Dems’ House Majority Growing This Hour

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1:03Next on this special edition of Outfront, the breaking news of the blue wave. Still building at this hour, a tsunami. Democrats now on the cusp of their biggest gains in the House since the Watergate scandal. As Pete Hegg said, there's a defiant new message as top Republicans blame him for the debacle. Also breaking, new vote numbers are coming in just now from Mississippi. This Senate race has been up in the air, but we have new numbers coming in as Democrats hope to make history tonight. And, quote, I was doing cartwheels down the street. That's from a top Canadian official responding to Trump's loss.

1:37Let's go out front.

1:41And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. And out front tonight, we do have the breaking news, the tsunami getting even bigger. More midterm results coming in tonight. And Democrats have flipped eight more Republican seats just today. And we've got more projections possibly coming in at any moment this hour as we are watching that decision desk. Eight additional seats that I mentioned now gives Democrats 253. 253 and more to count. OK, that's a 97 seat majority compared to Republicans just at this moment. And as I said, more races in play. In fact, 27 races still not yet called as of tonight. And Democrats are leading in five of those districts that are currently held by Republicans.

2:23And Republicans are no longer leading in any district currently held by Democrats. So Democrats are now on track for what may be the biggest gains for the Democratic Party since 1974, a party left for dead a couple years ago. 1974, of course, was right after the Watergate scandal, which walked Washington, after Richard Nixon was forced to resign in one of the darkest periods of America's history up until that time. And Democrats, remarkably, are now on track to hit or even exceed. Are you ready for this? 260 seats in the House. 260 is possible. So now let's go to the Senate. Also there, the tsunami.

2:58Democrats now have already earned 54 seats. Even three days ago, nobody thought we would be saying any such thing, right? Every single possible map was to try to get to 51 or 52. 54 already, two seats up in the air. It could go to 56. We'll see how those go. But those are Alaska and Mississippi. And that brings me to where I began, which is Mississippi, where we just got more results. Democrat Scott Colum leads the incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith right now by more than 1 ,800 votes. That gap just getting a little bit bigger. Still razor thin, but it's bigger, right? 24 hours ago, we were in the low 40s.

3:32So now let's go to Alaska. Mary Peltola, the Democrat there, leading Dan S. Sullivan, the incumbent, by more than 600 votes. Alaska still counting. And that's what we continue to see. 48 hours after the first polls closed in what turned out to be a monumental election. And this election was a crushing rebuke of President Trump. We've heard the word extinction from many Republicans talking about their own party, and Democrats are picking up more and more seats. Meantime, Republicans want heads to roll. I'm a business guy. And if in business, all of a sudden you lose that much of your work to your competitor, you're going to fire people.

4:13In fact, I think there should be some heads rolling from the White House as well right now. Heads rolling from the White House. And one of the heads that more and more Republicans want to see roll is the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, or as he calls himself the Secretary of War. Today, Hegseth responded to this, releasing a six-minute screed rant online. He railed against diversity. He touted what he says are his accomplishments, and he gave a warning to his critics. A disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democrat allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly.

4:54Just like they tried against President Trump twice. You see, their policies don't work, so their obsession with political theater, disguised as power, drives them to try to destroy their opponents. It's all about the politics of personal destruction. didn't work against President Trump, and it won't work with me. You can rest assured of that. Much more on that to come, but I want to go over to the magic wall. Harry Enten's out front with me there. And Harry, obviously we just played Hegset there, but the count, the count that he is responding to, a situation which he did not see coming. I don't think many of us saw it to this scale.

5:34To this scale, no. And here we are. So we're trending now to Watergate levels, possibly for Democrats. I mean, a possibility of 260. This is stunning. So what are you seeing? It is absolutely nutter butter. Let's just start with what we've called so far, right? 253 for the Democrats, only 156 for the Republicans. Already a net gain pickup of 40 seats for the Democrats. Now, you spoke about the fact that we called some races today. Let's talk about those races that we called today. And look at this. Look at this. You can come in on here and call races in North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, Arizona.

