586. Trump’s Midterms Disaster: What Happens Next?

The Democrats' win was so big, so overwhelming, that even Donald Trump felt compelled to concede defeat as his Republican Party lost control of both houses of Congress. The last time we saw a blue Democrat wave as big as this was probably in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal which brought down Richard Nixon. America is now doing what it did then, sending new blood to Washington to clean the place up. Trump says the Republicans lost because his name was not on the ballot, but his name was on the ballot. His corruption, his lies, his nastiness, his wars sending gas prices sky high, his love of dictators, his contempt for democracy. Well, it looks like democracy has hit back, but now there are some very big questions for both parties. How does Trump react as a lame duck president? How do the contenders to replace him as presidential candidate for 2028 respond? Notably, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, when they are so much part of this now damaged brand. And if this was primarily a vote against Trump and the cost of living crisis, what approach do the Democrats now adopt? Do they put revenge on all things Trump ahead of sorting out their own strategy? Or should they focus more on choosing the right leader to take them into that presidential election in two years time? So many remarkable results to discuss. Lots of questions. For the future to analyze in this special midterms episode of The Rest is Politics. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. Most energy companies are counting on you doing absolutely nothing. Not questioning what you're paying, not switching, just letting your tariff roll on, which is costing you hundreds of pounds every year. But the apathy goes deeper than our bills. We've almost given up on energy itself. We seem to all be accepting energy is expensive, the system's outdated. But that complacency. Fuse Energy does not accept that because the energy transition is not something that just happens somewhere else. 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I'm on Jordan time, that's good. I'm on Jordan time, I like that. Okay, how do you protect yourself from arguing with your co-host? I just watch you argue with other people. No, I have this tactic when I think I'm losing my temper, I just rub my thumb and my index finger together, that's what I do and I just calm down. Yeah, that's cool. And how do you protect yourself from online scams? Well, the answer is I find NordVPN useful for that. It's not just a VPN app. They've built in next-gen antivirus. Block scams, phishing attacks before they reach you, so you can carry on knowing you're secure. To get the best discount on your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com slash restispolitics. You'll get four extra months free on the two-year plan, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the episode description. Welcome to the Restist Politics with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And so, Rory, the midterms. The midterms have happened, and we both thought, I think, that the Democrats were going to do well, but I think we've both been moderately surprised by just how well they've done, or maybe we should say just how badly Trump's Republican Party have done. The results are absolutely stunning. I mean, by the end, you didn't need to be Mystic Meg to predict a Democrat victory because the polls were pretty consistent, but it was still possible to argue, and some commentators were doing, that if the polls had been wrong three to four points in the same direction, you would have ended up with a pretty tight night. It wasn't like that. If anything, the polls this time may have overweighted the Republican vote and underestimated the Democrat vote. So people who are really paying attention, I've just literally left the United States yesterday, so you get a slightly jet-lagged version. But if we go back over these great Senate races that we were talking about, with the exception of Alaska, every single one of those, the Senate races that we described, has been won by the Democrats. Alaska's not yet declared. It's a tight race. And we'd add to the list we gave South Carolina, which is another astonishing upset. I'd love at some point later on just to go through race by race because it's an incredible portrait of America and the modern Democratic Party. But you're completely right. This is a real blue wave, and the Democrats will be very happy. Over to you. Yeah, and the Republicans will be very unhappy. And I just don't know what they do. I said in the introduction, it'd be really interesting to see what they do. So Trump, who, as we know, only ever thinks about himself. He was straight out. First of all, the one big surprise to me was how quickly he conceded defeat. When you think back to the Biden election that Biden won, and Trump came straight out with the claims that led to the January 6th riots, this time he basically came straight out and said, yeah, we've lost. But what he never, ever, ever does is, is accept any of the responsibility. So sit with that for a second, though, because I think that that's worth acknowledging. The number of predictions made by American journalists over the last few years that he would stitch up the midterms, refuse to accept, use ICE to man the polling stations, cancel the midterms, that doesn't seem to have happened. And I think it's just worth taking a second on that because that is a different story in terms. In terms of Trump's authoritarianism and fascism, I think he remains this unbelievably unpleasant, anti-democratic, poisonous force. But he's not, as people suggested, somebody who's actually cancelled elections, sent in ICE agents to stop people voting, or refused to accept the result of the midterms. I think that's worth remembering. And that's interesting because, again, given how much narrative was going into this might be the last election in the United States, which I was hearing from people even a month or two ago, that's a significant change. Yeah, but maybe there's another narrative that he's developing. And the narrative in this, because the results are so overwhelming, it'd be impossible for him to try the same trick. But so he's got a new narrative, which is it's got nothing to do with me. And it makes me wonder whether there is a part of him that wants the Republicans to do badly once he's gone. And that is a form of narcissism. It is a form. It's a form of saying that after me, there is nothing. And so it's so interesting that as all this was going on and the results were coming, he was doing that old thing of phoning up journalists and all on the record. So then you suddenly start seeing, you know, the New York Times put out a piece, Politico put out a piece, Fox News put out a piece. Donald Trump basically says, well, the problem was my name was not on the ballot. And then you have them all playing clips of him during the campaign saying, my name is on the ballot. Virginia, you're voting for me. But of course, he's now moving the narrative. That's right. He's clearly on that track. But it's also, he may shift on this. But what was striking for me during the campaign is just how hard he worked. He hadn't decided before the midterms that he was going to distance himself from the Republican Party. He really, as a man, you know, aged 80 or whatever he is, he really put in the hours. I mean, it was unbelievable watching that small rally in, um, Chillicothe, Ohio to see him there for an hour and a quarter, then back on the plane late into the night and just hitting state after state after state. I mean, it was one of the most, um, energetic and relentless campaigns far more than Biden did in the midterms. I mean, it was, you know, he was really trying hard. He was, and he did put in the hours and he does have extraordinary stamina. And yet his eve of poll speech at the reflecting pool was one of the most bizarre, uh, campaign events I have ever watched. It was extraordinary. He's there. He's standing there with some guy handing him in photographs, hoping that photo talk about algae, algae talking about, you know, people drowning in water. That is, I think at no point more than three feet deep and all this sort of, it just, it was utterly bizarre. It was dementing. And I, so I think what's going to happen now, and I said in introduction, this really throws up questions for the people who will be thinking about taking over. I think the people who will be thinking about taking over for him because you just, as you've just said, he's accepted, he's lost this election. Now there is this talk, Steve Bannon keeps saying he'll, he'll fight a third term. I think that's now gone. Let's just assume that's gone. So that means the JD Vance's and the Marco Rubio's and any of the others who may think they have a chance of standing as nominee, they've