Trump: Iowa's Democratic caucuses an 'unmitigated disaster'
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and his aides gleefully mocked the Democrats over the delayed results in Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential nominating contest, calling it an "unmitigated disaster" and the "sloppiest train wreck in history."
"The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is 'Trump,'" the president tweeted early Tuesday.
Describing the delayed reporting of Iowa results as "an unmitigated disaster," Trump said: "Nothing works, just like they ran the Country."
But Trump in a subsequent tweet defended the state and placed the blame on the "Do Nothing Democrats." He also said he would keep Iowa as the nation's first delegate selection contest: "As long as I am President, Iowa will stay where it is. Important tradition!"
Earlier, the Trump campaign dubbed the Iowa count as a sloppy train wreck, and said, "Democrats are stewing in a caucus mess" that they created.
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"It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process," Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in an emailed statement. "And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?"
Parscale also touted the president's easy victory earlier Monday night in Iowa's Republican caucuses, where he faced no significant challenge.
"Tonight President Trump posted a record performance in the well-run GOP Iowa caucuses with record turnout for an incumbent," Parscale added.
Iowa Democratic Party officials were holding a phone call with campaign aides amid long delays in reporting results in Iowa's caucuses. Communications director Mandy McClure said in a statement Monday night that the delay was in part due to the party reporting three sets of data for the first time.
"We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results. In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report," she said in a statement.
Live updates: Biden campaign slams Iowa Democratic Party for ‘acute failures'
"This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results," McClure said.
Meanwhile, Iowa's GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann said he supported the IDP's decision to ensure the results are "correct rather than quick."
"Accuracy doesn't run on deadlines," he tweeted.
In the days leading up to the Iowa caucuses, the Trump campaign sought to project a massive GOP show of force in the Midwest state, deploying 80 presidential surrogates, including much of Trump's Cabinet and members of his family. The president also held a campaign rally in Des Moines on Thursday that brought out more than 7,000 supporters to the city's Drake University.