6:11I want to go into North Carolina here for a split second because this was a state that Republicans redistrict to pick up seats from the Democrats. Uh-uh, uh-uh, did not work. I mean, my goodness gracious, look at this, look at this. I didn't even know who these Democrats were for my, for goodness sake. Look at this. Here's a district they redistricted. The Democrat wins there. Let's go here. How about right down here? Addison McDowell, an incumbent, loses in this district. We can go here. How about this one? Tim Moore. Again, I never even heard of these Democrats before this election. And before all of a sudden election night, we were looking at them.

6:47Now, more than that, let's sort of zone out on the map here. And let's just sort of get an understanding of what we are really dealing with in this election. OK, so we're going to go in terms of the flip so far. And this to me really just does tell the story. There are a few Republican districts that flip, but the Democratic districts that flip just the geographic diversity of it. We're talking from the Northeast, New York, Pennsylvania, down to the Southeast, right? Virginia, North Carolina. You go to the Midwest. It's Michigan. It's Iowa. It's Texas. It's Colorado. It's Nevada. It's California.

7:19It's Montana, for goodness sake. And you, of course, mentioned, Aaron, that so far, obviously, we have only called 253 seats. it can go even bigger than that. It can go even bigger than that. Because I want you to look at the ahead column here. Look at this. Democrats currently leading in 261 districts. I think they're going to probably end up right around the 260 mark, which, of course, would be a tremendous net gain well into the 40s at this point, which would mark the biggest gain since Watergate, as you were pointing out. And more than that, what I want to note is I'm going to bring out the pen here.

7:53Right now, in the national popular vote for the U.S. House, Democrats lead by, get this, 12 points. 12 points at this point. I think that number is going to go higher, probably closer to, let's say, 14 points. And that would mark the biggest popular vote win for Democrats since the bicentennial 50 years ago. This is 1976. 1976. I mean, it is incredible because I'm just thinking back to the eve of the election. Yeah. When the most optimistic forecasters were saying somewhere between 230 and 240. And if Democrats get a miracle, 240. Yeah. And you're now saying that somewhere around 260 is within reach.

8:33This is absolutely within reach. This was a wave because it was wide across the map. And it was deep in terms of the trend in which we see Republican people who voted for Republicans just two years ago flipping across the map voting for Democrats. Absolutely stunning. And as you said, the count's still coming in. And so we're watching this because we do anticipate more numbers coming in through this hour. So we'll see if any of these become firm calls in the next few moments. Let's go to Kristen Holmes at the White House. Kristen, if there was any talk that Trump might have had of saying, oh, well, it didn't go my way here.

9:03So I'm going to say it was rigged or that. I mean, it is the depth of this wave which made any such thing impossible. What more are you learning about the White House thinking on this stunning and major loss? Well, Erin, they're still coming up with their strategy to move forward. You have to remember this. There were a lot of different scenarios they planned for. They planned for a scenario in which they lost the House and kept the Senate. They even planned for a scenario in which they both lost the Senate and the House. But what they didn't plan for was losing it by this much. These are insane margins.

9:34And so all of the things that they had been actually planning for, they need to be adjusted. And I was told the day after the election, they had a senior staff meeting where they talked about what the White House paths forward are. They talked about executive orders, how to work with Democrats. If Democrats do want to work with them, what would they actually believe that they could compromise on? What are things that they could present to Democrats? And I also heard that there was talk about how they will react if Democrats come in and they are planning immediate, expansive investigations. And that's going to be a more aggressive approach, obviously, from this White House and one we've seen before.

10:10Now, in terms of how the White House is thinking about moving forward and looking back, I'm still told that there is so much animosity behind the scenes, finger pointing a lot of it at Pete Hegseth, at the Secretary of Defense. And the big question is whether or not Trump ends up cutting him loose. He has said publicly, repeatedly, that he is not going to fire him, that he thinks he's doing a fantastic job, but it hasn't stopped him from calling and talking to a number of people and saying, how do you think he's doing? And he has been fielding calls, he said this earlier, but a lot of Republicans who say they don't think that Hegseth should remain in the job.

