President Donald Trump faced pressure from Republicans on Wednesday to change course after a
midterm election rout handed Democrats control of Congress and voters rejected his handpicked candidates in key races.
Republican allies and strategists called for Trump to shake up his White House personnel, restore discipline and scrap policies they blamed for the losses, including the
Iran war and
tariffs, as his presidency enters its final years. Veteran Republican strategist John Feehery called the results a "huge disaster" for Trump.
"He needs to clean house," Feehery said. "Every day from this point forward, he's becoming more and more lame." But Trump showed little indication that he viewed the election outcome as a reason to change direction.
"I don't view it as a hit on me," he told Fox News late on Tuesday. The White House also struck a defiant public tone, posting a photograph of Trump on social media with the message: "PSA: TRUMP IS STILL YOUR PRESIDENT."
President Donald Trump faced pressure from Republicans on Wednesday to change course after a midterm election rout handed Democrats control of Congress and voters rejected his handpicked candidates in key races.
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Trump decided to use his first post-election appearance not to address the fury of voters who had turned on him. Instead, Trump thought, this was the moment to
wax lyrical about his pet project for nearly 20 minutes. Standing in the White House’s former East Wing, Trump invited reporters to see the progress of his ballroom. “This has been a structure the likes of which has never been seen anywhere,” Trump said.
“This will be the ballroom, he said. “Right here is the ballroom. Over here, you’re going to have magnificent columns on this side, outside exterior columns, very much like the Supreme Court. They’re actually taller and they’re even more magnificent.”
As he watched construction workers engage in efforts to hoist the ballroom’s final beam and an enormous Stars and Stripes skywards, Trump gushed about the joys of limestone, plans for a kitchen that is going to be “top of the line” and a “roof that could actually hold helicopters”.
The President just delivered a speech so breathtaking in its ignorance that it takes one’s breath away
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Asked if he was worried about the possibility that when Democrats take control of Capitol Hill in January they might seek to impeach him all over again, Trump brushed the idea aside. “
It would destroy the Democratic Party if they did that,” said a man who is now presiding over the rubble of his own party even as he remains laser-focused on the astonishing properties of granite.
Asked about prospective impeachment a day after his Republican Party suffered a sweeping midterm election loss, Trump said: "I think it would destroy the Democrat Party if they did that," insisting there was "no reason" for him to be impeached like the systemic abuses of presidential power and a pattern of defying court orders, or the whole Iran war thing that completely bypassed Congress, or the Trump administration and his family that are engaging in deep, systemic financial conflicts of interest and "endless amounts of grift" out of the White House.
The first half of Trump’s fractious second term in office concluded with him set to become a lame duck president vowing to make extensive use of his presidential power.
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