US President Trump congratulates Democrats after midterm setback, says he is ready to work with them

"My message is, congratulations to the Democrats, and I look forward to working with you for the good of our country," he told CBS News.

"I know a lot of Democrats. I have total veto power, and I'm sure we'll be able to work things out," Trump said.

"I think they're gonna want to work with me," he added. "Otherwise, I'd just veto everything, and they're not gonna want that."

Trump attributed the Republicans' losses largely to his absence from the ballot, claiming the party would have performed better had he been a candidate.

"I feel that I wasn't on the ballot, and there was nothing that could be done about that," he said. "If I was, we would have won."

Explaining the Republican setbacks, Trump told CBS News: "In some cases they didn't like the candidates, and in some cases those candidates were not my friend and the base knows that better than anybody. And they stayed back."

He added: "I mean, it's just, it's sad in the sense that we would have won easily if I was on the ballot. But I wasn't."

In an earlier reaction on Truth Social, Trump had also claimed that his presence on the ballot would have secured a decisive victory.

"I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP," he wrote.

With voting concluded on Wednesday, early projections indicated that Democrats were poised to secure a majority in the US House of Representatives.

Citing CBS News, the BBC reported that Democrats were projected to win at least 218 seats, while Republicans were expected to secure at least 160.

Trends suggesting that Democrats were leading in several Republican-held districts, potentially weakening Trump's influence in Washington during the remaining years of his presidency.