got some really, really difficult thinking to do because he still has a hold. Trump still has a hold over vast swathes of people, particularly people who are in Republican Party machine. What do they do now? What does J.D. evans do does he try and distance himself from this does he try to lean in to some of the arguments that are coming back from the democrats i watched a lot of the acceptance speeches last night through them through the night all of them john ossoff james talarico abdul al-sayed lots of them were making this point about you threw everything at us you threw the lies you threw musk's multi multi-million campaigns and i think it was abdul al-sayed had this great you know the many can beat the money i really i thought that was really really really nice line and but they all spoke to this they weren't overdoing the thing about this is about trump but they all spoke to this is about a change of politics now can they harness that between now and the presidential elections can they now show that because they've really pinned themselves to changing politics it's a bit like andy burnham here they've pinned themselves to saying we're going to get the money out of politics what does that mean in america because the democrats are you know pretty up to the neck in money nancy pelosi and the trade stocks and all that stuff so i think if these guys really think this through it will be a combination and my worry is they just decide to go after trump and go after the family that's going to be part of it but the bigger thing has to be about the agenda for the democrats now because this wasn't really a an election about the democrats it was an election about trump and trump's republican party a couple of things that strike me as you're talking one of them is that there may be different forms of uh i don't know democratic backsliding democratic decline going on here and maybe what we've seen uh with the united states uh as with hungary victor orban and vucic in serbia is that these are states where aggressive populist anti-democratic leaders accept election results in the end because that same prediction that trump would not accept the midterms was made about orban and was made about vucic there was a narrative that they're all like uh erdogan in turkey or putin and russia they're not that there's still something going on in the united states where january 6 notwithstanding this guy did ultimately accept the midterms and didn't send didn't cancel the elections or use excuses to do that on the money point um i mean there's two types of money there's the corruption thing which is you know we've got to get into and think about a lot and i think that's are the democrats prepared to really think about all the ways in which corruption operates in the united states how deep it is not just in the republican party but the democratic party you talked about nancy pelosi and her husband with their congressional stock trades you could also talk about the incredible scandals involving democratic as well as republican administrations at a state level and a mayor level up and down the united states decade after decade i mean so some of the most kind of staggering stories imaginable which we occasionally uh touch on i you know i love to talk about buddy cianci and um in rhode island but you know there was some staggering stories in in ohio as well when i was going around there some of the candidates that i had dinner with in west virginia you meet somebody who thinks quite jolly over dinner and then you go to the local newspaper and you read the guy's been indicted on astonishing claims so that's the the corruption point and i i it's you know why are the democrats or why i can think why but will they ever be prepared to address things like abuse of presidential pardons this mad american system which allows you know biden to pardon his own family members and allows trump to issue pardons for people who are effectively donors to his crypto and i suspect will lead trump to try to pardon all the criminal members of his own administration before he steps down from the presidency i mean there's no just for american listeners you may think that's normal that is not normal right there is literally no democracy i can think of certainly in europe where it is remotely possible for a head of state to do that kind of stuff in britain yes the king can pardon but what he will do is he will pardon someone like alan turing who uh who's dead and is a great national figure for the fact that he was imprisoned uh for homosexuality in the 1950s he's not trying to pardon his own family members so will the democrats be persecuted and then the other thing that you raised which i think is a sort of separate thing which is the staggering money i mean we've had a lovely bit of time to talk about this but i think it's a very important point and i think it's a research uh by joe on our team who's pointed out that the u.s midterms are set to be the most expensive in american history expenditure at 12 billion dollars that's 12 000 million dollars and for context spending in the midterms 10 years ago was only two i say only only 2.85 billion in other words it's six times larger they've spent more in political advertising than they did even in the 2024 presidential election cycle and that's not just the republicans and we'll get on to musk and his hundreds of minutes actually the democrats are outspending the republicans a lot of these states well in a way they feel they have to it's like a kind of nuclear arms race you know they've got the money but i'll take the other thing that will happen in this and there is a there is a bearing here for the reason why in the uk i think reform are on the slide is because i think british people are pre-empting a reaction against this sort of thing and i think that's a very important thing and i think that's a very important thing in our politics you know i don't like a lot of the money issues in our politics never mind america but when you have nigel farage saying five million quid no strings attached 72 million coming in from two formerly overseas based crypto guys that is peanuts to elon musk it's peanuts compared to the money that the republicans have spent against talarico and against abdul al-said in particular but it's a lot of money in our politics and i think that you know you were talking about the money that the republicans have spent against talarico and against abdul al-said in when we did one of our episodes when you were out there you were talking about being in a sports bar and and fox sports is on and then the adverts come okay and you say nobody's watching now they're spending a fortune on these tv ads an absolute fortune hundreds of thousands of dollars in every single state that may be close they've got to come a point where they think actually maybe this message we're for the many there for the money actually is beginning to cut through in a way that's not going to happen in a way that's not going to happen in a way that's not going to happen all of them need to start rethinking how they do politics now that may sound a bit naive but i think that what i've found so interesting people want to say that the democrats are all very different there's this left-right battle going on and to some extent there is but it was interesting to me to see the similarities in the themes that were coming through in these acceptance speeches and by the way i've got to tell you of all of them if i had to say which of those is already thinking about the presidential election it's john ossoff he was absolutely thinking about the that was more than that i've wanted georgia speech uh but i think all three of them all three of those guys made really powerful speeches also if i suppose from traditional american politics you've said that he's maybe not as tall as he should be but he certainly seems to be more of the kind of central castings square jawed he's got the jaw got the jaw yeah concise americans whereas the others are an amazing um group of people i mean just before we get back into the big themes just to remind people a little bit about who these candidates are and and how remarkable um this victory has been so you you mentioned john ossoff in georgia that was one where ossoff was so far ahead that people almost stopped talking about it but he is this crisp square jawed prosecutorial figure you then mentioned james talarico now the talarico paxton run in texan was essentially the first one to run in texan and he was the first one to run in texas paxton who basically looked very very old and tired towards the end of the race one of his eyes wasn't quite working and he really felt himself going down he is a battered guy humiliated by trump uh under lots and lots of corruption investigations going up against james talarico who i really hope we can get on leading soon he is the most lovely but quite intellectual