The US President lashed out multiple times before he congratulated the Democrats on their double win of the House of Representatives and Senate
US President Donald Trump did not shy of the ‘Mr Veto’ nickname(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump has said he will use his ‘tremendous powers’ to challenge the Democrats as the party wins control of Congress.
His comments came in an interview with CBS News on Tuesday evening, hours before the midterm election results began being called.
“I have the ultimate power — it’s called ‘veto,'” President Trump told CBS News in a phone interview before polls closed across the US in this year’s midterm elections, when asked about the prospect of a Democratic-controlled Congress next year.
Trump said he is prepared to veto Democratic legislation if necessary, and welcomed the moniker “Mr Veto,” in terms of describing his approach to Democrats.
That interview came before the results that now show the Democrats are sweeping to victory, with a majority in the House of Representatives, and a projected majority in the Senate which will give the party overall control of Congress.
While official results are still yet to be announced, media outlets are predicting a ‘blue tsunami’ across the country. The Democrats have had several important wins so far in historically Republican states, including Democratic flips in North and South Carolina.
As the results came in and Republican candidates started to fall, President Trump hit out immediately on social media, saying he “would have won IN A LANDSLIDE” if he had been on the ballot in a Truth Social post published at 10:37pm. The post came as Georgia elected the US’ first female black governor in Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, who edged out Republican Rick Jackson by 1.3 percent.
The president sent out a few barbs on the social media platform, including posting an image of a red cap with ‘VETO’ across the front instead of ‘make America great again’. Shortly after, he spoke on Fox News, conceding and congratulating his opponents.
He said on Fox News: “Well, I say this, congratulations to the Democrats, they did a good job. They’ve been looking for this one for 11-years and they’ve finally got it.
“But I don’t view it as a hit on me, we’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the presidency.”
The president said he ‘will accept’ the results of all the races, but has slammed Republican candidates for ‘not being around’ when ‘Trump wasn’t fashionable’, before ‘kissing my a**’ once he rose to power.
Trump told Fox News that he knows the Iran war had an impact on voters’ decisions: “I think part of it was Iran but at the same time, people understood the importance of what I’ve done with Iran, historically it’s going to be much more important than this evening.”
He later clarified “it’s the gasoline” prices driven by the Iran war that likely affected voters’ decisions at the polls.
He says they “probably weren’t willing to do the short-term consequence of paying more for gasoline, and I understand that”.
But prior to the results being called, Trump was not as conciliatory, saying that his veto power could eventually force Democrats to cut bipartisan deals with him, should they make gains.
“Historically, you veto for a couple of months and then they come and say, ‘We’ve got to make a deal,'” Mr Trump said to CBS.
The president’s comments signal that there will likely be a dramatic showdown between the executive branch and Congress next year, as he asserted that he could ramp up his use of executive power if Democrats try to constrain him in the legislative branch of US government.
In the interview, Trump cited Trump v. Slaughter, a Supreme Court decision from earlier this year that allowed him to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a member of the Federal Trade Commission.
He said that 6-to-3 decision enables him to exert sweeping control over many federal agencies, boards and commissions, regardless of who holds majorities in the House and Senate.
“We won the Slaughter case and the Slaughter case gives the president tremendous powers that it never had before,” Mr Trump said.
The president said that he plans to move forward his agenda next year in numerous federal areas with this ruling as part of the foundation for his coming executive actions.
“The presidency, our presidency, is considered a strong presidency. You can do a lot,” Trump added.
