'A searing indictment of the Republican Party': Fox News host calls GOP midterm performance a disappointment

When Election Night arrived on Tuesday, November 8, Republican strategists were hoping for a massive red wave like the ones the GOP enjoyed under Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1994 and Democratic President Barack Obama in 2010. But on Wednesday morning, November 9, with votes still being counted, it was up in the air which party will control a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in 2023.

One conservative Republican who was willing to admit that the red tsunami didn’t materialize in the 2022 midterms was Marc Thiessen. Some pundits on Fox News have insisted that November 8 was a great night for Republicans, but Thiessen, on the right-wing cable news channel, candidly described the 2022 midterms as a disappointment for Republicans, watch below:

Some of Thiessen’s GOP talking points about Biden can easily be fact-checked and debunked. For example, calling Biden “the least popular president since Harry Truman” is hard to back up in light of what Pew Research’s Amina Dunn reported on October 20, 2022: “Biden’s job rating is fairly comparable to Ronald Reagan’s (42%) and Bill Clinton’s (41%) at this stage of their presidencies, but lower than Barack Obama’s (46%). Those three presidents lost ground over their first two years in office.”

President Joe Biden publicly savored the results of the midterm elections on Wednesday after Democrats defied expectations and held off a Republican “red wave” that pollsters and analysts had been forecasting for weeks.

With several races still too close to call, Biden said at a White House news conference that voters spoke clearly. They're still frustrated about the economy, but they like the progress Democrats have made. They voted "to preserve our democracy and protect the right to chose."

"It was a good day for America,” he said.

Regardless of which party ends up controlling Congress, Biden said, he’s “ready to compromise with Republicans where it makes sense." He said he will invite the leaders of both parties to the White House after he returns from a multi-nation foreign trip.

But Biden also made clear he's not looking for a course correction.

"I’m not going to change anything in any fundamental way," he said.

Even a small Republican majority in either chamber would prevent President Biden and Democrats from passing sweeping legislation along party lines. Bipartisan standoffs over government funding and the debt ceiling could be common, but major legislative breakthroughs will be rare.

A GOP takeover of the Senate would also force Biden to find Republican support for his next slate of administration nominees.