After 1 year, Trump still eyes election

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump handily won the election a year ago Wednesday. Ask him and he’ll tell you about it.

Ten months into his presidency, Trump is still focused — some say fixated — on the election that catapulted him to power. Egged on by longtime friends and cable news, he repeatedly attacks his vanquished opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. In public and in private, he still boasts of the size of his triumph.

“It was great victory, and a victory that made a lot of people very happy,” Trump said Tuesday in Seoul, South Korea, his second stop on a five-country visit to Asia.

From Beijing, Trump tweeted early Thursday: “Congratulations to all of the “DEPLORABLES” and the millions of people who gave us a MASSIVE (304-227) Electoral College landslide victory!” He was referring to Clinton’s campaign comment that half his supporters belonged in a “basket of deplorables.”

There’s no doubt the president remains preoccupied by his election, a fixation friends and advisers say is part ego and part defense mechanism. Despite occupying the most powerful position in the world, Trump has told confidants he still doesn’t get the credit he deserves for defeating Clinton.

And friends say he’s well aware of the fact that numerous members of his own Republican Party expected him to lose and still cringe at seeing him in the White House.