00:00Hello and welcome. Good evening. You're joining us live here on India Today for our special broadcast of the U
00:05.S. midterm results.
00:07I'm standing in front of Capitol Hill, obviously virtually transported myself there, but this is now a wave of blue
00:14that swept through Capitol Hill.
00:16In results that have stunned Donald Trump, the Democrats have seized both the House or off representatives and the Senate.
00:23Many saw it coming. Many are saying that this is a message to Donald Trump on inflation, on rising costs,
00:30on the wall.
00:31But over the next one hour on this broadcast, that's exactly what we're going to decode for you about what
00:36Americans want to say to Donald Trump.
00:39Was this a message against Trump or for Democrats?
00:43Who are the big winners, the big surprises, the big upsets?
00:46Democrats will break all of that down for you, along with our in-house experts and analysts to give you
00:52the overall picture in America, yes,
00:54but also talk about the impact it has on India and geopolitically.
00:59Let's begin by talking about some historic firsts in the U.S. midterms.
01:04And these are faces-driven.
01:06What am I talking about?
01:08Well, for the first time, you will have the first openly gay man who will be sitting in the U
01:14.S. Senate.
01:14Chris Pappas, Senator-elect from New Hampshire.
01:17History right there.
01:19Juliana Stratton, Senator-elect from Illinois, is in fact going to be serving in the U.S. Senate for the
01:28first time.
01:29A black woman.
01:30Abdul Al-Sahid, who's of course faced a lot of communal hate from Donald Trump.
01:35Senator-elect from Michigan, first Muslim American elected to the U.S. Senate.
01:42You have a mayor, Imam Dhani, and now you have a senator as well.
01:47Peggy Flanagan, Senator-elect from Minnesota, is the first Native American woman elected to the U.S. Senate from New
01:55Mexico.
01:58And then you have a Palestinian Muslim woman elected to the New York State Legislature, Abir Khawaz.
02:07Gina Hinojosa is the governor-elect from Texas, first Latina-elected governor of Texas.
02:13So very interesting firsts there that we're seeing.
02:16And this kind of, you know, representation itself in America, many say, is messaging once again to Donald Trump.
02:25Let me bring in on this broadcast Michael Cassie, the White House correspondent for O'Keefe Media Group, currently based
02:32in Palm Beach of Florida.
02:33Michael, I know it's early in the morning for you, so we appreciate your time for joining us here on
02:38India Today.
02:39Welcome to our broadcast, America waking up to a historic midterm result.
02:44What to you is really the biggest headline from this result, Michael?
02:49Well, thank you so much for having me. Good morning. Thank you.
02:53Yeah, it's very interesting results.
02:54And I think the biggest thing happening right now is that, you know, some races aren't called yet.
02:59It looks like Mississippi, a historically very Republican state in the Deep South.
03:03The U.S. Senate race there is currently very, very, very, very close.
03:09It's within about 28 votes, I believe, as of right now, out of hundreds of thousands cast.
03:13So there's definitely going to be a lot more to come in in all these outstanding races over the next
03:20few days.
03:20So we're going to see how big of a Democratic wave this was.
03:24You know, will they get, you know, up to 55 seats? Will it stay down to 53, 54 seats?
03:29We're going to see now just how many seats are still left to call.
03:33And a 28-to-vote margin, especially in a state like Mississippi, is just incredible.
03:39You know, you're very rare to see something like that.
03:41And it's about like 96 percent reporting right now.
03:44So that'll be very interesting to watch over the next few days to see the last few ballots being cast
03:48and to see or being counted and seeing where that state ends up.
03:53You know, as a White House correspondent, I'm curious to know,
03:56what do you make of Donald Trump's reaction so far to these results?
04:01So it's going to be very interesting to see what he does.
04:05You know, I think that President Trump, he had a very mixed response.
04:10You know, he graduated the Democrats and, you know, he wished them well, wished to work with them.
04:15And I think that he does genuinely mean that.
04:17I think that President Trump does want, you know, to, you know, work, work in any way he can to,
04:22you know,
04:23any of the allies he can.
04:24And then keep in mind, a lot of these incoming senators and congressmen are going to be from very traditionally
04:29Republican areas.
04:30So some of them may not want to be super combative in the beginning, outright in the beginning.
04:34So we'll see if there's going to be some common ground there they can find.
04:37That being said, he also put out his veto hat picture.
04:42He put out the red hat graphic with the veto on.
04:45He's going to call himself Mr. Veto now.
04:46So I think the now president, which President Trump will likely be doing now, is going to be just, you
04:52know,
04:52issuing a lot of vetoes.
04:53President Trump has been a president who has definitely been, you know, utilized the power the executive branch has.
05:00And I think we've received more so now, a lot more executive action being taken.
05:04I think a big roadblock for him now will be just getting a lot of these nominees confirmed, you know,
05:11in the last two years.
05:12So I think, you know, in the next few months, he's going to try his best to just squeeze in
05:17as many nominees and confirmations as he can.
05:20Because that's going to be one of his most difficult roadblocks over the next two years.
05:25Michael, how do you see this particular verdict that's come in?
