New Delhi: US President Donald Trump has said he is “absolutely willing” to accept the results of the midterm elections and work with Democrats, after Republicans suffered defeats in several key races, including in Texas, Ohio, South Carolina and Nebraska.
Speaking to Fox News after the results, Trump congratulated Democrats on their victories but dismissed the suggestion that the outcome amounted to a rejection of his leadership.
“Congratulations to the Democrats. They did a good job. They’ve been looking for this one for 11 years, and they finally got it. But I don’t view it as a hit on me,” he said.
Defending his record, Trump added, “We’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the presidency.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Trump said he was prepared to work with Democrats as they made gains in the elections. “I am absolutely willing to accept those results,” he said, adding: “We’ll look forward to working with them. We’ll probably work something out.”
A series of Truth posts
Trump’s conciliatory remarks were followed by a series of posts on his Truth Social platform, in which he sought to distance himself from the Republican party’s electoral performance and criticised candidates who lost.
“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he wrote.
Trump subsequently weighed in on the Texas gubernatorial race, where Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated Republican incumbent Greg Abbott. Blaming Abbott’s defeat on what he described as the governor becoming a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only), Trump wrote: “If Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas, hadn’t become a RINO in the last six months of his Political Life, he wouldn’t have lost. He went back to his original formula, and it wasn’t pretty!”
In another post, Trump said he intended to become a “Political Pundit” to analyse the reasons behind the electoral outcomes.
“I’m going to become a Political Pundit, both good and bad, on the reasons these candidates won and lost!” he wrote.
He also posted a photograph of a red hat bearing the word “VETO”, without further explanation. The post came after he told The Wall Street Journal that he expected to work with Democrats but would use his veto powers if necessary.
“I think we’ll work with the Democrats, and we’ll get along very well with them. If we don’t, we’ll be very tough on them, they’ll be very tough on us,” he said.
Asked whether the war in Iran had contributed to Republican losses, Trump acknowledged that it was “a piece of it”, but said he did not regret the decision to go to war.
(Edited by Aakriti Handa)