A Fox News mainstay watched the midterm votes pile up and, live on air, hung a label on President Donald Trump that no occupant of the White House wants.
Brit Hume, Fox News’ chief political analyst, called Trump a lame-duck president late Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, as returns showed Democrats headed toward control of Congress. By Wednesday, Nov. 4, Democrats had flipped both the House and the Senate.
“And Trump is going to be a lame duck,” Hume said as the numbers came in. “I mean, because he’s only got two more years to go. So people are going to say, ‘OK, Democrats, what you got?’ And it’s going to be an interesting question what it is.”
Trump spent part of the same night attacking the network on social media as the results arrived. “FoxNews Ratings are way down (27%!) because they’re spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats!” he posted on Nov. 3.
A Ceiling on Running Against Trump
Hume framed the lame-duck call as a warning for the winners, telling viewers that scrutiny was swinging to Democrats after their years in the minority.
The party ran its midterm campaign largely on opposition to Trump and on his war with Iran, Hume argued — a message with a ceiling, he suggested. He predicted a fractious coalition arriving in Washington, with newly elected democratic socialists pulling the party leftward, and said some Democrats were pushing to get a few things accomplished. He doubted that impulse gets far.
Hume described the hatred inside the Democratic Party’s constituency as so intense and so enduring that even a lame-duck president might not be enough to pull the party off it.
Fox News posted the segment on Nov. 4, a 2:14 clip titled “Brit Hume has a warning for Democrats,” covering control of the House and Senate, what it means for the party and Trump’s new status. Hours before the results on Election Day, Hume had appeared on “The Story” to discuss Trump’s midterm push, the issues driving voters and the president’s influence on key races. On election night, he took a 39-second hit on “FOX News Democracy 26” on whether Trump’s high-profile rally blitz energized the GOP base or inadvertently drove Democrats to vote.
No Regrets and Total Veto Power
Trump told an election-night interviewer that he has “total veto power, so they have to come to us.” He also said he would accept the results and work with the new Democratic Congress.
In an election-night interview, Trump said he had no regrets about endorsing losing Senate candidates Darline Graham of South Carolina and Ken Paxton of Texas, and he defended the Iran war. “I don’t regret that decision at all,” he said.
Trump returned to the subject of the ballot itself in a Truth Social post at 10:37 p.m. on Nov. 3. “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he wrote.
Trump has warned he would finish the job in Iran if the regime does not behave. Iran’s ayatollah projected defiance after the U.S. election results.
Texas Flips and Alaska Stalls
Democrat James Talarico beat Paxton, the state attorney general, becoming the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate seat in decades, according to Nov. 3 results. Democratic challenger Gina Hinojosa defeated incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, and Democrats also won in Iowa and Kansas. Republicans narrowly held a Senate seat and the governor’s mansion in Florida, where Byron Donalds won the gubernatorial race and credited God and family.
The Democratic Socialists of America expanded its influence within the Democratic Party this cycle, leaving far-left members positioned to reshape the incoming Congress. Abdul El-Sayed won a Senate race, and Rep. Ilhan Omar won reelection despite fraud investigations.
Alaska produced the strangest result of the night, a Senate race marked by an alleged ballot plot and a candidate known as “Decoy Dan,” who drew thousands of votes. Sen. Dan Sullivan called out Democrats over the episode in a speech to his supporters. Democrat Mary Peltola narrowly led Sullivan, 48.2% to 47.9%, as of Saturday, Nov. 7, with the race uncalled; if no candidate wins a majority, ranked-choice tabulation follows Nov. 18.
A Leadership Fight Within Hours
Republicans began fighting over their leadership within hours of the chambers flipping. Vice President JD Vance posted four reasons on X on Wednesday, Nov. 4, for why voters did not back the GOP: the war in Iran, living costs, not putting “America First,” and the U.S. relationship with Israel. “Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats,” he wrote.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was blunter, describing the results as “close to an extinction-level event” for Republicans. At a press conference on Nov. 4, he laid out the map his party will face: “In January, when everyone in office leaves who are either term-limited or got voted out, of the 10 largest states in this union, only one state will have Republican control … the state of Florida.” Without Texas, DeSantis said, the GOP is “not going to be viable nationally going forward.” He added, “We knew it could be worse, but I don’t think most of us thought it would be quite this bad.”