Trump distances himself from GOP's strike potential

White House

In public, the president declares that the elections of 2018 concern his country. In private, he talks about pointing out the probable democratic gains.

At his rallies, President Donald Trump asserted that the midterm elections consisted of about one person, Donald Trump. "Come out in 2018," Trump told a crowd in Missouri last month, "because you vote for me!"

In private, the president says exactly the opposite.

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According to two people familiar with the conversations, Trump distances himself from a Republican potential that strikes election day. He tells the confidants that he does not see the mid-term elections as a referendum on himself, describing his bid for the 2020 re-election as "the real election". And he says he's holding House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the protection of their majority. at the congress.

According to a person familiar with these discussions, Trump reportedly said about Ryan and McConnell: "It's their election … and if they fail, it's not my fault."

Other sources said that Trump may be attacking his favorite scarecrow, the media, for allegedly being opposed to him.

There are not only preventive fingerings: Trump expresses bigger trust that most experts on the chances of his party to maintain his majority in the House and extend his control over the Senate. And he admits that McConnell motivated GOP voters by upholding Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation.

But in the event of an election eruption, Trump is about to blame for a mile and a half on Pennsylvania Avenue.

"Look for the White House to say something like that." Paul Ryan chose to be a lame speaker instead of leaving, which cost Congress the opportunity to do several things before November, "said a spokesman. assistant of a GOP member who speaks with the president often.

A Democratic wave would be particularly embarrassing for a successful president who boasts that his record is unprecedented by any of his modern predecessors.

Already, allusions to a strategy of distancing have begun to slip into Trump's public comments, even though he continues to sing during the demonstrations that the mid-term elections are a "referendum" during his first two years of mandate. Asset told The Associated Press recently said that some of its supporters had told it: "I will never go to vote at mid-term because you are not running."

Inside the White House, councilors have resigned themselves to the fact that Trump – as he has often done in the past – will follow his instinct on how to signal any takeover by Democracy in the House of Commons. November 6th. These anticipate many unfiltered and anticipated attempts. The morning tweets blame everyone except the president.

"It would be a lot of shots taken from Twitter's early morning hips," said a well-placed Republican source, who added that the White House seemed to lack clear plans for post-election messaging.

The themes are already predictable.

"The bow is going to be it was not on the ballot, and people have not fully appreciated its policy and [candidates] did not attach enough to him, "said a relative of the president, quoted by several sources, saying that Trump would probably blame the media.

If Trumpian's reaction was flagrant, it would also be a break with the presidential precedent. After losing Congress to the benefit of the Democrats in the middle of his second term in 2006, George W. Bush, humiliated, acknowledged that he had been "punched", pulled out the Unpopular Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and is committed to finding a "ground of understanding". with the democrats.

Four years later, two years after the start of his term, congressional Democrats had resulted in 63 seats in the House of Representatives, one of the biggest gains at the halfway mark since 1938, after Barack Obama taken "direct responsibility". Calling the moment "humiliating", Obama promised to "do a better job".

Although White House officials are aware of these precedents, Trump may not care. And he alone will decide how the mid-term results will be posted, his collaborators following him. The White House declined to comment on the recording of this story.

"Nevertheless [way] they may want to turn their heads … he will drive the train on it and the White House will fall and say that the president did everything he could, but unfortunately he is not not on the ballot and people were not so enthusiastic, "said the president. someone close to Trump.

Before he was president, Trump had a philosophy if leaders must accept the blame: "Whatever happens, you are responsible. If that does not happen, you are responsible. "

But once in power, Trump, supported by his communications team, blamed the setbacks suffered by others, including Congress.

After efforts to repeal Obama's health care bill, which was blocked in Congress last July, the president criticized "a few Republicans" for delaying the process, despite confusion over Capitol Hill with its own signals. mixed on health care reform. Sarah Sanders, White House Press Secretary echoes Trump's line, saying that it would be "absolutely ridiculous that Congress is trying to blame the president for the impossibility of doing his job."

And when Trump's approval by Roy Moore failed to bring the Alabama Senate candidate to victory last December, the president said he was pushed to support the wrong candidate. Those around him reinforced his claim.

"We must recognize the poor political advice that @POTUS has received and that it needs to change," said Tony Fabrizio, one of the leading Republican pollsters involved in the 2016 Trump campaign, on Twitter at the ### 39; era.

"We are in a completely different dynamic now, and we know that President Trump will be perfectly comfortable in this exercise," said a former senior adviser to George W. Bush, saying his supervisor was "own and subtract some of the heat from the direction of the hill "after the 2006 elections, two years before Bush's departure.

A former senior Obama administration official, who recalled being scared when the former president used the term "wake" to describe the results of the 2010 interim session, said that the White House had "taken stock" of the situation afterwards and decided that Obama could continue to strip his agenda through "either the executive power, or at the state level and at the level local".

"I only cracked because it was so true … we were shelling," said this person, adding that Obama nonetheless testified "of a willingness to accept his responsibilities and not to fall into defeat. "

If Trump resists this trend by refusing to bear any blame, some Republicans have stated that they would be disappointed – though not surprised.

"The president's rhetoric is what really energized the left. It would be difficult to register in Congress if we lost the House, "said POLITICO a GOP collaborator. "But it's only a classic behavior on the part of this president not to bear the blame if things go wrong and definitely take responsibility if things turn out well."

Nevertheless, some of Trump's most determined allies say that it would be justified to turn his anger towards congressional Republicans if the month of November became a bloodbath for the ruling party. They say he has done "all that is possible", for example organizing consecutive campaign rallies last week to help the GOP candidates fight for their seat or seek to annoy the elected Democrats.

"I think [Trump] The Republican Party did everything it was asked to … help the campaign and raise money wherever they needed it, "said Corey Lewandowski, former campaign manager at Trump. "President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have responded to this call every time."