10:47Now, if in fact Republicans do vote in the House to impeach Hegseth next week, which is what we're hearing could happen, then we're going to look at this again, because that could be a chance that President Trump uses to cut him loose. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And when you talk about Hegseth, that's something, whatever the vote might be, that has a lot of bipartisan support. Kristen, thank you very much. I appreciate you. And everyone's here with me. John, you know, just sitting over there with Harry. Yeah. You know, thinking about on the eve, you know, the 235, 240 seat in the House forecast that everybody said, oh, man, those people are crazy.

11:21Yeah. And now you're looking at 260, 261 is very conceivable. Getting close to that is quite probable and likely. I mean, this is really stunning. It is a landslide. It is a definitive rebuke of Donald Trump like we've never seen. I mean, you've got to go back to Watergate, as we've seen. But it's also a dozen state legislatures. It's deep into the South and the Midwest. And so the whole Republican coalition has been blown up because Trump pursued policies that were not only made people's economic situation worse, but were intentionally unpopular. He pursued an extremist agenda. And so this is a populist blowback.

12:02I mean, Ashton, also, you know, they didn't even I'm just thinking the former speaker of the Texas House Republican was with me. He lives along the Louisiana border. He's like, look at Louisiana. Oh, I mean, I looked at Louisiana. They only are winning by like a point ish.

12:15Erin Burnett: Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida. You look at South Carolina, even the governor's race in South Carolina, 90 ,000 votes. It was the difference with minimal investment. It could have been so much worse. But here's what I'll say is I think this should not be surprising for two reasons. One, Dems should not have lost in 2024, if I'm honest. There was a miscalculation and we can go back and relitigate all of that. But the reality that Donald Trump ever was elected should have never happened because of how dissatisfied Americans were on the first term. But all you had to do was open your ears and look through your eyes and just pay attention to what people were saying.

12:57Erin Burnett: They were pleading, pleading with this administration, screaming from the rooftops. I'm unhappy. I'm unhappy. I don't want a war. You broke all these promises. This is what people get to do in two years. They don't have to wait four years to get rid of Donald Trump. They might feel overly loyal to him, but they do not to these people in the House and the Senate and in governor's races and all of that. And here we are. And yet, you know, the White House puts out, I don't know if they think it's funny on some level, you know, PSA, Donald Trump is still your president. We know. You know, that he's been so, you know, effectively neutered by this.

13:26I mean, this, you know, what, so, so what, what is the, he wasn't expecting this. He is clearly, for one of the first times, on his heels in terms of deciding how to respond to it. Yeah, and look, he clearly doesn't get it. He's talked about the East Wing renovation. He's talking about the Oval Office. Again, just like on the campaign, he's sort of consistent. Making it so they're national landmarks and nobody can change them. And he's sort of consistent. He's talking about things that voters don't care about, whether it's before the election or after the election. Harry mentioned North Carolina.

13:54It's my home state. And what was so interesting about what happened in that state is you had three constitutional amendments that were up for the vote that were all conservative. Voter ID and tax limitations. All three passed with 60 percent of the vote. And yet you look at Republican district after Republican district and they all got wiped out. State House, state Senate, too. It is a disaster. And ultimately, you know, we're going to talk about Pete Hegseth. Let me tell you, those two words really don't matter. I was with Michael Steele in 2006, the day after he lost the Senate race. I worked on his campaign.

14:23Another bad year for Republicans. And what happened the day after? Donald Rumseld got fired. Michael Steele said to me, well, this is the final insult. This may be the final insult if he fires Pete Hegseth. But Pete Hegseth wasn't on the ballot. Donald Trump was. Nobody in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which has Fort Bragg, whichever brag we're naming it after right now, was voting on Pete Hegseth. They were voting against Donald Trump. Right, right. But you know what? You mentioned North Carolina. They tried to redistrict that to hold on to power just like they tried in Texas. And boy, that didn't work.

