November 7, 2018

Donald Trump’s First Post-Election Press Conference Was a Complete Disaster

He threatened Dems, sparred with reporters, and called out Republican losers.

In his first public remarks after Tuesday’s midterm elections, President Donald Trump appeared notably despondent, at times sparring with reporters over a range of questions, including Democrats’ new power in the Lower Chamber to investigate his administration. 

Though he made a point of expressing a desire to work across the aisle legislatively, Trump also directly threatened Democrats with retaliatory measures if they opened investigations into his doings. “They can play that game, but we can play it better,” he said. 

The threat came as Democrats, once they take control of the House of Representatives, are likely to launch probes into a wide range of scandals they have long sought information about—topics might include Trump’s personal finances, his much-maligned Puerto Rico hurricane response, and nepotism in the White House.

Trump also repeatedly asserted on Wednesday that Republican candidates who lost on Tuesday were at fault, at least in part, because they had declined to publicly “embrace” him. This suggestion was a continuation of Trump’s long-held framing of the midterms as a referendum on him personally. In one particularly strange part of his speech, Trump read from a list of losing GOP candidates. 

“Too bad Mike,” he said referring to Rep. Mike Coffman’s failed reelection bid.

Speaking on Rep. Mia Love’s loss, Trump claimed the Utah congressman “gave me no love.” “Too bad.”

Rep. Ryan Costello, who announced in March that he would not run for reelection, slammed Trump for blaming Republicans who, like him, chose to retire or distance themselves from the president.

In other tense moments, Trump attacked reporters in the room, labeling the media with his signature motto, “the enemy of the people.” When one reporter asked about Trump’s self-identification as a “nationalist,” the president cut her off and labeled her question “racist.”

Listen to our journalists explain all the twists and turns of Election Day, and what comes next for America, on this special episode of the Mother Jones Podcast:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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