quite geeky quite unusual looking earnest i like to say earnest young pastor i mean i don't know whether maybe i'm repeating myself because i've got jet lag but i just loved his uh attack on the religious right where he said um these people keep talking about abortion and gay marriage and neither of those things are in the bible jesus didn't mention abortion or gay marriage matthew 25 is about looking after the poor helping the sick and i was so struck by that because you know there i was in these pentecostal churches where ultimately the pastor was saying to me i'm voting republican because in the end the only thing that matters is abortion and gay marriage and there's talarico reminding people it's not even in the bible you know his his uh i mean as you know i don't do god and i've always had a bit of a queasy feeling about politicians who do god and are very very open about it but i'll tell you his speech today i the best part of it for me was he did that he told the story of david and goliath but he told him the context of the campaign and then turned to the crowd and said, you were my slingshot. And it was like, it was brilliant. And so I think they've got the, you know, Fiona was watching it with me and she was saying, you know, God, I wish we had more politicians who spoke like this. And so that sense of the power of, of the, I mean, these are very different figures. You said this on the podcast, on the episode the other day, you know, you've got a, you've got a Paralympian in a wheelchair. You've got a, uh, the first Muslim Senator in Abdul El-Sayed. You've got this guy who looks and speaks like he's a pastor rather than a politician. You've got Ossoff, as you say, looks like a kind of, you know, absolute standard. I'm going to go for it. Presidential candidate. They're all very, very different. And then you see, you know, some of these governors that are coming, I think I heard we've got, you're going to have four black governors for the first time in American history. So there's a real sense of that change, but my God, some of them can, they can deliver a speech. I couldn't work out, with all of them, whether they were using an autocue. I think they probably were because that this, there was something, there was something quite packaged about it, but they were all saying similar, addressing similar themes in very, very different ways. Now the challenge to the Democrats now is how they bring all that together. So Alistair, what, what, what, just, just, you, you've mentioned this before, but, but just more clearly, what was the central message you were getting out of the acceptance speeches? Democracy. Corruption, the people understanding they have agency, the building of movements, the taking of money out of politics and the nature of the debate, the nature of what politics and democracy are about. It was a lot about, they didn't, none of them overdid it with Trump, but it was just a given the nastiness, the smears, the corruption, Elon Musk and his role. Now, Elon Musk spending whatever, half a billion, that's like you and me, you know, making a charitable donation of a few grand. Okay. It may not seem that much to him, but if you're somebody who's so driven by money as he is, he'll be thinking, hell, was that worth it? And the one thing about all of these people, Trump, Musk, they don't want to be seen as losers today. And for some time to come, they're seen as losers and how, again, how the Democrats tap into that. And the other thing that was coming through was maybe a bit more understated, but the other thing that was coming through was this sense of politics being about, about service, politics being about, about people. They were all, and of course, Tallarico does that in such, as you say, such a beautiful way, because it's sort of, the reason I don't mind seeing him talk about God so much is because it's so clearly fundamental to everything about him. So he's incredibly authentic. But so I think they were, they were the big themes and then tying it all together was a sense of the Republic being strong enough to withstand something even as awful as Donald Trump and what he's doing right now. One of the things I think that will be interesting is, as you say, what, whether those acceptance speeches gives us a clue to how the Democratic Party wants to run in the presidential elections. I was very struck in the places I was in, which was Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia. How this didn't feel on the ground as though it was an election about democracy. It felt like an election about the cost of living, primarily. Now, I noticed you've just said that they didn't talk much about Trump, and that was a very important theme. It was very difficult to get anybody actually to share the kind of moral abhorrence that I have for Trump in many of those, either Republicans or Democrats. And I think that's a very important theme. And I think that's a pretty important theme in many of those, either Republicans or Democrats. And I think leaning or pretty safe Republican states. Now, that doesn't mean that they would accept the MAGA rally. They were not great sort of Trump right or wrong enthusiasts. They were people who decided to take the position that they were disappointed that they'd thought he was this amazing businessman. He turned out to be just an ordinary politician. So this whataboutery, you know, if you said Trump was corrupt, they'd be like, well, yeah, but they're all corrupt. Or, you know, one of the pastors I spoke to said, went as far as saying, yeah, he's an idiot, but, you know, they're all idiots, rather than what I was really looking for, which is from a pastor a bit more moral condemnation. But in the end, I think all the focus groups seem to suggest, and definitely this is what I got on the ground, and I think it's what your son, Rory Campbell, got on the ground too, that this was felt much more like a cost of living election. It felt much more as though Trump had got elected primarily because they felt that prices have gone up under Biden, they're living paycheck to paycheck, they couldn't afford their groceries, couldn't afford their gas. And Trump had completely failed to turn that around in two years. And therefore, they were punishing him for economic failure. Now, the reason that's relevant is I think there are three big factions in the Democratic Party. There is the, this is about democracy, and Trump and saving the Republic, which is what you were hearing slightly in your speech, maybe less the Trump stuff, but democracy, saving the Republic, which some people sometimes call Heather Cox Richardson Democrats. And those are people who are kind of passionately idealistic. They're on the No Kings marches. I think many of my friends in New Haven, Connecticut, many of my family members would fall into that category. Then you've got the, I don't know quite whether you'd call them Bernie Sanders Democrats, but they're definitely Democrats who are much more about focusing on ways of tackling inequality, you know, whole new taxation structures, whole new ways of thinking about healthcare, trying to make, I suppose that, you know, they're what Trump would call communists, but essentially they're trying to make America a little bit like a more normal European country when it comes to welfare spending in that state. And then you've got the abundance Democrats, which are the Ezra Klein Democrats, which are the, I don't know, you know, let's follow a little bit, you know, again, this is maybe a bad analogy, but a little bit more new labor. They're quite sort of technocratic. They're quite middle of the road. They think they've got some very smart policy solutions. They would argue that there's a lot of capital involved in the United States. And if they could build the right kind of infrastructure in the right way, they could raise people's standards of living. And then finally, so I've said there are three, and then the final one, which is where Abdullah Saeed comes in, one of the big issues for many, many Americans, is this whole question around Abdullah Saeed and his position on Palestine, his position on Israel, his position as a Muslim. You know, my phone was, again, being hit quite hard by Jewish friends who wanted to turn this whole thing into a sense of real shock, horror, and mourning at the fact that Abdullah Saeed won. And they feel, I think wrongly, but they feel that there's a lot of capital involved in this. And so I think that's a big issue. This is a really bad moment for Jews in the world. I don't think that's the way to read Abdullah Saeed, but they will read it like that. While I was channel hopping, I can't remember which channel it was, but one of them was a guy from Michigan giving the stats on Jews and their vote in Michigan saying, I think it was 60% had voted for Abdullah Saeed. I think I've got that right. But I think all of those things