05:28You know, do you think that it's a message against Trump, that this is bad news for Donald Trump,
05:33because it's Americans who are choosing to send him a message, that they want a supervisory layer above him?
05:39They want this oversight over Trump, not just that he can bulldoze any of the legislations that he wants.
05:45Is that the message?
05:48Yeah, I mean, I think it definitely is, you know, not good news for the president to have these results.
05:55Unfortunately for him, you know, he's going to have to deal with now.
05:58Indeed, I'm sure he'd always want to deal with the Republican Senate and House and Republican governors.
06:03Now he's going to have to deal with the Democrats now.
06:07And I think there will be a lot, you know, there will be definitely, I'd be surprised if there wasn't
06:11an impeachment, you know,
06:12which I don't think will be successful.
06:14I think it'll be more of a symbolic impeachment like it was the first two times, which, you know, I
06:19think it's give and take.
06:21I think President Trump definitely needed and wanted more allies in Congress to get his nominees confirmed to pass his
06:31agenda over the next two years.
06:32However, I will say, to some extent, though, President Trump, I think, likes to have a foil.
06:37He likes to have somewhat of a, to have, you know, have, you know, duke it out in public and
06:44have these, like, you know, like someone to, you know, have someone to combat with in public and everything.
06:50He likes to have, like, these, you know, his villains, I guess, you know, he can go after and everything.
06:56So I wouldn't count him out fully now.
06:59I mean, it's going to be rough two years now of battles in Congress and the confirmations now with him.
07:05But I also wouldn't completely rule out the fact that he's going to be able to pull a few stops
07:11on his end, too.
07:11Like I said, he does utilize the executive power a lot.
07:15I think that President Trump's reaction, what I'm hearing and seeing from a lot of sources, is that the White
07:22House isn't too deterred by this.
07:24I think that, you know, the message that he's portraying right now is, you know, when he was on the
07:27ballot, he won in a landslide.
07:30You know, he won the first time in 2016.
07:32He won, you know, subsequently as well when he was on the ballot.
07:38His argument now is going to be, OK, now Republicans lost when I was not on the ballot.
07:43So these Republicans did not embrace me enough.
07:45They didn't help me enough.
07:47So I think that would be his message now.
07:49And I think that would kind of, you know, that's his, what I'm hearing seeing now, he's not giving up.
07:54He's not throwing the towel.
07:55He's going to say, OK, they should have, they should have embraced me more.
07:59I should have been on the ballot.
07:59If I was on the ballot, then I would have won.
08:02But I think that that's his message right now.
08:04So I think, you know, that while it may be some difficult for him, I wouldn't count him out.
08:08I think he's definitely still going to be on the dirt.
08:09And I'm seeing and hearing a lot of this now.
08:12He's going to be very, you know, more up to the fight more than ever.
08:17You know, there's one aspect, which is that for the last many years, every midterm has been against the incumbent.
08:23So in that sense, it's not really a surprise, Michael.
08:25But on the other hand, there's also the big flips.
08:28You know, the states that have been traditionally red for decades turning blue.
08:32How do you explain that?
08:34Yeah, I mean, well, first, as you said, these things are, this is not, you know, typical groundbreaking news.
08:39You know, you know, President Bush had a rough midterm for the Republicans in 2006.
08:45President Obama had two rough midterms, 2010 and 2014.
08:50And I mean, look at the voters.
08:51You know, sometimes voters change their minds on a whim.
08:53You know, they did Obama in the landslide in 2008.
08:56Then they completely rejected him for the midterms in 2010, elected Republicans in the landslide.
09:01And then completely flipped it around and brought him back in the White House in 2012.
09:04Then changed their mind again and put Republicans back in 2014 in a landslide.
09:08And then Trump won two years later.
09:10So it's, the voters go back and forth and back and forth all the time.
09:13You know, I think we're almost like, you know, sometimes the base is not getting as energized when they win
09:19and they have everything.
09:20They're like, okay, we can sit this out now.
09:22And they're just like, it's more motivated.
09:23So that's too unknown.
09:25I wouldn't be surprised if in two years, you know, Republicans have a big comeback or maybe four years have
09:30a big comeback.
09:30You never know.
09:31So, yeah, there was definitely some big historic wins for the Democrats and everything.
09:37And I compare it similar to, you know, in 2010 when the Republicans flipped the Massachusetts race or the Illinois
09:45race.
09:46You know, historic Democrat strongholds flipped the Republican during the Obama years.
09:49And I think this is a similar thing now.
09:51Now we're seeing, I think that's something to be said.
09:54I think it also is something to be said, too, that there was a lot of, you know, the Republicans
09:58were maybe caught sleeping in a few races, too.
10:00You know, they may have taken into account that they took a few races for granted.
10:05Maybe they put a lot of focus into Texas and Ohio and Alaska.
10:08Maybe they didn't look into South Carolina and Mississippi as much as they should have.
10:12It seems like it's an awakening moment for Republicans now to realize they should have definitely picked their targets more.
10:19All right.
10:20Michael, thank you for your time.
10:21Thank you for joining us here.
10:22We appreciate it here on India Today.
