Rep. Mia Love is still mystified by President Trump’s cutting personal attack on her just after Election Day when he declared she had lost because she gave him “no love.”
The Utah Republican said in an interview Thursday that Trump’s remarks the day after the midterm elections were “out of left field” and that she still doesn’t understand the president’s complaints, particularly since her race was not called until Nov. 20. Love ultimately lost to Democrat Ben McAdams by fewer than 700 votes.
“I kind of laughed, because the race wasn’t over. The race was like literally — it wasn’t over until like two weeks after that. I kind of laughed and just thought, ‘Well what does he have to gain by that? I don’t get it. I don’t understand what — I don’t get it,'” Love told the Washington Examiner. “I still don’t get it.”
The two-term Republican congresswoman said she was informed of Trump’s remarks initially by a member of the media who texted her about a presidential press conference, which she did not watch live.
“Mia Love gave me no love and she lost,” Trump said in the lengthy Nov. 7 press conference. “Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”
Love said that she wasn’t quite sure why the president was attacking her, given that he supported her campaign and even cut a robocall on her behalf ahead of Nov. 6.
“I don’t think so!” Love said of whether there was friction between her and the president. “When I talk to my husband, we disagree. It’s OK. When my children do things, I talk to them and I say, ‘Hey, that’s not nice.’ It’s perfectly fine for me to voice an opinion, and it’s perfectly fine for the president to voice an opinion when I’ve taken a vote he doesn’t like or when I’ve said something he doesn’t like, but this was kind of out of left field.”
Trump’s comments also came as a surprise to Love’s parents, who reside in Connecticut and were vocal supporters of the president — until Trump’s attack on her in the press conference. She noted that her parents, who immigrated from Haiti — a nation the president once reportedly referred to in his infamous “shithole countries” remark — were able to “get past” the reported barb at the Caribbean country, but not the barb directed at their daughter.
