It’s war if you attack me Trump tells Democrats
DONALD Trump yesterday declared that the US midterm elections were “very close to a complete victory” – despite losing control of the House of Representatives.
He also said that Democrats who want to impeach him were “sick”.
The President said that Republicans had “defied history” by keeping control of the Senate and gaining two seats. He trashed Republican candidates who did not “embrace” him and said that was the reason they lost their seats.
At a press conference in the White House Mr Trump appealed to the Democrats to work with him but warned he would adopt a “war-like posture” if they attacked him.
As results came in yesterday morning Democrats passed the threshold of 218 seats in the House of Representatives and took control of the chamber for the first time in eight years.
There was an unusually large turnout, estimated at 114 million, as Mr Trump’s opponents and his supporters were both motivated to get out and vote.
Mr Trump now faces a new political reality and the Democrat-controlled House will bog down his administration with investigations and subpoenas. It will probably look into his links to Russia and his finances and even has the power to impeach him.
Previous presidents have expressed remorse after losing the House in the midterms; George W Bush called it a “thumping” in 2006 and Barack Obama said 2010 was a “shellacking”.
Not Mr Trump, who tweeted that it was a “very big win” and focused on the success in the Senate at the freewheeling press conference, which went on for more than an hour.
Mr Trump said the results marked the largest Senate gains for a presidential party since John F Kennedy in 1962 and that “people like me and like the job I’m doing”.
The President mocked Republican candidates who shunned him, including Mia Love who lost her House seat in Utah. He said: “Mia Love gave me no love and she lost. Too bad.”
Turning to the Democrats, he said that “now is the time for both parties to join together”.
But Mr Trump said that, if they began to subpoena him, he would retaliate because “two can play that game”. He said: “If that happens we’re going to do the same thing and government comes to a halt and I will blame them.”
Describing Democrats who want to impeach him as “sick”, he asked: ‘“Do you impeach somebody because he’s created the greatest economic success in the history of our country?”
During yesterday’s press conference, the president launched an angry tirade against a reporter, calling him an “enemy of the people”. The clash
came when CNN’S Jim Acosta asked Mr Trump if he thought he had “demonised” migrants by calling the migrant caravan approaching the US from Central America an “invasion”.
“I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN and if you did it well, your ratings would be much better,” the President said.
After Mr Acosta attempted to follow up his question with a second on former FBI director Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, Mr Trump pointed angrily and said: “That’s enough. Put down the mic.”
Mr Trump said he was “not concerned about anything” because the investigation was “a hoax”.
Mr Acosta tussled with a woman White House aide who was trying to retrieve the microphone before eventually sitting down. When Mr Acosta continued to try to ask questions without his microphone, Mr Trump told him: “Just sit down, please. When you report fake news, which CNN does, a lot, you are the enemy of the people.”
The results showed the deep divide between the suburbs and rural areas, battle lines that are likely to play out again in the 2020 presidential election. An Associated Press survey showed that 56 per cent of rural voters went Republican and 39 per cent voted Democrat.
Democrats won the suburbs by 52 per cent to 43 per cent.
According to a New York Times prediction, Democrats were on course to win 230 seats in the House compared to 205 for the Republicans, though some races were too close to call.