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Trump expressed frustration that his party could lose the House or Senate in the upcoming midterms
Katie Hawkinson in Washington, D.C. Thursday 15 January 2026 20:12 GMT- Bookmark
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CloseLeavitt claims Trump was joking about canceling midterm elections
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President Donald Trump said the U.S. should not have midterm elections later this year because of his accomplishments in office, according to a report in Reuters.
In a 30-minute interview with the outlet, Trump said he had accomplished so much in office that “when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election” in 2026.
Trump also expressed frustration that the Republican Party could lose control of the House of Representatives or Senate in the upcoming midterm elections, according to Reuters.
“It's some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms,” Trump said.
When asked about Trump’s remarks Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that he was “joking” and “speaking facetiously.”
President Donald Trump told Reuters the U.S. ‘shouldn't even have an election’ in 2026 because of his accomplishments in office (Getty)Historical trends show that the president’s party typically loses seats in the House during midterm elections, according to Brookings. Recent polls have also shown that Democrats running for Congress currently have a modest advantage in the 2026 midterm elections, according to The New York Times’ poll aggregator.
Despite these concerns, Trump told Republican lawmakers earlier this month that he’s expecting to “break records with the epic midterm victory that we're going to pull off.”
This comes after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told the Associated Press that Democrats are preparing for Trump to interfere with the 2026 midterm elections. Meanwhile, the White House said such statements were “fear-mongering,” according to the outlet.
“Trump will do whatever it takes, and he has no honor and no credibility and no respect for law. But, we are prepared for it, and we believe we will succeed,” Schumer said this week.
Schumer added that he expects Democrats’ path to securing a majority in the Senate in November is a “much wider path than the skeptics think, and a much wider path than it was three months ago and certainly a year ago.”
In the same Reuters interview, Trump also dismissed concerns from the public — and even some fellow Republicans — about to his push to acquire Greenland, which is a territory of Denmark.
When asked about a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll that revealed only 17 percent of Americans support his push to acquire the territory, Trump called the survey “fake,” according to the outlet.
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