Trump scorns Republicans who lost for not embracing him
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 Republican-controlled Senate.
Trump mentioned several others he suggested may have lost because they hesitated to campaign on his agenda. “Mia Love gave me no love, and she lost,” the president said of the Utah congresswoman, who was trailing Democrat Ben McAdams in a race that had not been called Wednesday. “Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”
Trump also called out Reps. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., and Erik Paulsen, R-Minn. “Erik Paulsen didn’t want the embrace,” the president said.
Trump said the Republicans’ performance overall “defied history,” and he applauded Republican Senate pickups in Indiana, North Dakota and Missouri.
Trump offered little of the humility past presidents who have suffered electoral defeats have displayed. He characterized the night’s results as a near total victory for Republicans.
How the president views the results probably will inform how he approaches the next two years as he heads into re-election 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.