‘Simply Joking’: Karoline Leavitt Shoots Down Trump Quote on Cancelling the Midterms

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed during Thursday’s briefing that President Donald Trump was just joking this week when he suggested the U.S. should not have midterm elections.

“My question is that President Trump has talked twice in recent days, once at the Kennedy Center and then to Reuters again last night, about canceling the election. Why is he talking about this?” a reporter asked Leavitt in the White House.

“I believe you’re referring to the President’s interview at Reuters last night. I was in that interview. It was a closed-door interview. Obviously, there was not audio or video. The President was simply joking. He was saying, ‘We’re doing such a great job, we are doing everything the American people thought—maybe we should just keep rolling.’ But he was speaking facetiously,” Leavitt replied.

Trump told Reuters that he was expecting the midterms to be rough on the GOP. Reuters reported on the exchange:

The president expressed frustration that his Republican Party could lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate in this year’s midterm elections, citing historical trends that have seen the party in power lose seats in 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. He boasted that he had accomplished so much that “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!