Trump calls Fox News after sweeping GOP midterm losses

[0:00] Let's go to CNN's Julia Benbrook in Washington. Julia, you cover the White House. What's the White House reaction to all of this? Well, John, there's really no other way to swing this than it was a bad night for Trump. It was a bad night for Republicans. We have seen the president out on the campaign trail almost every day this month, and he does hit on a lot of topics. He typically speaks for 90 minutes, two hours, but his overarching theme has been to pretend like I am on the ballot. That is how he chose to try and [0:31] motivate his base. And now that it is becoming clear that Democrats will have control of the House and the Senate, he says, I wasn't on the ballot, and that is why we didn't win. As these results were coming into play, he did several interviews, and when he was speaking with Fox News, he said essentially that he bears no responsibility for these sweeping losses, that it is what it is. Take a listen to how he framed it. Just a point in time. It's the way it is. There was a mood in the air, I guess, and, you know, [1:03] if you look, I shouldn't feel guilty because virtually I saw you on your show the other night saying that almost never does the sitting president, no matter how good or bad or Republican or Democrat he or she is, but no matter how good the president is, you lose. I don't know why. Nobody's explained that. [1:26] I had no choice. Ken Paxton was a good guy, and I just wasn't a fan of Cornyn. You know, I just wasn't a fan. I found him to be a disloyal guy. He was not a fan of mine when, you know, to be honest, when it wasn't fashionable, he wasn't there. [1:45] And, you know, I could say that about a lot of people, could say that about you. When it wasn't fashionable to be with Trump, he wasn't there. When it was fashionable, he kissed my ass. All right? But, you know, I remember the, I remember the other days, and I just felt I couldn't endorse him. [2:02] And the explanation that we've heard from the White House that we've heard from Trump himself is about the candidates, the candidate quality. But it is important to note that he played a key role in selecting some of these candidates. Let's look at a few of the Senate races specifically. In South Carolina, typically a reliably red state, CNN has projected that the Democrat there, Annie Andrews, will win. [2:25] Now, Trump had selected the Republican candidate, Darlene Graham. He urged the governor to appoint her after the sudden passing of her brother, Lindsey Graham. [2:36] And when she decided to run for another term, there were concerns within the party about her experience and how that would be seen. [2:42] Then you have Texas, where the projected winner is Democrat James Tallarico. [2:48] So, and Trump had endorsed the Republican candidate, Ken Paxton, in the primary over the current Senator John Cornyn. [2:57] And that came with some warnings within the party as well, that there would be more vulnerabilities when it came to Paxton. [3:03] But Trump is going to have to work with Democrats over these next two years now. [3:07] And when it comes to strategy there, he says he's open to working with them. [3:11] He also has said over and over again that he is going to rely on the veto power. [3:16] Yeah, we will see what happens there. [3:19] I will note that, generally speaking, incumbent president owns the policy. [3:23] This president very much owns some of the politics, too, in choosing very specific candidates who may have been a drag on the ballot. [3:30] Julia Benbrook, great to see you. Let's go over to Kate at the big desk. [3:33] Yeah, let's talk about the blame game. [3:35] Let's talk about, and let's stay in Texas for a minute, because we just, before the break, we talked about President Trump blaming Ken Paxton. [3:41] And now President Trump is also blaming Greg Abbott for his loss. [3:46] The way that the president lashed out at the Texas governor, the former, well, soon-to-be former governor, is just stunning even for President Trump, [3:56] because he doesn't have more of an ally than Greg Abbott. [4:00] Look what he wrote about Greg Abbott just tonight. [4:03] If Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, hadn't become a rhino in the last six months of his political life, he wouldn't have lost. [4:09] He went back, he went back to his original formula, and it wasn't pretty. [4:14] I mean, I don't, is that why, is that why Greg Abbott lost? [4:19] Kristen? [4:19] Greg Abbott lost because there is an absolutely horrendous political environment facing Republicans, [4:26] combined with the fact that in states like Texas, Democrats got candidates who were plausible fits for that state. [4:32] Those forces combined could knock a red state like Texas off its axis. [4:37] Donald Trump is so keen to try to make the case that this is not his fault, [4:41] because he knows that the future of his entire political project and his legacy depends on the idea that Americans come away from his time in office thinking, [4:50] this guy's a winner. [4:52] And I think it's pretty clear after tonight, that's not what America is saying. [4:56] But being a winner and being successful is so important to Donald Trump and being viewed that way. [5:02] It's been part of