President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would respect the midterm results only if the elections were honest, but he did not define that standard in his answer as control of Congress is at stake.
At Joint Base Andrews, a reporter asked whether Trump would respect the results regardless of the outcome. “I will, if they’re honest elections,” he replied. A recording and transcript of the gaggle show the exchange; a White House press-pool report by USA TODAY correspondent Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy also recorded his response.
In the same exchange, Trump was asked how he would work with Democrats if they controlled the House or Senate. He said the parties could find a way to make deals and cited his veto power, saying, “Look, I have strong veto.”
The election will determine all 435 House seats and roughly one-third of the Senate. The Reuters/Ipsos Core Political survey, conducted Oct. 22-26, found that on the national generic-ballot question, 53% of likely voters said their choice or leaning in their district was Democratic; 44% gave a Republican answer. The poll measures party preference across districts, not the outcome of individual races or which party will control Congress.
Trump gave a similar conditional answer in an NBC News interview with Tom Llamas on Feb. 4, when asked whether he would trust the results if Republicans lost control of Congress, as EconoTimes previously reported.
The midterm election is scheduled for Nov. 3.
