Trump deflects blame for midterms rout but says accepts results

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would accept the results of US midterm elections -- but quickly sought to shift the blame for the historic rout to his fellow Republicans.

Time and again on the campaign trail the 80-year-old told Republicans to "pretend I'm on the ballot." That may have been exactly the problem, as voters put Democrats in control of the House and Senate.

But Trump has never been one to take the blame, and in his first reaction to the election results Tuesday he insisted that the Republican Party would have won in a "landslide" if he had actually been running.

"I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Dismissing speculation about whether he would repeat his refusal to accept his 2020 presidential election loss to Joe Biden, Trump later took a conciliatory tone with the New York Times.

"I am absolutely willing to accept those results," he told The New York Times. "We'll work with the Democrats, and we'll, you know, look forward to working with them. We'll probably work something out."

But Trump later gave a hint of what he really intended to do to Democratic attempts at legislating, posting a picture of his trademark red MAGA baseball hat with the single word: "VETO."

There was a bunker mentality in the White House as Trump and his top cabinet members watched the bruising results come in at a reception in the lavish East Room.

"The White House mood is defiant," a White House official told AFP.

Some White House staffers dined on take-out from US chain restaurant The Cheesecake Factory -- a dig at Democratic former president Barack Obama, who had said Trump's White House renovations were "looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory."

'Buckle up'

A White House official questioned the quality of Republican candidates for the House and Senate.

Many of them Trump had endorsed and traveled across the country to rally support for -- even lavishing praise, in one case, on the "ass" of Republican Ohio Senate candidate Jon Husted.

"Candidate quality matters, and President Trump did a better job promoting many of the candidates on the ballot than the candidates did themselves," the White House official said.

Trump himself added later that he was going to "become a political pundit" and give the reasons why Republicans lost.

First in his crosshairs was Greg Abbott, the loyal Texas governor unseated by Democrat Gina Hinojosa. Trump said that if Abbott hadn't become a "RINO" (Republican In Name Only) "he wouldn't have lost."

The question now is how Trump will react to being a lame duck president for the last two years of his second term, with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate.

The White House indicated that Trump is unlikely to go quietly.

Iran is on his mind and there is widespread speculation that the president will resume large-scale military action against Tehran -- doubling down on a war that it is now clear voters loathed.

"Anyone who voted Democrat today is going to have a serious case of buyer's remorse when gas prices come down quickly when the Iran conflict is solved but they're still stuck with a list of liberal extremist Democrats," the White House official said.

The White House also gave a dark hint of retribution against his political enemies.

"A final note here: regardless of how today plays out, President Trump's resolve to stop the Radical Left is only going to become stronger. Buckle up."

Trump had appeared agitated before the first results even came in, posting a string of angry messages on social media lashing out at conservative broadcaster Fox News's coverage.

In one post sent as the first polls closed, Trump said Fox's ratings were "way down, not because of me, but because they are AGAINST me!"