his public brand for decades, even preceding his time as a public official. [5:06] And so it makes total sense to me that when he looks around and he sees candidates losing, [5:12] he wants to distance himself from them as much as possible. [5:15] But I think that Republicans would be foolish to listen to this and think, [5:19] oh, you know what, maybe this wasn't Donald Trump's fault. [5:21] The Republican Party needs a tough reckoning, a reality check, and a new path forward [5:27] that is not turning back the clock and going back to the days of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush or Mitt Romney. [5:34] It cannot be going back, but it has to be going forward in a way that is not just the reheated leftovers of this MAGA experiment [5:42] that voters have said has clearly not worked for them. [5:46] One place we've seen Republicans break from the president on it is the war in Iran. [5:49] Not enough, but we've seen some of the candidates breaking from the president on that front. [5:53] And you brought up, the president spoke with the Wall Street Journal briefly, [5:57] and they just put out part of their conversation with him. [6:00] And in the conversation, he was asked if the war with Iran contributed, in his view, [6:07] to the Republicans' poor performance tonight. [6:09] And the way that the president responded was Iran was a piece of it. [6:13] I don't know if that's as close as one gets to an acknowledgment with him, [6:17] but it's a huge part of what the mood has been leading up to this. [6:22] Yeah, I thought that was a pretty significant omission by the president to admit basically [6:27] that this war that he started, that he chose to have the United States get involved in, [6:32] did in fact play a role in this election. [6:34] And it all goes back to the promises this president made when he first came into office. [6:38] He promised no endless wars, and yet we are in one that seems to not have any clear ending anytime soon. [6:45] He promised to end or lower the cost of living, and yet prices are sky high. [6:49] You look at the gas pump every day, and those prices keep going up and up. [6:53] And he promised to end high inflation, and yet inflation is higher than it was when he first came into office. [6:59] So it all goes back to those promises. [7:01] And I think voters, when they think about the Iran war, what they see is the prices at the gas pump. [7:06] They see their diesel prices going up. [7:07] They see their grocery prices going up. [7:09] And there's only one person to blame for that. [7:12] That is the president. [7:13] If this had been a short war that had ended in six weeks, maybe we would be looking at a very different situation. [7:20] And the fact is that not only are Americans paying attention to what is happening here with the Iran war, [7:25] but Iran is also paying attention to it. [7:28] Just two hours ago, the parliament speaker tweeted about the cost of living and that, quote, [7:34] Americans said no to war. [7:36] He is right about that. [7:37] Americans did say no to war, and they rejected the president's policies at the polls. [7:43] I mean, Jason, after this, add that into just across the board, [7:47] the losses that the president is now facing as he is now entering. [7:51] Just he's going to, if he falls asleep, wake up to just entirely different political reality and world than he had at the beginning of the night. [8:01] Do you expect to see more Republicans more likely to break from the president on things like the ongoing war with Iran? [8:10] It will ultimately depend on the issue. [8:13] I think you've already started to see some of those cracks over the last several months, frankly, when it comes to Iran. [8:18] But I think also this is an opportunity for the president to thrive. [8:21] He does like making deals, and he likes to bring people together. [8:24] And weirdly enough, I mean, just look at what's happening here in New York. [8:27] He has a really good relationship with Zoran Mamdani, [8:29] someone who he should not have a good relationship with based on the way both of them have talked about each other. [8:33] And so he has shown a willingness even tonight in his interview to say, yeah, I'm willing to work, [8:39] maybe not on all issues because there's such a wide gap on immigration and some other things, [8:44] but he's going to have to come to the table. [8:47] Frankly, Democrats are going to have to come to the table. [8:49] He can just veto anything that is completely out there, [8:52] which doesn't address any of the issues that voters said that they cared about. [8:56] They said tonight pretty clearly they care about the economy. [8:58] They care about cost of living, issues like that. [9:00] And when you start to see some tweets out there immediately saying subpoenas or lawyer up, [9:05] you're sending some bad messages. [9:08] And I think if the president says, yeah, I'm willing to talk about some of these things, [9:10] including on housing, where there actually is a bridge between Republicans and Democrats, [9:14] we might see him thrive, or at least we'll stop him from some of his impulses. [9:20] Well, I have to be optimistic tonight. [9:22] Yeah, after tonight, yeah, I would be too. [9:23] I think that blaming this on the