14:56As Harry pointed out, I mean, all those attempts at doing power grabs and cracking and packing blew back in their faces in a way that you never could have expected.

15:03Erin Burnett: This was political alchemy. It was like terrible economy, war people don't want, overreach with the Calais decision, attacks, culture wars that people don't care about because culture wars don't pay your rent. All of those things, Democrats being frustrated, just the alchemy just came together. And I'll say this over and over again, this did not just happen overnight. This took years of investment in some of these states and they kept chipping away and chipping away and chipping away. in Texas, in South Carolina, where we do organize as Democrats because we did have primaries. People like Stacey Abrams, they lost and they just went to work.

15:47Erin Burnett: The reason why Mississippi, Louisiana, all these places actually had viability was because behind the scenes, when no one was looking, Democrats were working. And you mentioned Watergate, right? The 1976 elections. North Carolina, we say every Senate race is always going to be close. We can't say that anymore because what Roy Cooper did to Michael Watley is the biggest margin we've had since 1968. Wow. Wow. All right. And then but then I've seen, you know, in certain silos on social media and maybe those silos, unfortunately, is where people like Donald Trump Jr. or Pete Heggseth spent too much time and they started to believe that that was the real world.

16:25And maybe everybody wasn't sure. And that was why it was so scary. But Pete Heggseth is doubling down on some of those things that he did. I mean, here, you know, I said it was a long thing, six minutes. I'll play another very brief clip, John. We ended the weird and the woke and elevated patriots and strength. And we've done so, as I said, without hesitation. Peace through strength is once again American military policy. Our commander in chief demands it. And so we deliver it. This is not about me. But of course, the other side, in case you've noticed, they're obsessed. A disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democrat allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly.

17:12Just like they tried against President Trump twice. You know what's interesting? He knows his camera angles. Oh, yeah. He was a Fox News weekend host. And here he is. He does know his camera angles. But he's talking about the weird code I think we all know for a few things. The woke, right, doubling down on the culture wars, making that as he stands in front of something that means so much to him and maybe doesn't mean so much to Americans, Department of War. That was a message for an audience of one. That was a please let me keep my job to Donald Trump. Who also knows camera angles. Who also knows camera angles.

17:49And, you know, there's a reason we don't usually have, you know, cable news weekend hosts take over the Pentagon because there's no reason to think that's going to go well. And now Hegseth realizes the knives are out. He's talking about Thomas Massey, Republican, who's going to be putting forward articles of impeachment. And those are not, you know, there are substantive reasons why he could be in trouble. So he's basically begging Donald Trump for his job by playing offense. And when you say it's not about me, it's like when you say it's not about the money. It's about the money. And I guess that's the thing you're saying, though.

18:17If Hegseth goes, and maybe he will go, because a lot of Republicans want him gone, too. What you're saying is, okay, okay, but what? This was about the man at the top. Look, he's the commander in chief, Donald Trump. That's it. And we have we have a cabinet that really isn't a cabinet. It's just a collection of avatars. And Pete Hegseth's main qualification is patriotic tattoos and pocket squares. Good for you. But if you get rid of him, does the president of the United States change? Does the situation for Republicans change? It doesn't. And that's the reality. And, you know, for every Republican member of Congress, especially those who went to the UFC fight or flew on the corrupt Air Force one that we have now.

18:53Was this worth it? Because you've either lost your job or you've lost your chairmanship. And as the first Republican to say, I'll never vote for Donald Trump, I'll say to my party what I said after we had the last disappointing midterms. Stay away from the pillow salesmen and the hucksters. All right. And you all are going to stay with me here because we've got a lot more to talk about, more numbers we hope here coming in imminently. And the breaking news out of Mississippi on that front, the Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colombs leave growing. So is he on the verge of making history? And we're gonna hear from the Texas Democrat who took on Republican Beau French, who was slammed by his own party after those racist posts about University of Texas students.