will have to sort of come together in one big strategic mix. So the Bernie Sanders, the Bernie Sanders, AOC, AOC, I'm not sure AOC is in exactly the same place as Bernie Sanders, but the sort of, you know, the progressive left of the party. I guess they'll be assuming that Abdullah Saeed will want to come in and just be part of that argument. I wonder if he's gonna be more subtle than that. I took out of his speech, I didn't get that feeling. I got a slightly different feeling about what he was trying to do. But they're not gonna have to, they're not gonna have to. But they're not gonna have to. Just how important is the personalities, the people, the names. I mean, it is extraordinary, if you think about it, that there will be people all over the world today, who know who Abdullah Saeed is. People, you know, people in every part of the world will be following this race in Alaska or even in Mississippi. Now, at the time that we're recording this, there's 28 votes between the Republican and the Democrat in the in the battle for the Senate. And I think that's a Mississippi. That is that. And that's a state that the the Democrat Party from the official top level would probably put zero resources into. So somehow, the wave is such that even Mississippi, it's a problem. And all around the world, people are talking about that one because it's consequential American elections are. But secondly, because this is what Trump has done. And this is what Trump's politics are all about. It's about who can command the attention economy space. Now, as a result of that, this is how backlash is work. As a result of that, these guys now have the attention economy. People are way, way more interested in Abdullah Saeed and James Tallarico, because Donald Trump and Elon Musk have spent fortunes trying to destroy them. And they've stood up against it. And now they're already as they go to Washington, established big figures. So they're going to have a really important role to play in what decision the Democrat Party takes. I'll tell you the other thing I was surprised by. We should throw in a little British element by telling our listeners and viewers that Mr. Steve Hilton was not elected in California. David Cameron's former right-hand man. man, the man who wore no shoes when Barack Obama came into the Downing Street. He's lost. This guy who was seen as very much part of my type of conservatism, which is pretty left-wing centrist conservatism, became a full-on Trumper. He went from being somebody who I would have thought was sympathetic to the Democrats in the way that many of us were to being a full-on Trump Republican. And astonishing, I mean, really pretty astonishing ascent that somebody who was basically a geeky Brit could within a few years, very few years, I mean, he literally was in, I was seeing him in Downing Street not many years ago, right? Flip it around. I mean, it's extraordinary. It would be like you suddenly popping up in the United States as the governor candidate in Michigan in five years' time. I mean, it's pretty weird. I'm doing it. No, he's lost. He's lost. But the point I was making is that Gavin Newsom's been very quiet through this campaign. Actually, AOC, he has been quite quiet through this campaign. I know they're not on the ballot, but nor was Trump on the ballot. And I just wonder whether they were waiting to see what transpired in these elections before making a decision. Gavin Newsom, he said this when we interviewed him on the podcast. He said this thing, you know, in the end, it's up to my wife and my kids whether I do it or not, which, you know, I think we both took with a pretty large dose of salt. But it is interesting that he's still saying that and he's still not committed. The truth is, we do not know who is going to be the candidate, either of the Republican Party or the Democrat Party. And that choice will be the consequence of a debate which the Republicans have not had because they're completely enthralled to Trump. Trump's now damaged, so they've got to have that debate. And the Democrats have not had because, to my mind, they've never wanted to confront the strategic errors and choices that they made that led to them losing again. against somebody as terrible as Donald Trump last time around. Those two debates have to happen. And from those debates and how they go about them, the next presidential election, I think, will be decided. And I do have a worry. And although this was slightly assuaged by the nature of these speeches that I've been describing to you, I do have a worry that there'll be such a desire, rightly, to punish Trump for the incompetence, for the corruption, for the standard of living hits and the rest of it. So go after him within the congressional processes that they now can open up because they have a majority in both houses. The people of America will start to think this is all they care about, all they care about. So they said it was about us, but in fact, it's about them. They've got to somehow do that without making it all about Trump. And I think that is about restoring democratic values, not just about the presidency, but about Congress as well, and about the Supreme Court. Actually, I know they love their constitution, but they could do with a big overhaul of their constitution. You mentioned the pardon. That's just got to go. You cannot have a president who we know this president is going to have the longest ever pardon list before he goes. Which effectively means that a president in office is almost exempt from accountability or prosecution. I mean, it's just sort of, yeah, it's an encouragement to illegal activity in office and encouraging your own people to be engaged. I spoke to Beth Macy, who sadly didn't get elected. I mean, she was running in a very red state. In Roanoke in Virginia. And maybe a sign that maybe she was beginning to suspect she wouldn't get elected is that she very kindly sat down for me for an interview the day before the midterms. And wonderful though the rest of this politics is, that may not have been the way of getting everything over the edge. But she is a very smart, thoughtful writer from Roanoke, as well as being a congressional candidate. And her view is that the kind of people we should be looking at, and I think that's the kind of people we should be looking at. And I think that's the kind of people that we should be looking at. And I think that's the kind of people we should be looking at. And I think that's the kind of people I think this reflects the sense that I got in the Midwest was Andy Boucher, who's the governor from Kentucky, Democrat governor from Kentucky, or maybe Pritzker up in Illinois. In other words, as she said to me, I hate to say this, but I think we probably need a white man. And she was basically a gesturing at figures who within the Democratic Party, I mean, Boucher is the grandson of a Baptist priest. And he's a Christian, and he's a Christian, and he's a Christian, and he's a preacher. He's the son. I think his father was the governor of Kansas before him. But he's a Democrat governor in red Kansas. And he's somebody that we saw together, you and I, when we were at the Democratic Convention in Chicago two years ago. He represents a different type of vision of the Democratic Party. What is he known for in the bits of East Kansas I was in? He was known for being really good at getting out during the day. He was known for being really good at getting out during the floods, being with people when the flooding was coming. The Democrats also give him real credit for running a very difficult campaign to try to stop Kansas from abolishing all abortion and doing it door to door. But he's doing it as the grandson of a Baptist preacher, and very much, I suspect, on things like guns, very much on the Republican side rather than being over on the Democratic side. So I don't know. I mean, just, before we go to the break, I just think that this issue of what this election was about is both obviously something that could be answered by focus groups and polls, but it's also something that's going to be very subjectively answered by which side of the party you happen to be from, I guess. You know, everybody's now going to be spinning their own narratives. And there'll be a Newsom narrative, there'll be an Ossoff narrative, there'll be an Andy Boucher narrative, and then there'll be narratives that are going to be very subjective. And I think that's going to from the progressive left about what they think they've really learnt from this election. Okay, well, listen, let's take a break. And then when we come back, should we talk a little bit about what this might mean for foreign policy? I said a couple of weeks ago that I'm quite worried that the more Trump's wings are clipped at home, that he'll start to think his best place to be active and operating is abroad. So let's take a break, then come back on that. And we are getting a statement from number 10 on that flight with 350 passengers on board. The great game, strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. The man in the Kremlin is. Playing, Alex. You've got to ask yourself, do you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing! We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today and disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO. A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia. Yes. