A midterm reckoning for Donald Trump - ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation
As the polls closed in the US midterm elections, the result became clear early on. It was a wipeout for the Republicans.
Voters across the country delivered a scathing assessment of Donald Trump's first two years of his second term resulting in a blue tsunami, with the Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Today, the ABC's Americas editor John Lyons and staff writer at The Atlantic Nick Miroff break down this pivotal moment in US politics.
John Lyons, the ABC's America's editor in Washington D.C.
Sam Hawley : As the polls closed in the US midterms, the result became clear early on. It was a wipe-out for the Republicans. Voters across the country delivered a scathing assessment of Donald Trump's first two years of his second term. And a blue tsunami did eventuate. Democrats have taken control of the House and the Senate. To break down this pivotal moment in US politics, we're joined by the ABC's America's editor, John Lyons in Washington DC. And to Nick Miroff, a staff writer at The Atlantic, who is in Texas. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal Land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.
News report: We have a call to make. The Fox News decision desk has now projected that former Governor Roy Cooper will flip North Carolina's open Senate seat to the Democrats.
News report: In the battleground state of Georgia, CNN projects that Democrat John Ossoff will win the Senate race. It is a major win for Democrats.
News report: NBC News is now projecting that in the Senate race in South Carolina, the Democrat Annie Andrews has won that race.
News report: In a huge upset, Democrat Adam Hamilton will win the Senate race in Kansas.
News report: James Talarico, middle school teacher, member of Texas State House of Representatives, he will be the next senator for Texas. Texas has gone blue. What a significant moment in American political history.
News report: The Democrats will win control of the House of Representatives. This is a major victory for the Democratic Party.
News report: Democrats will win control of the US Senate.
News report: Maybe it is a blue wave. Maybe it's a red rip tide.
News report: I'm not going to sugar-coat it. There's a political science term for what's happening. It's called a country ass whoopin'. That's what's happening right now.
News report: Blue, blue, blue, blue, blue. Is it a rebuke? Is it repudiation? Is it a shellacking? Is it a spanking? I mean, at the moment, this is the collapse of the president's party.
Sam Hawley : John, wow. What a night in the United States. And I mean, is this the blue wave or is this the tsunami? Because the Democrats, I mean, they've taken the House and they've taken the Senate, haven't they?
John Lyons: Well, Sam, look, it's an emphatic protest vote against Donald Trump, which is interesting because he is the ultimate, he was the ultimate protest vote himself twice for Americans who elected him because he ran as the outsider, as the angry anti-establishment politician. And now many of his own people who voted for him have come back at him with anger as well, disillusionment. They believe he didn't deliver on his promises. It's quite a savage repudiation. And, you know, he did over the last 30 days, he put himself up there. There's no doubt Donald Trump had the Midas touch on many occasions. You don't become president of the United States twice unless you are a really good politician and unless you have a really good sense of the mood and concerns of the American people. But that's abandoned him. I suppose the big question is why. What went wrong? Why did it all go wrong? And why did he lose the support of so many of his own people?
Sam Hawley : Yeah. So what's he been saying as these results, devastating results for the Republicans have been rolling in?
John Lyons: He hasn't said a lot. He did put out a statement earlier, which was very much typical of Donald Trump. He had a watch party at the White House. I don't think it would have been too much of a party, to be honest. But he did put out a truth social where he attacked Fox News. And it's interesting because in the past, whenever, like, Fox, he was upset with them for the election he lost in 2020, when they called the result against him, he and Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox, had a big falling out after that. Now, he put out a truth social a few hours ago when it was obviously clear that they were losing, that they weren't going well. And he said the Fox, these are his exact words, the Fox News poll, always the worst, is so insulting with the questions they ask. Every question he said is a hit job. And every answer is in capital letters, bullshit. This has been going on for years. And so when I saw that come through on truth social a bit earlier, I realised that he was obviously in trouble and he must have been getting early indications from around the country to put out an angry response like that, trying to blame Fox News and saying it's been going on for years when in fact his closest relationship was, of course, with Fox News.
