NAPLES, FL — (CNN) Donald Trump on Sunday linked the successful enactment of his policy agenda to the election of Republican majorities in the House and Senate, one day after he outlined his priorities for his first 100 days as president.
The Republican nominee, who spends more time bashing establishment politicians than touting party unity, tied his agenda to “a Republican House and Senate” three times during his rally here on Sunday evening and urged voters to help him “reelect Republicans all over the place.”
“If you elect me along with a Republican House and Senate, we will immediately repeal the Obama-Clinton defense sequester and rebuild our badly depleted military,” Trump said, adding later that Republican majorities would help him “immediately” repeal Obamacare and “swiftly enact” the items in his agenda.
The comments come two weeks after a slew of Republican senators and congressmen up for reelection withdrew their endorsements of Trump’s candidacy in an unprecedented fracturing of party unity. That came just a month before the general election, after a tape of Trump bragging in 2005 about being able to grope and kiss women surfaced.
Those defections prompted Trump to launch attacks against specific Republican senators who unendorsed him and complain that Republicans are less loyal than Democrats. He then unleashed a more sustained attack on establishment politicians in Washington whom he has accused of conspiring to sink his campaign.
Even as he laid out his agenda for his first 100 days in office on Saturday, Trump warned that “the Washington establishment has tried so hard to stop our campaign” and vowed to “drain the swamp in Washington.”
But as he is looking to sell voters in the final stretch of his campaign on his policy priorities — from job creation to border security — rather than on the personal controversies that have been sinking his campaign, Trump appears to be recognizing that he will only be able to enact some of those signature policies with the support of a Republican Congress.
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Despite urging voters to support him because “I will fix it,” Trump knows he cannot realistically pass his agenda without a GOP majority in Congress backing him up.
But even as he issued a rare call for party unity on Sunday stumping in the key battleground state of Florida where his former GOP rival Sen. Marco Rubio (who is supporting Trump) is up for reelection, Trump couldn’t avoid one brief complaint just minutes before wrapping up his speech.
“Go out and vote and that includes helping me reelect Republicans all over the place,” Trump said.
And then he added: “I hope they help me too! It’d be nice if they help us too, right?”
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