There was a special election in a Texas state Senate race in late January that Republicans clearly expected to win. Donald Trump won the district by 17 points in the 2024 elections; the GOP nominee heavily outspent the Democratic candidate; the district hasn’t been competitive in three decades; and state GOP leaders, such as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, went all out to eke out a victory in one of the nation’s largest Republican counties.

The president, in particular, tried to lend a hand, publishing a series of messages endorsing his party’s candidate and pleading with local supporters to turn out in the days leading up to the election.

It didn’t work. The Democrat won by 14 points, at which point Trump pretended he hadn’t done what everyone had seen him do.

Asked for his reaction to the election results, the president replied, “Somebody ran where?” Reminded of the details, Trump added, “I’m not involved with that,” despite his direct and obvious involvement.

His efforts to downplay the embarrassment came to mind this week when he tried to pull the same trick again. Reuters reported:

U.S. President Donald Trump told ABC News ​reporter Jonathan Karl on Tuesday ‌he was not concerned about Viktor Orbán’s loss in Hungary, and that he likes incoming ​Prime Minister Peter Magyar. […]

Trump told the ​reporter he did not know if it would have made a difference if he had gone ​to Hungary instead of Vice President ​JD Vance to campaign for Orban. ‘He was behind ‌substantially,’ ⁠Trump said. ‘I wasn’t that involved in this one.’

There’s quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

Just two days before Election Day in Hungary, Trump publicly pledged to “use the full Economic Might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s Economy, as we have done for our Great Allies in the past, if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian People ever need it.”

Days earlier, Trump deployed his vice president to Hungary to campaign for Orbán — an unusual level of White House intervention in a foreign election — and during a rally in Budapest, Trump called in to voice his support for the authoritarian leader, as Vance held up his cellphone to the microphone.

Trump also published a series of items to his social media platform in the run-up to the Hungarian elections, endorsing the incumbent and celebrating him as “a truly strong and powerful Leader, with a proven track record of delivering phenomenal results.”

Let this be a lesson to Republican officials and candidates worried about the midterm elections: If you lose, Trump will almost certainly pretend to barely know you.

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