WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that it’s not his fault if Republicans lose control of the House in this year’s midterms, weeks after he told supporters to “pretend I’m on the ballot” in November.
Trump made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press.
“I don’t believe anybody has ever had this kind of impact,” Trump told the AP, defending his efforts to rally support for candidates across the country. He has headlined four “Make America Great Again” rallies in each of the past two weeks, and he’s holding three more this week.
Earlier this month, at a rally in Southaven, Mississippi, Trump urged supporters to go to the polls, telling the crowd, “Pretend I’m on the ballot.”
Trump’s remarks come as Republicans’ prospects of maintaining control of the House appear increasingly dim.
In the AP interview, Trump also accused Michael Cohen, his former personal attorney, of lying when he testified that Trump directed him to pay off two women who had alleged affairs with the then-candidate.
Cohen pleaded guilty in August to eight violations of banking, tax and campaign finance law. As he has done previously, Trump played down his relationship with Cohen in the AP interview, calling his former longtime attorney “a PR person who did small legal work” and saying it was “very sad” that Cohen had struck a plea deal with prosecutors.
Cohen, who recently switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, said in a Sunday tweet that the Nov. 6 midterms “might be the most important vote in our lifetime.”
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