'An absolute disaster': Fox News pundit calls GOP midterm performance a 'searing indictment of the Republican Party'

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 — the type of red wave that Obama famously described as a “shellacking” for his party. But on Wednesday morning, November 9, with votes still being counted, it was up in the air which party will have 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.

Thiessen argued, “We have the worst inflation in four decades, the worst collapse in real wages in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s, the worst border crisis in U.S. history. We have Joe Biden, who is the least popular president since Harry Truman — since presidential polling happened — and there wasn’t a red wave. That is a searing indictment of the Republican Party. That is a searing indictment of the message that we have been sending to the voters. They looked at all of that and looked at the Republican alternative and said ‘no thanks.’”

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 — like Biden — lost ground over their first two years in office. Biden’s current rating is much lower than those of George W. Bush (61%) and his father, George H.W. Bush (56%), on the eve of the midterms in the second year of their presidencies.”

Biden, to be sure, has struggled with approval ratings. But Pew’s figures and hard data easily debunk Thiessen’s claims that Biden is the most unpopular president in the last 75 years. Regardless, Thiessen’s candor about the GOP’s midterms performance was a stark contrast to what other right-wing pundits were saying about the midterms results.

Thiessen argued, “The Republican Party needs to do a really deep introspection, look in the mirror right now, because this is an absolute disaster for the Republican Party, and we need to turn back. We need to look at who won today: Ron DeSantis, (Mike) DeWine. These governors. (Brian) Kemp, Abbott. Look at these governors. This is the path to the future. And electing these radical candidates who ran far behind them has put the Republican Party in a terrible position. And voters have indicted the Republican Party.”

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