“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know [Republican candidate Rick Saccone] came up a lot in the last few days,” President Donald Trump said. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo Trump says he helped Republican in Pa. special election

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the final outcome of the Pennsylvania special election would have been much worse for Republicans if he had not campaigned in the district.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know [Republican candidate Rick Saccone] came up a lot in the last few days,” Trump told donors during a closed-door speech in Missouri, according to audio obtained by POLITICO. “We went there. We made a speech. The place was packed, and we’ll see what happens.”


Noting that Democrat Conor Lamb, the apparent victor in Tuesday‘s election, will serve in Congress only for the rest of this year and that the district map is being redrawn, Trump said “it was a lot of work” for a lawmaker who is only guaranteed to be in office for a short time.

Trump also suggested Lamb won by pandering to GOP voters. “He said very nice things about me. I kept saying, ‘Is he a Republican?’ He sounded like a Republican to me,” the president aid. “But I guess when you’re popular in a certain area, that’s probably a good tactic.”

Trump’s remarks were reported earlier Wednesday by The Atlantic and The Washington Post. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump also told Republican Josh Hawley, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, that he planned on coming back to the state to campaign for him, adding that he hopes to hold a rally for him at a “big arena.”

Lamb’s apparent victory in the traditionally Republican region of Pennsylvania was a massive defeat for Republicans, and it raised red flags across the GOP about the potential for big losses in the midterms. Trump carried the district by 20 points in 2016.

Trump held forth on trade for much of the speech, complaining about trade deficits with other countries and arguing that they must treat the United States fairly.

The president announced plans to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports earlier this month, and he is preparing to unveil additional tariffs on China in the coming weeks for alleged intellectual property threat.

He again raised the possibility of withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement, despite repeated pleas from lawmakers and his own advisers to remain in the deal.

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“The best deal is to terminate it and then make a new deal. But I don’t know that we can make a deal because Mexico is so spoiled with this horrible deal,” Trump said, adding, “Sometimes something is so good, how do you negotiate? The best way: terminate. Let’s start all over again.”

Trump also bragged about falsely telling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the United States has a trade deficit with Canada, even though Trudeau told him it wasn’t true.

“I didn’t even know,” Trump said. “I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’”

The president also plugged his bid to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had 51 instead of 60?” he asked, adding, “Some of the senators that have been there really for a long time are just dead-set on that.”

Trump also touted his pending meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and he resurfaced his complaint that the media isn’t giving him enough credit for the huddle.

“Erin Burnett [of CNN] said, ‘This could make him a great president‘ ... she actually said that,” Trump, an avid fan of cable television, marveled. “Even the worst of them — for two hours, three hours — they couldn’t believe. ... and then it happened, a day later: ‘Obama could have done that too.’ Obama couldn’t have done it.”