war in Iran is a bit short-sighted. [9:28] And I think that that's a very small piece of the pie. [9:33] Like, Iran played a role, of course, but people who came out tonight, [9:37] let's take Texas, for example, Hispanic voters. [9:40] I mean, the images we saw of ICE ripping people out of their homes, [9:44] Rene Good being murdered in the street, [9:47] individuals we thought that, for example, [9:49] his immigration policy was going to go after the bad actors, [9:52] but instead it went after our neighbors. [9:53] We saw a turn with Hispanic voters, and as we talked about this morning, [9:59] they're not monolith, but they were monolithically pissed off, right? [10:02] I remember that one. [10:02] Yeah. [10:03] And so I think that, like, you can't let Donald Trump off the hook for one policy decision. [10:09] This has been policy decision after policy decision after policy decision [10:13] that the American public saw and said, look. [10:15] Well, and it's the tentacles from that policy decision. [10:17] I mean, Americans went to vote today with the highest gas prices on an election day. [10:21] And fertilizer and soybean costs. [10:23] And then talking about diesel is a dollar more than the last record the last time. [10:25] You know, we haven't even mentioned the T-word tonight. [10:27] Tariffs. [10:28] Yeah, the tariffs, I mean, that led to higher costs as well. [10:30] I mean, I think that all culminate. [10:32] Yeah, he made a series of bad policy decisions, [10:34] so he can't throw his hands up and say, oh, my God, this happens to every president. [10:38] No, this happens to every bad president when the numbers are this bad. [10:41] What the president said last night was quite a lot. [10:45] He's stopped posting so far for the last few hours. [10:49] We'll see when he does wake up and what he does have to say. [10:52] But I want to play for everyone what the president's reaction was to [10:56] these massive Republican losses. [10:59] Watch this. [11:02] It's a point in time. [11:03] It's the way it is. [11:04] There was a mood in the air, I guess. [11:06] And, you know, if you look, I shouldn't feel guilty because virtually I saw you on your show [11:12] the other night saying that almost never does the sitting president, [11:17] no matter how good or bad or Republican or Democrat, he or she is, [11:23] but no matter how good the president is, you lose. [11:28] I don't know why. [11:29] Nobody's explained that. [11:32] David. [11:33] Yeah, so, you know, the Trump administration likes to use this, [11:36] this phrase in a lot of instances, F-A-F-O, right? [11:41] They tweeted it out. [11:42] They put it out. [11:42] And I think last night what the American electorate said back to the Trump [11:46] administration and Republicans is F-A-F-O, right? [11:50] They were clearly upset about a wide range of things, as Ashley points out, [11:56] you know, affordability, gas prices. [12:00] If you track somebody posted yesterday on X, the president's popularity is a trend, [12:07] exactly correlates with the rise in gas prices, right? [12:11] His declining numbers correlate almost evenly. [12:15] So there's a lot of bad decisions made. [12:17] I don't think it's one thing, I think, as Ashley points out, right? [12:20] We had, the immigration was an 80-20 issue for Republicans. [12:25] We're going to get rid of the bad hombres, we're going to do all these things. [12:28] We're going to do all these things. [12:28] Instead of that, we were zip-tying nannies when they were dropping their kids off for school. [12:32] A lot of things went sideways. [12:34] It should have gone really strong for this administration. [12:38] And the war, I think, is a great part of it, because it did drive up prices, [12:42] and it made people's lives far less affordable. [12:45] And so they sent a very strong message. [12:47] This is the great part about our democracy. [12:49] It's a marketplace of ideas. [12:51] Good ideas are rewarded. [12:52] Bad ideas are rejected. [12:53] We'll have another election in two years. [12:55] Congratulations to Chuck and everyone who ran races. [12:59] And this is the great part about our country. [13:00] It's resilient. [13:02] We'll bounce back. [13:03] Republicans, you know, everyone has been in this game for a while. [13:06] I've won. [13:07] I've lost. [13:07] It's way better to win than it is to lose. [13:10] It is. [13:10] And then, you know, you kind of dust yourself. [13:12] You've played sports. [13:13] You dust yourself off. [13:14] You know, you tighten your chin strap, and you get back in there, and you fight in the next round. [13:18] So that's what Republicans have to wake up this morning and say, we're not dead yet, right, to phase Monty Python, right? [13:25] Although this was like when the meteorite hit the earth and killed all the dinosaurs. [13:30] It wasn't a tsunami. [13:31] It was like that. [13:31] Like, even the T-Rex got killed when the meteorite hit. [13:34] Like, Kristen told Zanderson, actually said this morning, she was like, it wasn't a wave. [13:39] It was an asteroid. [13:40] Like, even the strong, like, T-Rex got killed when the asteroid hit. [13:43] So strong candidates lost last night. [13:46] If you had an R next to your name, you were gone, right? [13:48] It didn't matter.