WASHINGTON: Describing the midterm poll results as a “tremendous success”, US President Donald Trump Wednesday said his Republican party defied history by performing much better than what the ruling parties have done in the past in such elections.
He also offered an olive branch to Democrats, saying he wanted to work together with the Democratic leadership next year to continue delivering for the American people, including on economic growth, infrastructure, trade, lowering the cost of prescription drugs.
“Last night the Republican Party defied history to expand our Senate majority while significantly beating expectations in the House for the midterm year,” Trump told reporters at a white House news conference, a day after the Republicans lost control of the 435-member House of Representatives.
“These are some of the things that the Democrats do want to work on, and I really believe we’ll be able to do that. I think we’re going to have a lot of reason to do it,” he said.
Trump termed the midterm poll results as a “tremendous success”.
The Democrats now have majority in the House, while Trump’s party has retained majority in 100-member Senate and has increased its tally by a few.
Leading from the front, Trump addressed some 30 rallies in last 60 days crisscrossing some of the major battleground States.
Trump said he achieved this result in spite of a very dramatic fund-raising disadvantage driven by Democrats’ wealthy donors and special interests, and very hostile media coverage.
“The media coverage set a new record and a new standard,” he alleged.
“This vigorous campaigning stopped the blue wave that they talked about. I don’t know if there ever was such a thing, but could have been. If we didn’t do the campaigning, probably, there could have been,” he said.
Trump said during the first mid-term of his predecessor Barack Obama in 2010, the Democrats lost 63 seats in the House and six Senate seats.
By expanding the Senate majority, the voters have also clearly rebuked the Senate Democrats for their handling of the Kavanaugh hearings, Trump said, adding that those Republicans who did not embrace his policies lost their elections very badly.
Trump also said he was ready for a different approach with the Democrats if they desire to take that path.
After their victory Tuesday night, some of the Democrats have been seeking investigations against Trump.
“They can play that game, but we can play it better, because we have a thing called the United States Senate, and a lot of very questionable things were done, between leaks of classified information and many other elements that should not have taken place,” he said.
Trump said but it will end up nowhere in the next two years and it would be easy for him to go back to the people during his re-election and blame the Democrats for everything
“I really respected what Nancy (Pelosi) said last night about bipartisanship and getting together. She used the word “uniting” and she used the bipartisanship statement, which is so important because that’s what we should be doing,” Trump said.
Trump said now was the time for members of both parties to join together, put partisanship aside, and keep the American economic miracle going strong.
“We must all work together to protect our military – we have to do that to support our law enforcement, secure our borders, and advance really great policy, including environmental policy. We want crystal clean water, we want beautiful perfect air. Air and water has to be perfect,” he said.
“At the same time, we don’t want to put ourselves at a disadvantage to other countries who are very competitive with us and who don’t abide by the rules at all. We don’t want to hurt our jobs, we don’t want to hurt our factories, we don’t want companies leaving. We want to be totally competitive and we are,” Trump said. PTI
