House Republicans mocked by President Trump after their midterm losses are pushing back on his rhetoric, arguing that embracing the commander in chief wouldn’t have changed the outcome of their races.
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), one of several Republicans singled out by Trump at a press conference last week, said that while elements of the GOP base love Trump, embracing the president would likely have caused him to lose by an even wider margin.
“I mean, it was obviously disappointing,” Coffman said of Trump’s comments, “but I think he has to know that he’s not popular in my district.”
{mosads}Coffman lost his reelection race, in a district that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won by 9 points over Trump, by 11 percentage points. He said a Trump visit wouldn’t have helped him and that it wasn’t offered.
“He never offered to come out to the district and I clearly didn’t ask him, but I think it would not have been positive and he knows that,” he said.
Along with Coffman, Trump slammed Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.), John Faso (R-N.Y.) and Mia Love (R-Utah) for not embracing him on the campaign trail. All lost their reelection bids.
“You had some that decided to ‘let’s stay away, let’s stay away,’” he said. “They did very poorly. I’m not sure that I should be happy or sad, but I feel just fine about it.”
He got even more personal with Love, who trails her Democratic challenger by a little more than 1,000 votes in a race that has yet to be called.
“Mia Love gave me no love. And she lost,” he said. “Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”
Faso, who was unseated by Rep.-elect Antonio Delgado, said the president’s attacks on members of his party were “ill-advised.”
“I don’t think he had the right information. I think I supported the president when I thought he was right and I parted with him when I thought he wasn’t,” he said.
“But you know, the irony is that the Democrats ran the campaign over the last year saying I was a puppet of the president — I mean, neither one of them were correct.”
Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), who lost his race but wasn’t attacked by Trump, agreed the president’s swipes were unnecessary.
“It was inappropriate,” he told The Hill. “They are excellent members. They are friends of mine.”
Curbelo noted that both GOP Senate hopeful Gov. Rick Scott and gubernatorial hopeful former Rep. Ron DeSantis — both of which are facing recounts in their Florida races — closely aligned themselves with the president yet performed worse in his district than he did.
“What I’ll tell you is the president needs to sharpen his pencil and check his ego,” he told CNN Tuesday. He called Trump “just wrong,” adding the president would’t have helped in his district.
Scott Wong and Melanie Zanona contributed