President Donald Trump revealed he has a plan for what to do if Democrats recapture the House: wing it.
Trump made the surprising revelation during a campaign rally in West Virginia, where his main course of business was trying to take down Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who leads in the polls and gave Trump a critical vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In the midst of a discourse on the race, Trump, who usually speaks only of ‘winning,’ raised the possibility of losing the House, where polls and many pundits are favoring Democrats to take over.
‘And it could happen. It could happen. We’re doing very well. And we’re doing really well in the Senate. But could happen,’ Trump a crowd of the possibility of defeat.
‘And you know what you do? My whole life, you know what I say? ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out. Does that make sense? I’ll just figure it out,’ Trump said.
Donald Trump went head-to-head with Barack Obama at a rally on Friday evening
If Democrats do take the House by picking up 23 seats, they will gain control of powerful committees, and can begin probing cabinet secretaries, ethics issues, and other policies like the administration’s hurricane response strategies.
Later, at an Indiana rally, Trump stopped short of predicting victory.
‘Tuesday is going to be a very interesting day,’ he said. He said it wouldn’t compare to his own election two years ago, ‘but it’s going to be interesting nevertheless.
Trump continues to talk up his party’s chances in the Senate, and later Friday traveled to Indiana in a plan to boost Mike Braun over incumbent Democrat Sen. Mike Donnelly.
Trump insulted Donnelly, calling him ‘Sleepin’ Joe.’
‘And a vote for mike’s opponent Joe Donnely is a vote to make Cryin’ Chuck Schumer the Sen Majority Leader, we can’t do that,’ he said.
‘A vote for any Democrat this November is a vote to put the radical Democrats in charge of the House, the Senate and every congressional committee. That’s not good for Indiana that’s not good for our country,’ Trump said.
Trump also went head-to-head with Barack Obama at rallies on Friday evening. In Indiana, he called him ‘Barack H. Obama’ – alluding to his middle name, Hussein, during a campaign where he has inveighed against immigration and the caravan.
In West Virginia he had another dig.
‘I heard President Obama speak today. I had to listen, I was in the plane. I had nothing else to do,’ Trump said in West Virginia as he spoke from an airport hanger.
Obama accused Trump of telling ‘lies’ about health care as he spoke at a Florida campaign event. Trump threw the remark back in his face in Huntington, telling the former president had no business lecturing him on truth-telling after all the ‘lies’ he told about health care reform when he was in office.
He also said Obama doesn’t have any credibility when it comes to promoting a free press. ‘Nobody was worse to the press than Obama, nobody,’ he told his West Virginia audience.
Trump said Obama had no business lecturing him on truth-telling at a Florida campaign event after all the ‘lies’ he told about health care reform when he was president
‘I heard President Obama speak today. I had to listen. I was in the plane. I had nothing else to do,’ he began as he spoke from an airport hanger in Huntington
Obama was campaigning in Miami on Friday while Trump was making his way to Huntington for a late afternoon rally that he slipped in before a joint event in Indianapolis with the vice president.
He explicitly rejected ‘a politics based on division’ and mocked Trump’s promise to ‘drain the swamp.’
The two-term Democratic president that his successor’s administration had so many indictments they could ‘fill a football team’ during the remarks in which he took aim at Republicans for making he described as false claims about their desire to protect pre-exisiting conditions.
‘That’s some kind of gall. That’s some kind of chutzpah. Let’s call it what it is. It’s a lie. They’re lying to you,’ he said. ‘I’m hopeful that we will cut through the lies, block out the noise and remember who we are called to be,’ he said at the event.
Trump said that he caught the part of the ex-president’s remarks that were apparently aimed at him.
Trump mocked Obama as having had a ‘very small crowd’ that was significantly less than the audience he drew in Houston before his own crowd of a couple thousand people at the Tri-State Airport.
‘I heard him talk about telling the truth. He was talking about you have to tell the truth,’ Trump said. ‘And yet, 28 times he said, you can keep your doctor, if you like your doctor. You can keep your plan, if you like the plan,’ Trump said.
‘They were all lies. Over and over again you heard that. Just used it to pass a terrible healthcare plan that we are decimating strike by strike,’ he asserted.
Reliving the time that the GOP nearly reversed the Democratic president’s signature health care legislation, Trump said: ‘And we actually had Obamacare killed, except for one Republican vote, and any Democrat, one Democrat and we would have had it obliterated and you would have had great healthcare.’
‘Then I heard him talk about the freedom of the press, we have to maintain the press, we have to love those people – except that nobody was worse to he press than Obama, nobody.’
Trump reminded the crowd that Obama, who had spoken up earlier in defense of the First Amendment, allowed his Justice Department to prosecute and spy on reporters.
‘But he’s talking about how I should be nice to the fake news,’ Trump said. ‘No thank you.’
Several hours later, in Indiana he did the shtick again but left out his comment showing solidarity with the media.
He said Obama had a ‘very small’ rally in Miami earlier in the day ‘and in the rally, he talked about honesty, how he had to be honest.’
Trump brought up Obama’s ‘if you like it, you can keep’ it promise that Politifact dubbed its ‘Lie of the Year’ in 2013 and asked, ‘How many times did he say that? 28 times.’
He went a little further, deriding Obama’s foreign policy but quickly changed subjects without challenging his predecessor’s other combative remarks.
‘We could go into it, but let’s stay pleasant, right, let’s stay pleasant,’ Trump said as he moved on.