Trump spends 20 minutes at White House ballroom site amid midterm losses

President Donald Trump spent nearly 20 minutes on Wednesday touring the construction site for the new White House ballroom. He used the extended visit to justify the sprawling building project. During the tour, he did not mention the sweeping Republican defeats that occurred the previous night.

The president invited reporters into the cavernous site to watch crews erect what he described as the final beam. Trump signed the structure before making his comments. He stated, “This has been a structure the likes of which has never been seen anywhere.”

Trump had no public events scheduled before calling reporters in at the last minute. He briefly took questions about the election results. He insisted that if he were on the ballot, he would have won. He argued that his recent rallies generated love from supporters that was not transferred to the candidates.

Polling data released around the same time suggests voters disagreed with this assessment. About two-thirds of voters in the AP Voter Poll said Trump does not have the right priorities. The overwhelming majority of these voters supported Democratic House candidates. In losing states like Ohio, Iowa, Maine, and North Carolina, majorities said Republican Senate candidates were too supportive of the unpopular president.

Democrats took control of Congress following a wave of Senate victories. These wins included seats in South Carolina and Kansas, which had not elected a Democratic senator since 1932. In Texas, Democrats won a statewide race for the first time in more than three decades.

Trump has a history of deflecting blame after midterm elections. In 2018, he blamed defeated members of his own party for their losses. He told Fox News on election night that he does not like to consider the result a defeat for him because he was not on the ballot. Voters, he said, simply did not like the candidates.

He urged voters to pretend he was on the ballot in at least 40 instances during speeches and rallies since September 1. This approach contrasts with previous presidents who publicly shouldered responsibility for midterm losses. Obama called the 2010 result a shellacking, while Bush described the 2006 outcome as a thumping.