19:30Now, of course, he won. Was he surprised by just how many Republicans turned on his opponent? And the far right revolting as Democrats are continuing to rack up more wins tonight. We can say, without hyperbole or gloating, this is the end of the Trump era.

19:54We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about Blinds.com. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Customers who shop at Blinds.com experience excellent customer service, from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you. Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.

20:57And the breaking news, we've got new numbers coming in in that extremely tight Senate race in reliably red Mississippi. It was only a couple weeks ago that we were talking about it, and it sort of seemed the Democrats were just kind of throwing money in there just in case. Well, might not be just in case. Here we are on the cusp, potentially a victory for the Democrat, Scott Cologne, who now leads the Republican incumbent Senator, Cindy Hyde-Smith by about 1 ,800 votes, and that makes that race too close to call. You see 96 % of the vote in, but more to come. And just a day ago, Cologne's lead was 65 votes.

21:31So it has expanded, as you see 1 ,813 votes now. Cologne just spoke to our Annie Greyer, and he is confident he is going to win. I'm confident about where we are. We got a lot of grassroots organizers that are in all the counties making sure they do their part and I'm so glad people are doing what it takes to get this over the finish line. We show the country Mississippi matters. I kept telling the voters on November 3rd we're going to show the country that Mississippi matters. Now keep in mind even though Democrats have already regained control of the Senate and by a wider margin than anybody anticipated 54 seats Mississippi if they win is 55 Alaska if they win is 56 so that would be 56 total including nine pick up something that I don't think any person, certainly no prognosticator that I saw out there foresaw.

22:21Christopher Bell is out front now. He is a Democratic state representative in Mississippi, longtime friend of Scott Colom. And Representative Bell, you know, I was thinking, I spoke to Scott just a couple weeks ago when he came on this show, and, you know, he was calm, he was confident. Nobody was projecting that he would win Mississippi at the time. He had that confidence, and he has it now. Do you share that optimism or are you concerned that Hyde-Smith, because you know the state so well, you know where the outstanding vote is, do you see the possibility for Hyde-Smith to retake the lead? No, I don't see an opportunity for her to do that.

22:58Scott is right in his estimate of being able to win this race. And I'm so excited and I apologize. I'm so excited because Scott has worked hard for this for this position. He has touched the right people. He has made the right choices and who he has spoken to, who he's partnered with. I am just excited that we will have a new senator in the state of Mississippi by the name of Scott Colon. So Mississippi Republicans are obviously raising the possibility of legal action. Hyde-Smith's campaign just said something. I don't know if you've seen it, Representative, so I'll read it to you. They said, Cindy Hyde-Smith is going to represent Mississippi in the United States Senate for the next six years.

23:42We believe thousands of votes remain to be counted from dozens of Republican counties, and we are confident those votes will reinforce her path to victory. We expect Democratic lawyers to pull out every stop, and we are prepared. What do you say to that, both in terms of what they're saying, but also in terms of where those outstanding votes are? Well, I will say this, that there is always an opportunity to do fear tactics against the opposition. And that's basically what they're doing. The GOP here in the state of Mississippi is trying to scare the citizens of the state of Mississippi to think that Cindy Highsmith actually has the opportunity to win.

24:24She does not. Mississippi has a date with destiny and Scott Colon's name is on the invitation and he will be our next senator for the state of Mississippi. I am 100 percent sure that that will happen. You know, I'm curious, you know, did you have conversations with him leading up to this? Because, you know, we've been talking about how obviously everybody understandably was nervous about the polls, right? Nobody really believed in whether they were a Democrat or Republican. And coming in, you know, yes, there was that last minute money, as you remember, from national Democrats coming into Mississippi.

