Infrastructure, healthcare two areas where Congress can unite: Trump

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he envisaged Republicans and Democrats working together on infrastructure and healthcare after US voters delivered a split verdict in hard-fought midterm elections.

“Maybe we will make a deal, maybe we won’t. That is possible,” he told a news conference at the White House.

“But we have a lot of things in common on infrastructure. We want to do something on healthcare, they want to do something on healthcare. There are a lot of great things that we can do together.”

Trump’s Republicans lost the House of Representatives in Tuesday’s vote but increased their majority in the Senate.

According to projections by The New York Times, Democrats will have 229 seats in the 435-member House while Republicans will hold 53 seats in the 100-member upper chamber of Congress, up from 51.

Democrats also picked up seven governorships but fell short in a high-profile race for the governor’s mansion in Florida, expected to play a key role in the 2020 presidential election.

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The result left Washington braced for the prospects of partisan warfare, with the Democrats poised take over House committees, giving them the power to hold hearings, call witnesses and issue subpoenas to administration officials.

But Trump sought to get lawmakers to work across the aisle to ensure that the country’s jobs growth and economic boom continued.

“Now it is time for members of both parties to join together, put partisanship a side, and keep the American economic miracle going strong. It is a miracle,” he said.