At his rallies, President Donald Trump argues that the midterm elections are about one person — Donald Trump. “Get out in 2018,” Trump told a crowd in Missouri last month, “because you’re voting for me!”

Privately, the president says the exact opposite.


According to two people familiar with the conversations, Trump is distancing himself from a potential Republican thumping on Election Day. He’s telling confidants that he doesn’t see the midterms as a referendum on himself, describing his 2020 reelection bid as “the real election.” And he says that he holds House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responsible for protecting their majorities in Congress.

According to one person with knowledge of these talks, Trump has said of Ryan and McConnell: “These are their elections … and if they screw it up, it’s not my fault.”

Other sources said Trump is sure to lash out at perhaps his favorite bogeyman of all — the media — for allegedly opposing him.

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It’s not all pre-emptive finger-pointing: Trump expresses greater confidence than most pundits about his party’s chances of maintaining its House majority and expanding its control of the Senate. And he credits McConnell for motivating GOP voters by holding the line on Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation.


But in the event of an electoral blowout, Trump is poised to shift the blame a mile down Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Look for the White House to say something like, ‘Paul Ryan chose to be a lame-duck speaker instead of leaving, which cost Congress the chance to do several things before November,’” said an aide to one GOP member who speaks with the president often.

A Democratic wave would be especially awkward for a president whose brand is success, and who boasts that his record in office is unmatched by any of his modern predecessors.

Already, hints of a distancing strategy have started to creep into Trump’s public comments, even as he continues to crow at rallies that the midterms are a “referendum” on his first two years in office. Trump told The Associated Press recently that some of his supporters have said to him, “I will never ever go and vote in the midterms because you’re not running.”


Inside the White House, aides are resigned to the fact that Trump — as he has often done — will follow his gut on how to message any Democratic takeover of the House on Nov. 6. Those around Trump are anticipating lots of unfiltered, early-morning tweets casting blame on everyone but the president.

“It would be a lot of shooting from the hip in early morning Twitter,” said a well-placed Republican source, who added that the White House seems to lack clear plans for post-election messaging.

The themes are already predictable.

“The arc is gonna be he wasn’t on the ballot, and people didn’t fully appreciate his policies and [candidates] didn’t tie themselves enough to him,” said a person close to the president, who was among several sources to say Trump will likely blame the media as well.

While lashing out would be a Trumpian response, it would also be a break from recent presidential precedent. After losing the Congress to Democrats midway through his second term in 2006, a humbled George W. Bush conceded that he’d taken a “thumpin’,” pushed out an unpopular Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and vowed to find “common ground” with Democrats.

Four years later, after a tea party wave swamped congressional Democrats two years into his first term, with Republicans picking up 63 House seats for the biggest midterm gain by either party since 1938, Barack Obama took “direct responsibility” in remarks afterward. Calling the moment “humbling,” Obama vowed to “do a better job.”

Although White House officials are aware of those precedents, Trump may not care about them. And he alone will decide how to spin the midterm results, with his aides following his lead. The White House declined to comment on the record for this story.

“Despite whatever [way] they may want to spin it … he’s going to drive the train on this and the White House is gonna fall and say the president did everything he could, but unfortunately he’s not on the ballot and so people weren’t as excited,” said the person close to Trump.


Before he was president, Trump had a philosophy on whether leaders should accept blame: “Whatever happens, you’re responsible. If it doesn’t happen you’re responsible.”

But once in office, Trump, backed up by his communications team, has shifted blame for setbacks to others — especially Congress.

After efforts to repeal Obama’s health care law stalled in Congress last July, the president blamed “a few Republicans” for holding up the process, despite creating considerable confusion on Capitol Hill with his own mixed signals on health care reform. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders echoed Trump’s line, saying it would be “absolutely ridiculous for Congress to try to place the blame on the president for the inability to get their job done.”

And when Trump’s endorsement of Roy Moore failed to carry the Alabama Senate candidate to victory last December, the president claimed he was pressured into backing the wrong candidate. Those around him reinforced his claim.

“There does need to be a recognition of the lousy political advice @POTUS has been getting and it needs to change,” Tony Fabrizio, a top Republican pollster involved in Trump’s 2016 campaign, wrote on Twitter at the time.

“We’re in a completely different dynamic now where we know President Trump will be perfectly comfortable in a finger-pointing exercise,” said a former senior George W. Bush aide, who claimed his boss, by comparison, “was perfectly fine with owning and taking some of the heat off the Hill leadership” after the 2006 midterms two years before Bush left office.

A former senior Obama administration official, who recalled cringing when the ex-president used the term “shellacking” to describe the results of the 2010 midterms, said the White House “took stock” of the situation afterward and determined Obama could continue chipping away at his agenda through “either executive authority or working at the state and local level.”

“I only cringed because it was so true … We were shellacked,” this person said, adding that Obama nevertheless displayed “a willingness to accept responsibility and not wallow in defeat.”


Should Trump buck that trend by refusing to bear any blame, some Republicans said they would be disappointed — albeit not surprised.

“The president’s rhetoric is what’s actually energized the left, so it would be hard to put it on Congress if we lost the House,” a senior GOP aide told POLITICO. “But it’s just classic behavior on the part of this president to not shoulder the blame if things go bad, and to definitely take responsibility if things go right.”

Still, some of Trump’s most steadfast allies say he would be justified to turn his ire toward congressional Republicans if November becomes a bloodbath for the party in power. They claim he has done “everything possible,” like holding back-to-back-to-back campaign rallies last week, to assist GOP candidates battling for their seats or seeking to upset Democratic incumbents.

“I think [Trump] has done everything that has been asked of him from the Republican Party to … help campaign and raise money wherever they have needed it,” said ex-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. “President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence has answered that call every time.”