President puts the word ‘bomb’ in quotation marks and suggests attempted attacks have hurt Republican momentum in the polls

Donald Trump on Friday appeared to question the series of explosive devices sent to current and former Democratic officials this week, while suggesting the attempted attacks were halting Republican momentum before next month’s midterm elections.

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“Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this ‘Bomb’ stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows – news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!” the president tweeted.

Trump’s comments came shortly after the discovery of two more suspicious packages, addressed to the New Jersey senator Cory Booker and former intelligence chief James Clapper, pushing the total number of devices intercepted by authorities to 12.

While it was not immediately clear if Trump was casting doubt on the events by putting the word bomb in quotation marks, some of the president’s allies have suggested, without evidence, that the packages are the work of liberals to undercut Republicans ahead of the November election.

Law enforcement agencies are treating the mailing campaign as an act of political terrorism and have escalated their search for the suspect, while emphasizing that they do not regard the bombs as fake or the repeated episodes as a hoax. Other packages found by US Secret Service were directed at the former president Barack Obama and former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

After initially condemning the attempted bombings, while delivering prepared remarks at the White House calling for unity, Trump then blamed the media for the state of affairs – after an explosive device was delivered to CNN’s office in New York.

In a tweet sent early on Friday morning, Trump said: “Funny how lowly rated CNN, and others, can criticize me at will, even blaming me for the current spate of Bombs and ridiculously comparing this to September 11th and the Oklahoma City bombing, yet when I criticize them they go wild and scream, ‘it’s just not Presidential!’”