WASHINGTON (Reuters) — President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Republicans must win the 2026 congressional midterm elections — or else he will get impeached by Democrats.
“You gotta win the midterms ’cause, if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump told Republican lawmakers at a retreat in Washington. “I’ll get impeached.”
Ahead of the November elections, which could stall his agenda and expose him to congressional investigations, Trump teased and prodded allies who narrowly control the U.S. House of Representatives. He told them to put aside their differences and sell his policies on gender, healthcare and election integrity to an American electorate angry about the cost of living.
“They say that when you win the presidency, you lose the midterm,” Trump said. “I wish you could explain to me what the hell’s going on with the mind of the public.”
Fresh off an audacious military operation against Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro, Trump has come under pressure to pivot toward domestic issues, especially concerns about inflation and prices. On Tuesday, Trump said little about the latter issue, except that he had inherited the problem from Democrats and that Republicans should run on strong U.S. stock market gains.
He made only brief mention of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, while Democrats in Congress marked the fifth anniversary of the riot by accusing Republicans of a “whitewash” of history.
The lawmakers met at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, an institution chartered and named by Congress. Trump purged its board of Democratic appointees last year, and the remaining trustees voted in December to rename the center to include Trump’s name alongside former President Kennedy’s.
There, in an unstructured speech lasting 84 minutes, Trump reflected on his wife’s advice that he stop dancing in public.
He repeated several falsehoods, including that Washington had seen no homicides in seven months. Washington police reported a murder on New Year’s Eve and said 127 homicides took place in 2025. He said “I don’t get to play much” golf after doing so as recently as Sunday and regularly throughout his time in office.
Trump predicted Republicans would beat the odds and deliver an “epic midterm victory,” but also groused about some members who don’t fall in line.
