President Donald Trump said he “couldn’t transfer the love” his supporters hold for him to other Republican candidates in his first public appearance after Democrats captured the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
“If I were on the ballot, we would have won. You saw the people that were packed. Thousands and thousands of people at every rally. And if I was on the ballot, we would have won,” he said while taking questions at a ceremony to raise the final steel beam for the ballroom Wednesday.
“But they just… You couldn’t transfer that love. There was such love at those rallies. It was incredible. And, we weren’t able to transfer the love to candidates,” he said.
Trump did not address the election loss during his initial remarks, choosing to focus solely on the ballroom’s construction until he took questions from reporters.
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Trump did address the election after being asked if he agreed with Vice President JD Vance’s assessment that the Iran war cost Republicans the election.
“I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term and probably that’s, probably it’s true,” he admitted.
“But at the same time, if I had it to do again, I’d have to do it again, because long term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear war,” Trump added.
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The president also said he felt the tradeoff was worth it.
“You have no choice. I mean, I thought the oil would go up a lot more, and I did it on that basis. You have no choice. You have to do it. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon or everything that you see here someday might not exist,” he said.
Trump then addressed criticisms of his Monday speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool after being asked if he regretted the speech’s timing.
“I heard it was a very good speech, got great reviews. That was only a speech on the reflecting pool that had nothing to do with anything else. That was a speech, very much like this is today on this incredible place that we’re building at the White House. It’s going to be here for many, many years and serving our country,” he said.
He also reflected on a lengthy post-mortem social media post from Vance that pinned Republicans’ Tuesday losses largely on the Iran war. In the post, Vance cited four primary things Republicans can do to win back voters: “1) End the war 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation 3) Put America First 4) Change our relationship to Israel.”
Trump was asked if he had any idea Vance was going to publish the remarks.
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“I know how he feels about it. I think it was, I think it was fine. Yeah, I thought it was good. We knew that, I know that. I knew that when I went in and we stopped them from having a nuclear weapon. And they will never have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Despite Democrats’ capture of large majorities in both the House and Senate, Trump appeared hopeful that he could still work with them.
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“I’ll get along probably with the Democrats, unless they want to be destructive. But I have the power of the veto. So if we don’t like what they’re doing or they’ll… they’ve already called and they want to talk about things and that’s fine,” he remarked.
He also downplayed the likelihood that Democrats would move to impeach him or members of his Cabinet.
“I think it would. I think it would destroy… I think it would destroy the Democrat Party if they did it. Because impeachment for no reason. What? For having a successful country? Our country is more successful now than in any time in its history,” he told a reporter before saying, “Watch the beam go up.”