25:01But it was sort of like, it was sort of a last minute, not a huge thing, okay? They didn't really see this coming in full. Nobody did outside Mississippi. I'm curious if you and Scott saw something different, if there was something at the grassroots, if there's something specific that looking back now, or even at the time, you said, if everybody knew this nationally, they'd know something was happening here. Well, here's the deal. Scott is an intelligent and smart individual. He was nominated for a federal judgeship, which was denied by Cindy Hines-Smith. And now we have what we have today of him being the next senator for the state of Mississippi.

25:42His optimism, his hard work, his drive made him to the point, get him to the point where he is today. And I support that and I look forward to seeing him as our next senator. Mississippi has always had the opportunity to show up and show out. We just needed the investment and I'm thankful for Congressman Thompson for putting his support, full support behind Scott Cologne as well as putting his support behind all other Dems in this state to push us forward, to make a change, to turn us blue. This is a great state, and we can also do things better with Scott Colon there. All right. Well, Christopher Bell, I appreciate your time, and thank you so much, Representative, for taking the time.

26:25Harry Anton was looking it up. It was since 1875. 1875, I'm sorry, was the last time that you had a black senator from Mississippi. Republican at the time. Obviously, the parties meant different things back then. 1875, Reconstruction, right after the Civil War and slavery. All right. Well, thank you very much, Representative Bill. I appreciate your time. You too. Thank you, sir. And next, we've got breaking news. Texas Republicans making a last ditch effort tonight to try to limit the power of the governorship before the new governor comes in, who, of course, is a Democrat, Gina Hinojosa. And she has a message for them tonight.

26:59Plus, the MAGA infighting erupting on air and online. And from the president on down, no one's safe from it. Now is a time to point fingers, to call out the losers, to remove them so we can start winning again.

27:21We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about Blinds.com. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Customers who shop at Blinds.com experience excellent customer service, from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you. Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.

27:54The breaking news. Texas Republicans are making a last-ditch effort to limit the power of the governorship. And of course, they're trying to do it really fast because they want to do it before the Democrat Gina Hinojosa is sworn in. She will be the first Democrat to win governor there in 36 years before she and a Democratic statehouse is sworn into office. So Hinojosa responding with this message to Republicans. The people of Texas have spoken. And I think it's important that as elected leaders, we respect what the people of Texas have said. They want change. Okay, that comes after Democrats scored the seismic political victory in Texas, winning major races up and down the ballot.

28:36Three-decade losing streak over Harry Anton out front with me at the Magic Wall. Harry, I was in Texas that night. When the results started, they couldn't even process it. It was kind of like a little cheer and then like a holy. And then there literally were people screaming that and dancing around. And that was when Tallarico was called. Then Hinojosa was called right after. And then it didn't even sink in that, oh, my, you know what? It's this and it's this and it's this and it's every statewide race. And it's the statehouse and it's, oh, my gosh. Mind blown. I mean, everyone was coming to me before the election.

29:09Oh, we don't believe the polling. You know, every few cycles were promised a blue Texas, you know, finally coming true. Well, this time it came true up and down the ballot. You know, there was all this attention to the Senate race. And look at that. James Tallarico, an absolute blah, winning by 12 points, beating every poll expectation. But it wasn't just the Senate race, right? It was the gov race. And, you know, so look at that. Seven point margin. Blah. But it wasn't just the gov race. Why don't we go to the AG race, the attorney general race? Look at this. Another, what is that? Seven point margin.

29:40Six and a half point margin. It wasn't just the AG race. Why don't we go down? Why don't we look at the lieutenant governor's race? Vicki Goodwin, who, someone on their staff, they've been emailing me for months. I was like, who the heck is this? Well, I'll tell you who it is. It's the next lieutenant governor of the great state of Texas. A state that had not elected a Democrat statewide since Bob Bullock in 1994. And now up and down the ballot, you are seeing a blue Texas. I mean, so then you know what happened after they started to realize it. OK, this was around one o 'clock in the morning.

