Remarks by President Trump in Press Conference After Midterm Elections | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    East Room  •  November 7, 2018  •  11:57 A.M. EST


President Trump facing down the Democrat Media in his post midterm election press conference: Above. (White House photo)     Click image to expand.
    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. Please, thank you.

    It was a big day yesterday. An incredible day. And last night, the Republican Party defied history to expand our Senate Majority while significantly beating expectations in the House for the midtown and midterm year. We did this in spite of a very dramatic fundraising disadvantage driven by Democrats' wealthy donors and special interests, and very hostile media coverage, to put it mildly. The media coverage set a new record and a new standard.

    We also had a staggering number of House retirements. So it's a little tough. These are seats that could've been held pretty easily, and we had newcomers going in, and a lot of them worked very hard. But it's very difficult when you have that many retirements.

    We held a large number of campaign rallies with large, large numbers of people going to every one - and to the best of my knowledge, we didn't have a vacant or an empty seat; I'm sure you would have reported it if you spotted one - including 30 rallies in the last 60 days. And we saw the candidates that I supported achieve great success last night.

    As an example, of the 11 candidates we campaigned with during the last week, 9 won last night. This vigorous campaigning stopped the blue wave that they talked about. I don't know if there ever was such a thing, but could've been. If we didn't do the campaign, probably there could've been. And the history really will see what a good job we did in the final couple of weeks in terms of getting some tremendous people over the finish line. They really are tremendous people, but many of them were not known. But they will be known.

    This election marks the largest Senate gains for a President's party in a first midterm election since at least President Kennedy's in 1962.

    There have been only four midterm elections since 1934 in which a President's party has gained even a single Senate seat. As of now, we picked up, it looks like, three. Could be four. Perhaps it could be two. But we picked up a lot. And most likely, that number will be three. You people probably know that better than I do at this point, because you've looked at the more recent numbers.

    Fifty-five is the largest number of Republican senators in the last 100 years. In the last 80 years, a sitting President's party has only gained a cumulative total of eight Senate seats, averaging one per decade. So, if we picked up two, three, or four, that's a big percentage of that number. So in the last 80 years - you think of that - only eight seats.

    In President Obama's first midterm election, he lost six Senate seats, including in the deep-blue state of Massachusetts.

    Republicans captured at least four Senate seats held by Democrat incumbents. And these are tremendously talented, hardworking people that did this - Indiana, North Dakota, Florida, Missouri. We also won two open Senate seats in Tennessee - I want to congratulate our great champion who did such a great job in Tennessee, Marsha - and in Utah. And Arizona is looking very good. Really, very good. She's done a terrific job. That was a tough race, and she's done a fantastic job.

    In each of these open seats, Democrats recruited very strong candidates with substantial fundraising and media support. We were getting bombarded with money on the other side.

    In the House, Republicans dramatically outperformed historical precedents and overcame a historic number of retirements - the most House Republican retirements in 88 years; 43 House Republicans retired.

    Now, I will say this - that, in many cases, they were chairman of committees, and they left because they weren't chairman, because the Republicans have a rule - for six years. And what that does is wonderful in one way; it lets people come through the system and become chairman. And, in another way, it drives people out. Because when they're a chairman, they don't want to go and not be a chairman. You're the chairman of a committee, and you're a big deal, and then all of a sudden you're not doing that anymore. So they leave. We had a lot of them leave. I guess you can flip a coin as to which system is better. The Democrats do the other. Some of their folks have been in these committees for a long time as chairman.

    In 2010, President Obama's first midterm, he lost 63 seats. By contrast, as of the most current count, it looks like around 27 House seats or something. And we'll figure that out pretty soon.


    We also had a slew of historic wins in the governors' races - the governors' races were incredible - against very well-funded, talented, and skilled Democrat candidates and people that worked very, very hard, respectfully, for those candidates, like Oprah Winfrey, who I like. I don't know if she likes me anymore, but that's okay. She used to. But she worked very hard in Georgia. Very, very hard.

    And if you look at them, we won four governors' races crucial to 2020 and the presidential race: Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Georgia. The big ones: Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Georgia. Can't get much more important than that. They were incredible. They were actually incredible campaigns, too. Incredible.

    As of right now, Republicans will control the majority of governorships across the country, including three great women who worked very hard: the governors of Alabama, South Dakota, and Iowa. They worked very, very hard. They're very talented.

    By expanding our Senate majority, the voters have also clearly rebuked the Senate Democrats for their handling of the Kavanaugh hearings. That was a factor. I think maybe a very big factor. The way that was handled, I think, was - tremendous energy was given to the Republican Party by the way they treated then-Judge Kavanaugh, now Justice Kavanaugh. And expressed their support for confirming more great pro-Constitution judges.

