Former President Donald Trump made it clear Tuesday that he holds Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell responsible for losing control of the Senate.
Trump told “Fox News Primetime” host Maria Bartiromo that McConnell had “made a tremendous mistake” and it had cost Republicans control of the Senate. (RELATED: Joe Concha Calls Washington Post ‘A Political Operative’ For Error On Trump Phone Call)
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Bartiromo brought up the topic of the Georgia Senate races in the context of a recent correction issued by The Washington Post.
“The Post correction says the recording revealed that it misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. He did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so,” Bartiromo said. “Tell us what your reaction is that The Washington Post had to correct this fake news that they reported that you told the Secretary of State of Georgia to ‘find the fraud’ and find the votes right before the Senate race.”
“It was and it probably affected the Senate race,” Trump replied, saying he was happy to see that the outlet had been willing to come forward and correct the record.
“It made me sound bad and I think, you know, when I heard it, I said that’s ridiculous. I never said that. One thing I will say is The Washington Post did a correction. A lot of pressure was put on them but they did a correction because they realize what they did was wrong,” Trump continued. “Now you have to find out was that The Washington Post‘s fault or the people that run the elections in Georgia? Because the people who run the elections in Georgia, they have to be looked at whether it was a secretary of state or frankly the governor of the state.”
Trump went on to note that losing those two seats was going to have a lasting impact on everything that happened in the coming months.
“It is such a shame that happened. Everything you have been talking about on your show today is affected by those two seats. Those two seats are devastating that we lost and the Republicans frankly were fighting for $600 versus $2,000 and that was the only ad that the Democrats took,” Trump concluded, turning his attention to McConnell. “That was a disaster. They should not have been doing that. Mitch McConnell made a tremendous mistake. He lost to those two seats.”
Critics of the former president have argued that his his own behavior — namely repeated assertions that the presidential election had been “stolen” — was a deciding factor in the Georgia runoffs, driving away some supporters and decreasing voter turnout amid simultaneous claims that Georgia’s general election had not been above board.