TANTV News Editorial
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, President Donald Trump spoke with Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum and said what many people who watched the rallies might have said themselves. “I thought they’d do better,” he told them. He added that he was “a little bit surprised.”
That candor deserves credit. But it also sets up the question this editorial board wants to put to the president and to the party that follows him: when rallies the president says drew thousands turn into a map that Fox’s own anchors say is going Democratic in both chambers, what is the lesson?
The Scoreboard
Baier told the president that Fox had called the House for Democratic control, with a margin that “could be as high as 255 seats,” and had called the Senate for Democratic control as well. The president’s reply was that he had held about 30 rallies, that “we had tremendous rallies,” and that thousands of people had watched on screens outside the buildings.
Enthusiasm is real, and nobody should dismiss the people who stood outside in line. But a rally measures who already agrees with the speaker. An election measures everyone else. The interview shows the president reaching for explanations that keep the first measure intact.
Four Explanations, One Missing
Trump offered several reasons. The first was that he was not on the ballot: “I wasn’t on the ballot,” he said, and he suggested the result would have been different if he had been. The second was candidate quality, saying some candidates “fought me” and that the base did not turn out for them. The third was Iran and its cost at the pump: people “agree with what I’m doing on Iran,” he said, but were not willing to accept the short-term gasoline consequences. The fourth was history. Sitting presidents lose seats, he argued, no matter how good the job.
Each of these has some truth in it. Midterms have long been harder for the party in the White House. Gas prices matter to household budgets. And a president who is not on the ballot cannot appear on it for his party.
The explanation missing from the interview is the one voters gave. The AP reported that the economy and the state of democracy were the top issues, and that roughly three-quarters of voters said they were angry or dissatisfied with the way things are going. The president touched that nerve when he said “because of the gasoline price, people don’t see it as much” and described his economy as the best ever. He also asserted that “we’re 25 trillion dollars richer.” Voters who feel prices in their own pockets are unlikely to be moved by a number they cannot see.
Facts That Need Checking
Trump said 11,888 murderers “came into our country through an open border.” CNN fact checker Daniel Dale, as reported by Mediaite, has called that figure a wild distortion of federal data, noting it covers non-citizens over several decades, including during Trump’s first term. On Israel, the president said “we give four billion dollars a year,” which is close to the roughly $3.8 billion in annual military aid that reporting describes. He said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have come to an agreement to end it. Netanyahu has publicly said since January that he wants to phase out the aid over a decade, and the current agreement does not expire until 2028. Whether aid actually ends this year is a question for the text of any deal, not for a television interview. And Trump said he is at “99 approval in the Republican party,” a figure we have not seen supported by polling.
A governing party that wants to win back swing voters cannot keep relying on claims that independent fact-checkers dispute.
Divided Government Is Not a Veto Contest
The president’s plan for the next two years, as he described it, is simple. Of Democrats, he said, “they’ll send over things that are insane, and I’ll veto them.” After “a couple of months of vetoes,” he predicted, they will call and ask how to get things done. He also said he had already spoken to some Democrats and that “I can work with them on many things,” while ruling out cooperation on an open border, transgender issues involving children, and men in women’s sports.
A veto is a legitimate power, and a president who has one is not obliged to sign what he opposes. But governing is more than a veto count. The voters who gave Democrats the House and, according to Fox, the Senate did so while saying they were frustrated. Telling them the answer is to wait for Democrats to come begging is not a plan for prices, health care, schools or the federal workers in our own region.
There was one bright spot in the exchange. Asked about the Democrats, Trump said, “I think the Democrats did a good job,” and he said he does not “like to consider it a defeat.”
What the Other Side Will Say
Republicans will say that midterm losses for a sitting president are nearly automatic, that the 30 rallies energized the base and kept some races closer than they might otherwise have been, and that the gas-price pain is temporary and tied to a military campaign they believe made the country safer. They will say Trump’s veto power is the ordinary check that divided government has always carried.
Democrats should not read a good night as proof that voters are happy with them. The AP poll found broad anger about the way things are going in the country, and a party that holds neither chamber until January will be judged on whether it can change that.
What We Hope Happens Next
The president says it is “just a point in time.” That is true of every election. What matters is what the next point in time looks like for the people who voted. We hope the White House and the new Congress find real work to do together on costs, on borders that are secure and humane, and on the ordinary business of keeping government open. We also hope the president will take the first part of his own interview seriously, the part where he was honest enough to say he was surprised.
Source: President Trump’s Fox News “Democracy 26” interview
