During her concession speech to her Democratic opponent on Monday, Republican Representative Mia Love of Utah slammed President Donald Trump and his past criticism of her, saying that the president had "no real relationships, just convenient transactions."
Love's remarks came during her official concession speech to Democratic opponent and Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams. The pair's race for Utah's 4th Congressional District had resulted in a razor-thin margin of less than 700 votes last week after mail-in and provisional ballots continued to be counted weeks after the election. Love officially conceded in a call to McAdams over the weekend.
In an extraordinary press conference the day after Election Day, Trump blasted Love and other Republicans who distanced themselves from him and were defeated. At the time of Trump's remarks, Love's race had not yet been decided.
"Mia Love gave me no love," Trump told reporters. "And she lost. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia."
During her concession speech on Monday, which was planned and was not impromptu, Love publicly responded to the president's criticism for the first time.
"The President's behavior towards me made me wonder: What did he have to gain by saying such a thing about a fellow Republican," Love said. "It was not really about asking him to do more, was it? Or was it something else?"
Love said that she and the president would have to "chat about that" in the future.
"However, this gave me a clear vision of [Trump's] world as it is," Love said. "No real relationships, just convenient transactions. That is an insufficient way to implement sincere service and policy."
Love noted that, while her campaign may have distanced itself from the president, she "nagged the president every day" to help in securing the safe release of Joshua Holt, a Utah resident, from a Venezuelan prison. Holt was accused by the Venezuelan government of stockpiling weapons in public housing, according to The Washington Post, during his June 2016 trip to marry a Venezuelan woman, who is now his wife. The two were released in May and safely traveled to the U.S. Utah GOP Senator Orrin Hatch also played a large role in their release.
Love, who in 2014 became the first black female Republican elected to Congress, took aim at both political parties and their relationships with minorities. She believed Republicans fail to embrace minorities and African-Americans while Democratic policies do damage.
"This election experience and these comments," Love said, "shines a spotlight on the problems Washington politicians have with minorities and black Americans -- it's transactional, it's not personal."
She also took shots at McAdams, saying there was a "cost and we will pay it" for electing "a wolf in sheep's clothing."
Love blamed the media for writing "uneducated, unfair, irresponsible stories" in which her "ethics" and her "record" were "lied about, tarnished, and repeated over and over again on TV right in front of our children."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ramsey Touchberry is a Washington Correspondent for Newsweek based in the nation's capital, where he regularly covers Congress.
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