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my soldier, are you, Sergeant Tom McDuff, Duffy? An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller. We have two times friendly KIA. Where Britain plays its strongest hand. He's the best. Against its strongest foe. Don't do it, Duffy! Bear Hunt. Available now wherever you are. Wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to The Rest is Politics with me, Alistair Campbell. Now, Alistair, you wanted to start us on foreign policy, which seems like a good challenge. So maybe I'm going to frame the question to you like this. Trump is back. He's lost control of the Senate and Congress. As you said before the break, his wings are clipped at home. What do you think this means for what he might do abroad? Well, look, you were right to say earlier that a lot of the things that were projected might happen. And a lot of American commentators and politicians were sure were going to happen. Such as sending ICE to the ballot boxes to stop Latinos and others from going out to vote. The sort of trying to get everything wrapped up in a legal morass. These things that were predicted haven't happened. One of the most alarming predictions, and I don't like giving this guy too much airtime at all, but he gets so much of it, might as well add to it. Tucker Carlson, former commentator, sometimes talked about as somebody who fancies himself as the presidential contender himself. But he was sort of, well, he almost seemed to be saying that he knew that if the elections went badly, Trump was planning to fire him. Fire off a nuke in relation to Iran, Israel-Iran. And of course, at a time when in another election that's just happened recently, the Israeli election with a very unclear outcome, but Netanyahu sort of clinging on for now. You could see why that sort of accelerated talk might be beginning. So whether it's that or whether it's him deciding that he can get more, more actively engaged, and I don't mean necessarily in a good way, but actually start to tell the story. himself, well, maybe I can sort out Ukraine, or start to think that some of the foreign policy stuff that he's already been engaging in, such as China, Taiwan, I just have that sense that he won't want to play normal politics. He hasn't played normal politics the last two years. He's done everything on a whim, surrounded himself completely with sycophants, executive orders, the rule of the day, corruption up to the ginnels. And with both houses of Congress now able to refine their voice, I just think that becomes something he wants to avoid. People talked about how they'll now have greater ability to stop his legislative agenda. It strikes me he doesn't have a legislative agenda. He's got two years where he can just be angry. And whether it was when we're talking to Mary Trump, or whether it was when he was talking to Donald Trump, or whether it was when he was talking to Donald Trump, or whether it was when he was talking to Donald Trump, or whether it was when whether it was when he was talking to Donald Trump, or whether it was when he was talking to we did the series with Michael Wolff, all the people who, and the mooch says this as well, Trump is just so full of anger. And he's going to be, for all the sort of bonhomie with these little phone calls to his journalistic friends overnight, saying this isn't about me. The reason he's doing that is because he knows it is about him. And the anger is going to be deeper. So I just worry that he'll lash out in all sorts of different directions. Well, we had this discussion when we had the, not, very pleasant experience of debating with Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former campaign manager. And I said, listen, you know, I was hearing from people who claim to be close to Trump's White House that the midterms wouldn't make much difference to him. He didn't really have a legislative agenda. So losing control of the Senate and Congress wouldn't make much difference to him, particularly because the Democrats in this has turned out to be the case. And, you know, we're never going to get to the position of the two thirds majority required to impeach him. She got very, very prickly about that. She didn't like the suggestion that Trump didn't have a legislative agenda and she banged on about the big, beautiful bill. But when I saw her afterwards, it turned out that her real concern was that he was going to be caught up in endless committee investigations of all his stuff. Now, I think she went through this atmosphere. I know that she went through this herself. So maybe it's her own personal trauma, but there was certainly a sense that she and many other Republicans are very, very afraid of what's about to happen to lots of them as they get dragged in front of endless committees and asked to account for their corruption and misdemeanors and the way in which that will be, in her words, a distraction from the administration, which brings us to foreign policy. The thing that I was so shocked about in this election is how little it was about foreign policy. How little voters cared. Now, that really matters because we're talking here about the world's superpower. We're talking about the Trump administration, which has made the world more dangerous and poorer in two years than almost any American president has achieved in world history. We're talking about a guy who has basically wrecked European, Gulf and Asian and African economies through his actions in Iran, who is an existential threat to the security of Europe through his support for Putin and his campaign of Ukraine, who is cozying up to dictators, humiliating allies, undermining the fundamental underpinnings of NATO. And nobody really talked about this at all. If Iran was mentioned, it was mentioned as a misstep that had contributed to people's diesel prices going up. And when I try to remind voters on either side, just how much damage America is doing in the world, I don't think they're going to be able to do that. I think they're going to be able to do that. People were a little bit surprised and then sort of apologetic. They were like, oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I'm really sorry. I'd just like to apologize for what we're doing. But my goodness, that wasn't my sense that that was why anybody was voting. So what does that mean? Well, that means I suspect that he may well pursue these erratic, foreign adventures, that American public opinion is not as opposed to those as you might think, if they don't affect their gas prices. And that America in general, including the Democratic Party, is becoming increasingly isolationist, their own version of America first. And that you shouldn't conclude from this that the old America's back, that the old American rules-based order is returned, that we don't need to worry about middle powers anymore, that we can all take a sigh of relief, and that somehow this is the moment where suddenly the United Nations is going to be reformed in a positive way, that American military and diplomatic strength will be restored around the world, that European countries and Canada can breathe a sigh of relief and think, it's fine, we can go back to our old dependency on the United States. I think this is an electorate that doesn't care, a Trump who, as you say, is now, in a sense, has almost nothing to lose, and a Democratic Party that's going to be incentivized to focus on domestic American cost of living issues. Just on the point about the indifference to the outside world, maybe being a little bit with both parties, there was a very, I hesitate to say, it wasn't funny, but it was interesting, where James Matthews, who's the Sky News Washington guy, Scottish, pretty tough, very good old-fashioned, gets his foot in the door, and there's this extraordinary, quite long, for a few minutes, Abdullam Syed, with his hands on James Matthews' shoulders, basically saying to him, why would I waste my time talking to you? Where are you from? Where are you from? And he says, I'm British, I'm from Sky News. Nobody watches Sky News here. He said, well, we're an international channel, some people do watch it. Why would I want to talk to five people who watch Sky News? It was a really kind of, you know, Hayley Stephens, the Democrat who switched the Republicans the night before? Just a little explainer for people who didn't follow the ins and outs of this. Hayley Stephens