Rep. Barbara Comstock – whose district was the first Democratic pickup.
“I think she should have won that race, but she didn’t want to have any embrace,” Trump said of the two-term congresswoman who represents a swing district in Northern Virginia. “For that, I don’t blame her, but she lost.”
The news conference, a tradition for presidents after a midterm election, came hours after Democrats captured control of the House for the first time in eight years but lost seats in the GOPcontrolled Senate.
Trump mentioned several others he suggested may have lost because they hesitated to campaign on his agenda.
“Mia Love,” Trump said of the Utah congresswoman who was trailing Democrat Ben McAdams. “Mia Love gave me no love. And she lost. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”
Trump also called out Reps. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., and Erik Paulsen, RMinn. “Erik Paulsen didn’t want the embrace,” Trump said.
Trump said GOP performance overall “defied history,” and he applauded Republican Senate pickups in Indiana, North Dakota and Missouri.
How the president views the results will probably inform how he approaches the next two years as he heads into reelection in 2020.
Rep. Ryan Costello, R-Pa., who will retire at the end of his term, fired back at Trump on Twitter.
“To deal w harassment & filth spewed at GOP” members of Congress “every day for 2 yrs, bc of POTUS ... angers me to my core,” he wrote.
Trump vs. media
The White House on Wednesday suspended the press pass of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after he and Trump had a heated confrontation during the news conference.
They began sparring after Acosta asked Trump about the caravan of migrants heading from Latin America to the southern U.S. border. When Acosta tried to follow up with another question, Trump said, “That’s enough!” and a female White House aide unsuccessfully tried to grab the microphone from Acosta.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders released a statement accusing Acosta of “placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern,” calling it “absolutely unacceptable.”
The interaction between Acosta and the intern was brief, and Acosta appeared to brush her arm as she reached for the microphone and he tried to hold onto it. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he told her.
Acosta tweeted that Sanders’ statement that he put his hands on the aide was “a lie.”
CNN said in a statement that the White House revoked Acosta’s press pass out of “retaliation for his challenging questions” Wednesday, and the network accused Sanders of lying about Acosta’s actions.
“It’s such a hostile media,” Trump said after ordering reporter April Ryan of the American Urban Radio Networks to sit down when she tried to ask him a question.
The president complained that the media did not cover the humming economy and was responsible for much of the country’s divided politics. He said, “I can do something fantastic, and they make it look not good.”