THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

Republicans are “panicking” about what the midterm debacle has done to their presidential map for 2028, Politico reports. Some Republicans fear Texas is now very gettable for the Democratic electoral college map. Other worry that Ohio and Iowa have reverted to true swing states. One Republican suggests the Trump “brand” has become a weapon against the party. Meanwhile, Trump seethed that if he’d been on the ballot, Republicans “WOULD HAVE WON IN A LANDSLIDE.” He fumed that the stock market downturn is the fault of “Dumocrats.” He suggested he will still vanquish Democrats by delivering gains that are “BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE.” He even raged at America for the “sad” outcome, declaring: “you only have yourselves to blame!” We talked to Paul Waldman, who’s been writing well about the midterm fallout. We discuss why Democratic gains in the South and Rust Belt have hidden significance, how to make them truly transformative, and whether a new Democratic Party is being born.

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Donald Trump’s war on Iran was a big cause of the GOP electoral drubbing, and Pete Hegseth is in trouble. Trump told ABC News that he “has every intention” of keeping the Defense Secretary. But then came the twist. Trump said: “I get these calls” from people taking aim at Hegseth, adding: “I don’t know why.” And Trump admitted it would be easier to get a replacement confirmed before Democrats take over the Senate, a hint that he’s seriously thinking of dumping him. This is exactly how Trump talks when he’s getting rid of someone. Meanwhile, story after story reports that the GOP knives are out for Hegseth in a serious way. We talked to Representative Adam Smith, the next head of the Armed Services Committee. Smith discusses why it’s 50-50 that Trump will remove Hegseth and what a disaster he’s been. Smith also explains how Democrats will seek to defund the war if necessary and details how they’ll investigate Trump’s illegal Caribbean boat strikes and bombing of a girls’ school in Iran.

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Donald Trump fired quite a warning shot at JD Vance as the epic scale of GOP losses sank in. Asked about Vance and the political way forward, Trump employed his best mob-speak and declared that in 2028, maybe “a lot of people” will run for president, adding of Vance: “Maybe he won’t run.” Translation: If you distance yourself from me, your presidential ambitions are dead and others should feel free to run instead. This comes as Vance just posted a long statement blaming GOP losses squarely on the war. That’s a clear bid by Vance to repair relations with MAGA voters alienated by Trump by (subtly) getting distance from him. Meanwhile, Republicans are angrily pointing fingers squarely at Trump, with one declaring that he’s “optimistic for the future because Trump’s going to be gone in two years.” The infighting is growing truly vicious. We talked to international relations professor Nicholas Grossman, author of a good piece discussing the centrality of Trump’s war to GOP losses. We discuss Trump’s shivving of Vance, how Vance is trying to salvage his 2028 ambitions by hitching himself to the Tucker Carlson wing of MAGA, and why the GOP crackup will get much worse.

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In a stunning series of outcomes, Democrats won control of the House and Senate on Tuesday. They’re projected to take control of at least 244 House seats, per NBC, and as of now, they’ve flipped Senate seats in South Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, and North Carolina, with Maine likely following. That means they’ll control at least 53 seats. But what also makes these results stunning is how Democrats captured a lot of new territory in places they’ve long struggled to reach. They made huge inroads into the South, won a Senate seat in the Great Plains, and reached deep into the parts of the Midwest that we all thought Trump had turned permanently red. We talked to New Republic editor Michael Tomasky about all of it. We discuss how Trump brought his party to this disastrous moment, how these Democratic gains will alter our political geography, what this all portends for JD Vance, how a new Democratic Party may be coming into being, and how it will handle a severely diminished Trump next year.

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Charlie Cook has been doing election forecasting since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign. The founder of the Cook Political Report, an institution in D.C., he recently retired from his life’s work and now writes an informative newsletter called “Charlie Cook Politics.” And he’s been declaring that he hasn’t ever seen an election quite like this one. So, now that Election Day is finally upon us, we talked to Cook about all of it. He explains why he largely believes those astounding New York Times polls showing Democrats leading in seven key Senate races, how many Senate and House seats he expects them to win, and why the election will be partly decided by disaffected GOP voters. We also discuss how Trump’s unpopularity is making this midterm so unique, probe Cook’s concept of a “red undertow” in this election, and dig into whether Democrats have a new opportunity to repair relations with rural and small-town America. Cook also details why he expects the GOP to get an “ass-whupping.”

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