was the mainstream candidate of the Democratic Party against Abdullam Syed. So, many Democrats who thought Abdullam Syed was too radical, too anti-Israeli, too pro-Palestinian, had backed this woman called Hayley Stephens, who sort of thought that she was going to be crowned, become the Democratic candidate. She was beaten. And her response was ultimately, on the eve of the polls, to flip, appear in church with Rogers, the Republican candidate, and then endorse Trump's Republican Party two days before the election. I mean, it's an unbelievable betrayal. I think it helped Abdullam Syed in the end, although it's worth pointing out that the Democrat candidate for governor in Michigan, got a better share of the vote than he did. So, I don't know whether that's relevant or not. But James Matthews, fair play to him, just kept saying, I'm from Sky News. My job is to ask you questions. Are you saying that your election is irrelevant to the rest of the world? And he sort of puts his arms on his, he's now sort of moved them down onto his biceps. And he's saying, I'm just, I'm just saying, I'm fighting for Michigan. I'm fighting for Michigan. The point is, I mean, I used to say back in 1997, I did have this thing, NVTV, No Votes TV. Okay, so when we had all these hundreds of bids coming in from all over the world, can we speak to Tony Blair? And I would just write on the top, NVTV, No Votes TV. In other words, a nice polite no. But there comes a point where, and this is something, by the way, that I think the point I made earlier, these are now global figures. And I think they should be leaning into that a bit. Now, because the other thing I kept thinking is, if he doesn't matter talking to Sky News, why is he taking so long to tell him that he doesn't matter? You know, get on with, get on with it. Get on with campaigning. So I do think there's some, there's bipartisan, there's this, I mean, look, the Democrats will be more interested in Europe, are more likely to support Ukraine rather than Putin. But I don't think we should ever, we should think that we're going back to some sort of status quo ante. I don't think we are. But I, you know, I think we're agreeing on this. I just have a worry because he's still the president. He's still going to be able to kind attention. He's going to have a say in who probably have a say in who follows him in terms of the Republican nominee. So his voice is still going to matter. He's never going to go away. And I just worry he's going to start lashing out in places that he understands even less than he understands the wars he's already started. Well, let's remember he has full executive power. He is still the commander in chief. The U.S. military does what he says. He runs the Department of Justice. He runs the DOJ will go out and do what he says. He appoints all the ambassadors. He determines all American foreign policy. And he's revealed quite clearly that he's prepared to launch these wars and strikes without consulting Congress. He didn't consult Congress on what he did in Iran. And I can't imagine he's going to consult Congress again. So then we get into the most difficult thing in the world, which is this question of trying to predict Trump, right? And as I've said before, the great analysts of populism were pretty confident that they knew Trump well enough to predict comfortably that he wasn't. going to accept results in midterms, and he has. So what do we know about him? Well, the answer is, here are the different theories. One of them is all he cares about is money. So there could be a narrative that what he's going to be doing is going around hoovering up bribes from as many countries as possible and using, remember, his tariff powers, which again, he tries often to exercise around Congress, without Congress, to extort money from people. Second thing is, and that may be connected to wars or it may not be connected to wars, what's the second thing we think we know about him? Well, we think we believe that he's a guy who believes in spheres of influence. So this Don Roe doctrine. So Cuba, I would be watching Cuba very, very carefully. I'd imagine that he would want to make Cuba essentially into, I don't know, the DR. It would be a half American state without a vote by the end of his presidency. And he will find a lot of people in so, I mean, Cuba is now suffering economically so much, the poverty is so extreme. And there will be many Cubans who don't like Donald Trump, but are just like, okay, enough already. I give in, we'll have Trump, anything's better than this, we're going to fold in. What does that mean for China, Taiwan? And let's return to that again. How does Xi Jinping read this? There's part of Trump's worldview, which seems to say you have a sphere of influence. And the sphere of influence logic is, you have a sphere of influence, and the sphere of influence logic is, Putin gets to dominate Ukraine, US gets to dominate Latin America, and Taiwan is thousands of miles away from the United States and 70 miles away from China. So the implication of that would presumably be, if he doesn't really care about democracy and international borders, which clearly is his position with Putin and Ukraine, that Xi Jinping could help himself to Taiwan. Now, we've just interviewed Kevin Rudd, the former Australian Prime Minister, and he'd be like, absolutely not, Taiwan is completely different. You know, the United States is a Pacific power, not an Atlantic power. It would be giving up on its whole role in the Pacific if it allowed that to happen. Maybe. But Trump famously has done a lot of things, you know, right the way back to recognizing the president of Syria, the former head of Al-Qaeda Syria, Abdel Shara as president, which had been right against the advice of the State Department and the DOD and pulled it off successfully. And how does Xi Jinping play this? Does Xi Jinping think, okay, I've got two years, is this my best moment? Do I want to risk waiting for a new democratic president to come in? Or do I think this is the time to achieve my legacy? Xi Jinping's not getting any younger. He said again and again that Taiwan should be part of China. Does he move against it now? And that's before we get onto your questions around Iran, which are very pressing. Because again and again in the midterms, and I saw this in the speech that he gave us in Chillicothe, amongst that hour and a quarter of rambling, was a lot of, I can't, allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I didn't start this war, this war was started 42 years ago. Once I'm through the midterms, you can expect some action. Yeah, I think, I just want to reiterate, because if you listen to the end of the interview that's on Leading at the Moment with Kevin Rudd, you'll have one of those really marvelous spiky moments where Rory sort of allows somebody to get under his skin. But before you get to that, you do have a real brain on China. A real brain on Xi Jinping. So in the context of what Rory's just been saying, it really is worth a listen. I also want to, final plug of the day, but is the, the rest is, the rest is politics series we're doing on Perseverance, because David Blunkett was the interview last week, Clark Carlyle, who actually I'm with this evening because he's going to be unveiled or announced and introduced as the, he's the new chair of MIND, the, one of the biggest mental health charities in the country. And he's a guy who honestly shouldn't really be here given how many times he tried to end his own life. And thankfully, mainly because he was so physically fit as a professional athlete, he, he failed. There's, there's, there's so much to unpick in, in, in what you've just been saying about the, the foreign policy stuff. And I wonder if the other thing that's just worth reflecting on is how this changes how other leaders deal with him. Because the one thing that we know about, political leaders is that they, they sense their own strengths and weaknesses, but they also sense the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents. Now, whoever is the president of the United States is always going to be a powerful figure, but Donald Trump today is a lot less powerful than he was yesterday. And I wonder if you talk a lot and we both, you know, support this idea that the middle powers have to be much better and more strategic at using their power in a kind of combined and collective way. And I wonder if that make, that actually helps this process too. People are going to just be a little bit, we're going to be worried about his unpredictability. And so does it weaken it? I mean, my anxiety, given that I'm very much on team Carney, and that that was actually part of this debate, which you'll hear in this leading interview that we just did with the former Australian prime minister, that people may be tempted, you know, many, many people in Whitehall in Britain, for example, or