White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt came to the defense of President Donald Trump over his take on the 2026 midterm elections.
In an interview with Reuters released Thursday, Trump expressed frustration that the Republican Party could lose control of the House and Senate in November, pointing to the historical trend of how the party in power typically loses seats during the second year of a presidency.
“It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms,” Trump said during the sit-down interview in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
While touting his accomplishments since his return to the White House, the president added: “When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”
Leavitt was directly asked about Trump’s claim during her press briefing on Thursday.
“I was in that interview,” Leavitt said. “It was a closed-door interview. Obviously, there was not audio or video.”
She went on to say that the president was “simply joking.”
“He was saying, ‘We’re doing such a great job. We’re doing everything the American people thought. Maybe we should just keep rolling,’” Leavitt said. “He was speaking facetiously.”
Later in the briefing, another reporter pressed Leavitt to expand on her answer, saying that “Americans for generations have fought and died for democracy” while questioning whether Trump “finds the idea of canceling elections funny.”
“Andrew, were you in the room?” Leavitt said. “No you weren’t. I was in the room. I heard the conversation. And only someone like you would take that so seriously and pose it at a question that way.”
Trump’s latest comments come as he jokingly floated the idea of canceling future elections during an annual policy retreat of House Republicans at the Kennedy Center earlier this month, while tearing into Democrats for the “worst president,” “worst job” and “worst policy.”
“I won’t say cancel the election,” Trump said. “They should cancel the election, because the fake news will say, ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’ They always call me a dictator.”
Trump also urged Republicans to win the midterms, warning he’ll face impeachment if they come up empty-handed. The president was impeached twice in the House during his first term, but was acquitted both times by the Senate.
“They’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump said. “I’ll get impeached.”
Vice President JD Vance has similarly claimed he is “sure” Trump will be impeached for a third time if Democrats sweep the elections.
“Look, they have nothing to actually run on or govern on,” Vance told Fox News last week. “Their entire obsessive focus of that party is they hate Donald Trump.”
In an interview with Politico last month, Trump argued that control of Congress during the midterms will ultimately come down to “pricing.” He expressed confidence that Americans are buying his message: that his administration is fixing what his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, left behind.
“Because, you know, they gave us high pricing and we’re bringing it down,” Trump said at the time. “Energy’s way down. Gasoline is way down.”
Meanwhile, Trump has struggled to convince Americans in recent polling, despite focusing his messaging heavily on the issue in recent weeks, including a speech Tuesday at a Ford truck factory in Michigan.