Sam Hawley : And on truth social after that, he also said that he wasn't on the ballot, he said, and if he was, he would have won in a landslide. But of course, he was telling people, he was telling voters for months to pretend that he was on the ballot. So perhaps that's actually what they did.
John Lyons: Well, in the world of Donald Trump, you can't lose his philosophy. And the important thing, I think, understanding Donald Trump is the effect that his mentor, the New York lawyer, Roy Cohn, the late New York lawyer who was a really tough pit bull lawyer in New York in the 60s and 70s, and he helped Donald Trump on various property developments. And Roy Cohn stressed to Donald Trump, and Trump explains this himself in some of his own comments, that you never lose. If you do, if a court case goes against you or something appears to be a defeat, you walk out and you say you won. There is no such thing as failure or a loss. And so I think that it's not in his DNA that we can ever see in the past where he accepts responsibility. And so it'll be really interesting here to see who he tries to blame for this because I don't think it will be himself.
Sam Hawley : Yeah, and just a reminder for people, John, that the Democrats in the Senate, and this was really crucial to them winning both houses, of course, and taking control of Congress. Now, they needed to flip four Senate seats, and they have, as we speak, we know they have done that. And it's not, the counting is not over, but we know they have done that. You know, they flipped North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas. We can go on, but the point is these are seats that have been held in some cases by the Republicans for decades. They're going to take Kansas. That's been with the Republicans for something like 90 years, almost 90 years.
John Lyons: Well, that's right. In some ways, I think Kansas reflects the depth of anger towards Donald Trump. The last time the Democrats won in Kansas, Herbert Hoover was the president. I mean, this is seriously last century. Picture this. The world is in the grip of a Great Depression. Prohibition is in place in the United States, and Herbert Hoover was president. I mean, these are things that we only ever see and hear either in movies or in history books. Kansas shouldn't go Democrat, basically. States like Alabama and Texas, they'll not necessarily all go because some still have to be decided, and it might take days for some of them to be decided. But these are heartland Republican countries. The notion, I mean, look at Texas. Elon Musk, basically it looked like he was trying to buy his own senator. He put so much money, hundreds of millions of dollars of Musk's own money to pump up Ken Paxton. And the Republican Party did. And you had the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump, and the most wealthy man in the world, Elon Musk, both trying to pump up the political ties of Ken Paxton. And in the end, a 37-year-old called James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, a former schoolteacher, took on the might and power of Trump, Musk, and others and has defeated them, it appears. And this is extraordinary political history and theatre.
Sam Hawley : Yeah, and clearly the message from the Democratic candidates that Trump's Iran war was to blame for voters' economic hardship, it worked right. Do you think, this is what interests me, do you think if it wasn't for the Iran war, we would have seen such a significant defeat of the Republicans?
John Lyons: My own assessment, Sam, is that if it hadn't been for the Iran war, that I think Donald Trump would have won or probably would have retained the Senate, the Republicans, but may well have lost the House. Because we know that at midterms there's always, well, usually a swing against the President. It's a protest vote. It's sort of anything that's upset you, that's your chance to vote against them. But to the walloping that they've taken in both the Senate and the House, I don't think would have happened with the Iran war. And it's interesting, Samantha, that the knives are already, it's only a couple of hours since the sort of results have started coming through and the knives are out in the Republican Party. For example, Jack Posobiec, who is one of the long-time sort of MAGA influencers, he made a comment a short time ago saying, great work, neocons, and basically you deserve this. And Meghan McCain, she's the daughter of the Republican legend, John McCain. She's not so much MAGA, she's establishment Republican. Her analysis of it was two words, effing bloodbath was her phrase. And she said it's a hell of a night to be a normie or a normal centrist Republican. Wow. Sean Davis from The Federalist also said that it was the neocons decided to start a war in Iran. So it's interesting, they're all blaming the neocons, and yet the war was decided on essentially by two men, Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They were the two who agreed and who went to war with Iran.