in, indeed in Germany, who don't want to really take the risks and do the tough, expensive work that involves building an independent third leg. So we're not completely dependent on China or the US, but we really have significant strategic autonomy. It's very tough, it's very expensive, and it's going to take a lot of time. And so some people may be tempted to just read these midterms and think, oh, phew, sigh of relief. You know, we don't need to worry again about the United States. We can really do this. And I think that's a really good idea. And I think that's a return to a position of total dependency on the United States. I think that would be a big mistake. I think this is an opportunity. I think this is an opportunity for countries that maybe have just been avoiding having to think about how you deal with Trump and America. There is now a post-Trump America that people can start to think of and be involved in the debate about what it might be. But I think that'll be very, very interesting. It'll be interesting to see his next big foreign trip, where he chooses to go, how he chooses to project himself. Today's an interesting day. It's an interesting example of absolute classic Trumpism. You know, he gets a big whack. He comes out basically saying, oh, well, nothing to do with me. And it's not very convincing. It's not very compelling. And the truth is, there's something in him. He will know that today, Mark Carney will be thinking Donald Trump is less powerful than he was. European leaders will be thinking he's less powerful than he was. Now, he may be more dangerous because of that, because he still does have the extraordinary things. And I also think the fact that this debate will now have to be unleashed inside the Republican Party means that that will weaken him further. I mean, there's a reason why it's called lame duck. It's a very, very fitting expression because, you know, you can quack as loudly as ever, but you don't really have the weight. And that's just the way that the democratic process in the United States works. And so, and then when people start to talk about his, well, to focus on legacy, I'm afraid, whether he likes it or not, November the 3rd, 2026 is a big part of his legacy, because this was the last opportunity the American people had to give a verdict on him. They're not going to get it next time. And so let's cast forward then and put you into the very uncomfortable position of trying to advise a Republican run for the presidency in 2028. What's the best hope if you are J.D. Vance's campaign or Marco Rubio's campaign? So you're thinking, I want to do a presidential run in 2028, or maybe even Pete Hexeth, God knows. And you're looking at what's just happened. What's your best path to victory? And here are three things I'm interested in. One is, how do you work with Trump? Do you try to distance yourself from Trump and use the next two years to do that? And in which case, how do you deal with the fact that Trump is going to thump you very, very hard? And the other thing is, how do you deal with the fact that Trump is going to thump you very, very hard? That was famously the problem for the Democratic candidate trying to succeed at LBJ. How do you separate from it? And that was the way in which I think Kamala Harris probably got it wrong with Biden. She was unable to say how she was different from Biden. Secondly, what sort of economic conditions are you looking for between now and the election to have a hope of winning? Is it all about cost of living? And thirdly, again, without being too mystic meg about this, I think the next election is going to be very much an AI election. Within the next two years, AI will define so much in our economies. Either it will have pulled off incredible productivity benefits, creating these enormous trillion dollar companies more powerful than ever and putting US in an incredibly dominating position. All these tech stocks could go into full free fall, and they will be blamed for a full financial recession going into the next economy. So just any of the thoughts on those three things, how do you deal with Trump economy and AI? Well, you morphed quickly from advising the Republican Party to advising the specific two candidates who are most talked about Rubio and Vance. And I think that you'd have a different take on those. I if I were the Republican Party, and I know the Republican Party has been pretty much, you know, wholly owned, wholly consumed by Trump. But I think those who are honest enough to recognize that he has become such a big problem sufficient to give them these disastrous results. They have to start thinking post Trump. And that means I think for JD Vance and Marco Rubio, if they don't have some sort of separation from the agenda then i think they're finished uh vance probably i i i'm beginning to wonder whether vance will even stand i just don't i don't think he's got it i think rubio could just about get there but if the republican party only sense they'd be casting far and wide they'd be thinking how do we get beyond this now the problem they have with that is trump it's money uh and it's the the old politics so if they're gonna a lot depends on who the democrats pick but if the republicans think that the sort of campaigning that has now been shown to have failed in this context they've got to start thinking about something different so vance if it is vance he has to have a reinvention the vance that we see day after day after day after day is what you know one of the most high profile political figures in the world he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win he's not going to win that what is it that makes you feel he hasn't got it what what is it specifically about vance that's that makes you think the guy hasn't got it and maybe rubio's got more of it i think rubio has been cleverer at not getting too drawn in as rubio i think has still got the some capacity to project himself as an independent voice now as it happens i think he sold his soul and i think that's a dangerous thing for a politician to do and i also feel with vance i feel he's you went to that that rally with trump okay in ohio and i thought it was really interesting you said that you know and i said but don't you get bored of him just rambling he said no it was mesmerizing you said it was mesmerizing you weren't bored it was really really interesting two things donald trump said and i think he's right if i shot somebody in fifth avenue uh my base wouldn't care less i think that's probably true if jd vance shot somebody in fifth avenue he'd go to jail if jd vance stood up and did 90 minute rambles without a script just going from left right and center people would leave the room he doesn't have the thing that trump has that engages people even you in that sort of audience he's a more he's a more bog standard politician i would say and he's not very nice and he's not very charismatic and he's not very he's intelligent so for example i said if i put perseverance when i'm analyzing your friend kate charles's speech vance it seemed to me was the only republican in that congress who worked out what was going on this was a speech really poking the things that he believed in um so he's very very intelligent but i don't think he's got the political appeal now the question then is are there others in the republican large family that could come up and don't forget the thing that people say again and again again said at the last election including republicans who don't know what they're talking about and don't forget the thing that people say again and again again said at the last election including republicans who don't know what they're talking about and democrats is this the best offer we can give to the people that these are the two candidates you know whether it was biden and trump or trump and harris is this the best we can do i cannot believe that there aren't people i'm sure somebody good is going to emerge out of this democrat race i'm pretty confident about that because i think there are some you know we've talked about some of them today there's there's a fair smattering of really effective political potential leaders there have to be people on the republican side otherwise i think the democrats celebration to be followed by another one in two years and i think the ai point is interesting because ai you're probably right but think about how ai is seen within the american political context at the moment we talked before a few weeks ago about how data centers have become this massive issue in some of these swing states now we don't know whether it switched votes but it may well have played a part and ai at the moment when trump was banging on about the economy's never been better we're making so much money the people who voted in the election were the people who voted in the election against the republicans they're saying yeah but who is making