Carlos Barria/Reuters
President Trump on Thursday night complained that pipe bombs sent to his critics and the deadliest anti-Semitic attack ever on U.S. soil stole the Republican Party’s “momentum” ahead of midterm elections. Hailing high GOP turnout as a “beautiful thing” at a Missouri rally, the president stopped briefly to acknowledge the attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 dead and numerous pipe bombs sent to his most outspoken critics—but his focus appeared to be more on how those incidents affected elections. “We did have two maniacs stop a momentum that was incredible, because for seven days nobody talked about the elections,” he said. “It stopped a tremendous momentum,” he said. While he appeared to hedge his comments by noting that “we don’t care about momentum when it comes to a disgrace” like the pipe bombs and synagogue attack, he said those incidents “did nevertheless stop a certain momentum.”