    Candidates who embraced our message of low taxes, low regulations, low crime, strong borders, and great judges excelled last night. They excelled. They really - I mean, we have a list of people that were fantastic, and I'm just going to point them out: Mike Bost; Rodney Davis; Andy Barr was fantastic. I went to Kentucky - for the most part, I didn't campaign for the House, but I did actually make a special trip for Andy Barr because he was in a very tough race in Kentucky, and he won. That was a very tough race. The polls were all showing that he was down, and down substantially. And he won. And that one, I did do.

    Pete Stauber, of Minnesota. Great guy. He's new and ran a fantastic race.

    On the other hand, you had some that decided to "let's stay away." "Let's stay away." They did very poorly. I'm not sure that I should be happy or sad, but I feel just fine about it.

    Carlos Curbelo; Mike Coffman - too bad, Mike; Mia Love. I saw Mia Love. She'd call me all the time to help her with a hostage situation. Being held hostage in Venezuela. But Mia Love gave me no love, and she lost. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.

    And Barbara Comstock was another one. I mean, I think she could have run that race, but she didn't want to have any embrace. For that, I don't blame her. But she - she lost. Substantially lost.

    Peter Roskam didn't want the embrace. Erik Paulsen didn't want the embrace. And in New Jersey, I think he could have done well, but didn't work out too good.

    Bob Hugin, I feel badly because I think that's something that could have been won. That's a race that could have been won. That's a race that could have been won. John Faso.

    Those are some of the people that, you know, decided for their own reason not to embrace, whether it's me or what we stand for. But what we stand for meant a lot to most people. And we've had tremendous support, and tremendous support in the Republican Party. Among the biggest support in the history of the party. I've actually heard, at 93 percent, it's a record. But I won't say that, because who knows. But we've had tremendous support.

    America is booming like never before. Doing fantastic. We have Larry Kudlow here, and he said the numbers are as good as he's ever seen - numbers - at any time for our country. But he's a young man, so he hasn't seen that many numbers. (Laughter.) Where's Larry? You're a young man. Right, Larry? And you haven't been doing this too long, but they're as good as you've ever seen. And we may have - if you have a question for Larry, we'll do that.

    But I want to send my warmest appreciation in regards to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. We really worked very well together. We have been working very well together. We actually have a great relationship. People just don't understand that, which is fine.


    And also to, perhaps - it looks like, I would think - Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And I give her a lot of credit. She works very hard, and she's worked long and hard. I give her a great deal of credit for what she's done and what she's accomplished.

    Hopefully, we can all work together next year to continue delivering for the American people, including on economic growth, infrastructure, trade, lowering the cost of prescription drugs. These are some of 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.

    And I will say, just as a matter of business, I was with some very successful people last night. We were watching the returns. So if the Republicans won - and let's say we held on by two, or one, or three - it would've been very hard out of that many Republicans to ever even get support among Republicans, because there will always be one, or two, or three people that, for a good reason or for a bad reason, or for grandstanding - we have that too; you've seen that. You've seen that. Plenty of grandstanding. But for certain reasons that many people - you're always going to have a couple that won't do it. So that puts us in a very bad position.

    In other words, had we kept it, and this is no - I'm saying this for very basic reasons, common sense - it puts us in a very tough position. We win by one, or two, or three, and you'll have one, or two, or three, or four or five even, come over and say, you know, "Look, we're not going to along with this. We want this, this, this..." And all of a sudden, we can't even - we wouldn't even be able to get, in many cases, out of the Republicans' hands before we sent it on to the Senate.

    And now we have a much easier path, because the Democrats will come to us with a plan for infrastructure, a plan for healthcare, a plan for whatever they are looking at, and we'll negotiate. And as you know, it's been very hard in the Senate because we need, essentially, 10 votes from Democrats, and we don't get those votes. Because the Democrats do really stick together well. I don't agree with them on a lot of policy, but I agree with them on sticking together. They stick together great.

    So now we go into the Senate. We don't have the 10 votes. And what happens? It doesn't get passed. Even if it gets out of the House, it doesn't get passed. So under the new concept of what we're doing, I say, "Come on. Let me see what you have." They want to do things. You know, I keep hearing about investigations fatigue. Like from the time - almost from the time I announced I was going to run, they've been giving us this investigation fatigue. It's been a long time. They got nothing. Zero. You know why? Because there is nothing.

    But 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. And all you're going to do is end up in back and forth, and back and forth. And two years is going to go up, and we won't have done a thing.

    I really think, and I really respected what Nancy said last night about bipartisanship and getting together and uniting. She used the word "uniting" and she used the word the bipartisanship statement, which is so important because that's what we should be doing. So we can look at us, they can look at us, and we can look at them, and it'll go back and forth. And it'll probably be very good for me politically. I could see it being extremely good politically, because I think I'm better at that game than they are, actually.