that money so the issue ai is going to drive further drive the issue of inequality and inequality is the thing which the democrats particularly if they can clean up politics and can actually say we are different to the republicans when it comes to money and corruption that inequality agenda i think is going to be really really big for both the progressives and for the more mainstream conservative democrats so i think in all of them that they're i wouldn't go for an answer and i wouldn't go for rubio if somebody came out and said you guys you're part of the problem somebody news got to emerge in the republican party otherwise i think they're really damaged and i also go back to the point you made earlier i think trump wants that let's let's just maybe finish by just giving people a little bit of a detailed view on what's actually happened in these races um and and maybe i'll just lead on from the points you just made about republican candidates one of the things that struck me most is that this has been a a night in which some very very strong republican candidates who in a normal year would hope to hold those seats have lost them perhaps the most dramatic is susan collins in maine in maine is one of the most extraordinary survivors you know she's she is incredibly impressive independent minded new maine in and out has been there for a very very long time and she's just lost to troy jackson who is a fifth generation logger kind of old very lived in face has just just taken her out there right can i just jump in on on troy jackson i watched his speech as well and it was so different to the others again your point that you made the other day they're all so different his speech was like folksy he kept being sort of giving friendly heckles and he couldn't resist sort of engaging with them all the time so it all became a bit rambling very very different character but you know that's a big swing from where she's been there 30 years she's got incumbency she's popular with her base etc so yeah sorry i jumped in but troy jackson's speech worth looking at as well no i think maine is an amazing thing to look at i mean look at the other republican seats that were lost um ashley hinson in iowa local news anchor very very much embedded in that way a kansas doc roger marshall he's an obstetrician who uh has you know literally delivered three or four seats and he's been there for 30 years and he's been there for 30 years and thousands of his constituents babies um army reservist you know maybe less than ohio people like john who stood who's like a football star but there was a range of pretty solid plausible uh republican candidates and and now let's go through the people that won uh just as a reminder for people who've not been following it uh bit by bit so incredible upsets iowa and kansas these are deep deep red states iowa as you said turek who is in a wheelchair paralympian basketball star kansas a guy who hasn't got much national international coverage but pastor adam hamilton who is an elderly head of the methodist church there yeah and a really interesting vision of even more than talarico somebody who really can talk god in a very measured calm way talarico we talked about he's the geeky pastor uh and i think mesmerizing politician the man that i'm most excited by in texas georgia john ossoff well we began with him troy jackson we've just spoken about at the other side we've spoken about sherrod brown in ohio sherrod brown is the rumpled i mean he's actually a yale graduate but you wouldn't think it he's like a 50 50 years in the senate this guy he just lost last time and has come back in again very much the rumpled trade union voice cooper in north carolina and then finally somebody we didn't talk about which is annie andrews in south carolina now she was running against darlene graham darling graham lindsey graham's sister this was lindsey graham's seat people remember lindsey graham he uh was the actually a big trump supporter a big veteran of the senate but somebody who was very much associated with trying to defend uh ukraine against russia and who in a sense trump double-crossed having got this graham bill through he then lifted the sanctions on putin defeated by annie andrews who's a pretty bubbly pediatrician um anyway i i just thought it was to to come through on that an amazing list and oddly the one that hasn't yet been declared and won't be declared for some time is alaska that is really close and that that's mary patola who is the you pick candidate running on fish family freedom that is the race that fox news was on about all the time and they tried to make the big scandal of the election that's the race in which the republican candidate dan sullivan the marine colonel found himself against another dan sullivan who's literally vanished and who somebody presumably in the democratic camp thought would be a good idea to put up to split sullivan's vote and it is true the guy has got i mean not an enormous number of votes but he's got a thousand a significant number of votes in a very very close race and you can completely see why the republicans are completely disgusted and bewildered that people would try to play that kind of trick because that's that's not a normal thing to do i mean that literally can only be done for one reason which is to try to sap the republican vote and it may be that mary patola is punished for that and sullivan comes through that one is going to take a long time to unpick um and there are a couple of others where whether there'll be full recounts don't know but that that is close and i think it's going to take a long time to unpick um and there are a couple of others where whether there'll be full recounts don't know but that that is close and it's like a couple of thousand votes for dan sullivan too and it's kind of that's one where the leaders changed overnight in a different point so and that's going to take a long time to unpick but that was what was so interesting about the fact that trump conceded so quickly he could have said well we've got to wait till the very end of this let's just see what happens in alaska let's see if we need a recount here etc he didn't do any of that listen my final point is just to go through some of the the sort of historics the firsts so and some of these guys we've already talked about abdul el-sayed first muslim senator in the united states senate chris pappas new hampshire senate first openly gay man elected to the senate james talarico your new hero i think he's i think he's taking over from alan milburn first texas democrat to win since 1994 that is a long time ago that was that was the year that grace was born my daughter and by the way there are nine tickets left at the palladium on saturday nine just nine and we've got to get it sold out adam hamilton in kansas first democratic senator in kansas since elected since 1932 right that's before you and i were born annie andrews first woman elected to south carolina to the senate amy acton first woman elected governor of ohio and keisha this is a great name keisha lance bottoms is the first black woman elected governor of any state of the four governors that are now elected so this really does feel like a big change moment and it's going to be so interesting now to see how both parties react uh but donald trump can say all he wants that he wasn't on the ballot he was the big driver he's the reason why people are talking about this election all over the world the backlash has begun vladimir elon donald nigel your boys took a hell of a beating tonight and that's why i'm in a better mood despite my rather croaky voice thank you alistair very much been great pleasure doing this midterms coverage with you and and also huge shout out to to the goalhanger production team who were incredible um people will have heard the last two things from izzy who was traveling around texas and most recently louisiana and of course please do go to the rest of this politics.com to sign up to the newsletter you can read more of izzy's reporting there and i'm going to be producing a sunday read on my tour around the united states but a particular thanks from me for um the work of celine who was there doing some incredible filming uh daisy who was doing a lot of the production research and general cheeriness as we travel around the country and bella who led us and drove us uh as you imagine long long american roads hour after hour as well as leading the team staying up all night getting the b-roll together we've got more b-roll than anyone on earth sticking funny cameras out of windows so thank you so much to the goalhanger team for all the hard work no it's been it's been great and and you know special shout out to celine for getting you in a maga hat uh she'll be she'll be getting you backing list trust next you watch anyway there we are all the best speak to you soon speak to you soon bye bye alistair bye