Trump Says He Would Become 'Mr. Veto' If Democrats Win Congress on Tuesday

President Donald Trump has a stated plan if his party loses Congress on Tuesday: the veto pen. "I guess I'll become Mr. Veto," Trump told the New York Post's Pod Force One podcast in an interview excerpt released on Sunday, Reuters reported. "And then at some point, we'll probably make deals." Trump said he expects he could issue vetoes for "a month or two" before reaching compromises with Democrats. In the Post's account of the same interview, he put it this way: "I'm not going to let them ruin it," and, "They'll be sending stuff up. You veto it. And eventually, after a month or two of getting all vetoed, they're just wasting [time], they come over, and you make a deal." The full episode, with host Miranda Devine, is released Monday.

The arithmetic behind the remark is Tuesday's ballot. Democrats need a net gain of four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as the U.S. Senate to overturn Republicans' narrow 218-214 and 53-47 majorities, Reuters reported, and opinion polls favor Democrats to win the House while the Senate remains too close to call. A Democratic Congress could investigate the administration, block legislation and constrain the president's spending priorities, and control of the Senate would let Democrats block Trump's judicial and executive-branch nominees, including any Supreme Court pick. "I would anticipate they will be very reluctant to approve any of the president's appointments," said Andrew Busch, a public policy professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and author of a history of midterm elections. The veto itself is a tool Trump has used sparingly: he has vetoed two bills during his second term, after vetoing 10 in his first, the Post reported - and overriding one requires two-thirds of both chambers, votes Democrats are unlikely to have.

The White House pushed back on the prospect of Republican losses altogether. "This administration and commonsense Republicans will continue to secure our borders, restore law and order, putting more money back into the pockets of hard-working Americans, and deliver wins for the American people," White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said, in remarks reported by Reuters. For the capital region, the stakes of the veto scenario are concrete either way: a Congress at war with the White House over bills, budgets and nominees is the region's largest employer's governing weather for the next two years, and Tuesday's results - in Virginia's 7 p.m. poll closing among the nation's first - will say whether 'Mr. Veto' is a plan the president needs.