Nick Miroff: Hi, I'm Nick Miroff, I'm a staff writer at The Atlantic, and I'm speaking to you from Dallas, Texas, where Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate for Senate, has just conceded to James Talarico.
Sam Hawley : Wow, what was the mood like? Tell me about the mood in the room. The Republican has lost.
Nick Miroff: Yeah, so this is the first time Democrats have won a statewide race in Texas in more than 30 years. Wow. Ken Paxton, the current Attorney General of Texas, was the hand-picked candidate for President Trump. The poll showed him, you know, losing narrowly. And instead it's been a blowout. He's on pace for a double-digit defeat. And even more surprisingly, the Democratic candidate for Texas Governor, Gina Hinojosa, has defeated the three-time incumbent Republican, Greg Abbott. So Democrats have swept the Republicans here in Texas for the first time in more than 30 years. This is a political earthquake.
Sam Hawley : Absolutely incredible. And James Talarico, of course, the Democrat who's got up in the Senate, you know, he was labelled James Talafreako, of course, by his opponents. He put it on a T-shirt, he owned it. And now, you know, joke's on them, right?
Nick Miroff: Elon Musk spent more than $200 million on this race and wasn't able to change the outcome. It seemingly wasn't even able to move the needle in his candidate's favour. Most of that money paid for negative attack ads that labelled Talarico a freak, you know, transgender, you know, warrior, that kind of thing. And it all seems to have backfired spectacularly against Musk and against the Republican establishment that was backing these candidates.
Sam Hawley : Yeah. And the Latino vote, Nick, that's been really important here, hasn't it? Just explain that.
Nick Miroff: You know Hispanic voters in Texas have swung massively in favour of Democrats. The margins in South Texas, in El Paso, in the parts of Texas where the Latino population is the highest, are stunning, you know. The last count, Talarico has won, for example, in El Paso by 50 points. In the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, where I've spent time recently, you know, reporting on voter frustrations. You've got to keep in mind, these are areas that voted for Donald Trump two years ago. The Democratic candidates are winning by 20, 30 points. There's one particular county, Starr County, that Trump won just two years ago. It's gone 79 percentage points for Democrats tonight.
Sam Hawley : Incredible. OK. And what, why? Tell me why. Is it because of the cost of living? Is that it?
Nick Miroff: I mean, I think there's no other way to interpret this outcome than a repudiation of the president, of his war in Iran and the impact that it's had in driving up the cost of living, driving up gas prices. People are sick of the president's chaos. They're eager for something different. I don't think that this is, you know, an endorsement of Democrats, of the Democratic Party. It's a rejection of the president and the current state of affairs here in the United States.
Sam Hawley : Yeah. And what does it mean then for Donald Trump? How significant is this?
Nick Miroff: This is massive and it's potentially, you know, I mean, all signs point to this as being like, you know, a kind of a turning point moment. It certainly feels like the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency in the Trump era. It leaves him incredibly weakened. He's going to be facing Democratic majorities in the Senate, in the House. They're going to hold hearings. He's not going to be able to get anyone confirmed. He can forget about passing any legislation, at least certainly under the priorities that he's had up until now. And I think that this is a starter gun for the presidential race in two years. It's hard not to see, you know, his vice president, J.D. Vance, who's been named as the really the front runner for the contest. It's hard not to see him not damaged by this outcome tonight, given the margins that we're seeing. And, you know, it's not just here in Texas. The Republicans have lost the Senate race in South Carolina. These are states that Trump won by 20, 30 points two years ago. They've lost in Kansas. They've lost in Ohio. The map has been completely reshuffled and the next two years are really up for grabs.
Sam Hawley : Nick Miroff is a staff writer at The Atlantic magazine. He was speaking to us from Texas. We also spoke to John Lyons, the ABC's America's editor in Washington, D.C. This episode was produced by Ilaria Brophy. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is Sydney Pead. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.