30:11I'm still up. Yeah. I don't, you know, kind of maybe took a little hour long nap at some point. Sure. And the horns started beeping. It was like we were somewhere else on the planet and there was a celebration going on overnight. And everyone was coming out in their horns and they were beeping the horn. That was Austin, Texas, obviously Democratic. They were happy with how things went. But it was up and down the ballot. This is, again, before they realized that it was not just a few big races. It wasn't just a few big races. How about this? We don't even have these in the wall. So we pop it out here.

30:40AG commissioner, land commissioner, railway, broad road commissioner, state controller, state house, as you mentioned, up and down the ballot. Texas, the dream for generations for Democrats. It came true. Lucy did not take the football away, this time from Charlie Brown. Okay, so, railroad commissioner. It may sound esoteric if you don't live in Texas, but it's not for anyone in this country because railroad commissioner controls oil and gas in Texas, which is the heart of America's energy industry. And we spoke to the Democrat who won the railroad commissioner job. We're going to hear more from him in just a moment.

31:14And he's important because he is the first Democrat to win railroad commissioner in 36 years. and he got national attention after Beau French. Does anyone remember Beau French? Beau French is the man who drew widespread condemnation from his own party, from people like Karl Rove, his own state, who at that point started to say, I'm not going to vote for the Republicans in my state for a racist social media set of posts decrying South Asian students. So they went to University of Texas football game. Someone took a picture. There were a lot of kids whose skin was brown. And Beau French tweets it and says, I heard UT graduation this year looked like this.

31:51I didn't believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined. He gets slammed. He doubles down, calling the students foreigners. So tell me something I don't know about the railroad commission race. I'll tell you something you don't know about the railroad commission race. How about this? Look at the University of Texas main campus precinct. Full French, not very well liked here. These were the kids in the picture. These were the kids in the picture. 95 % to 4%. It turns out that words have consequences. Beau French got absolutely annihilated in the University of Texas main campus precinct.

32:29Rosenzall swept them there, swept them statewide. I mean, that is incredible. 91-point margin. I think it's pretty clear. Yeah, yes, it is. And one of Texas' most famous Republican political operas, Karl Rove, I just mentioned him, He blames the extent of the losses in Texas on one guy. It's not actually Beau French. It's Ken Paxton. Here he is. We lost to every statewide office. We lost the Texas House. We kept the Texas Senate. You know, people turned out in traditionally Republican counties like Collin County and north of Dallas, a suburban county, and voted straight Democrat. And it was because our ticket was led by a guy who was plagued by scandals and surrounded by controversy.

33:13All right, everyone is back with me now. So it started, obviously, that Beau French post was there. But Ken Paxton already existed. Trump had already gotten behind him instead of John Cornyn. It was Texas as what it is, so big in the American mind, something so deep in terms of this wave. If Ken Paxton wasn't on the ballot, would it have looked like this? I don't think it would have looked exactly like this. But again, Ken Paxton is a product of Donald Trump. And I traded notes on Tuesday before the polls closed with a longtime Texas political GOP operative. And I said, you know, the same thing we always say on Election Day.

33:51What are you hearing? What are you thinking? And he responded, burn it all down. And this was against Trump, against Paxton, against all of it. And it all stems from the same thing. So we can talk about Pete Hegseth. We can talk about Ken Paxton. We can talk about anybody. The two words that matter are Donald Trump.

34:08Erin Burnett: Yeah, I agree with Ken Paxton. It was a terrible choice. I still think these two win. And the outcome looks like this in Texas because of a couple of things. I was just in Houston this morning. And I was in Houston twice before in San Antonio. And I was talking to voters. And the coalition that they were able to build, Latino voters, only about 53 % of Latino men voted for Gina Hinojic. Hossa and James Tallarico. But that was about a 20 point swing. Black voters. When I was in Houston or San Antonio a couple of weeks before the election, a black woman told me she had never voted. The last time she voted was 2008.

34:46Erin Burnett: So you're talking about one of the most reliable Democratic base. And I said, well, how many more of you out there? And she said, there's a lot of us, which is why you see this increase in black voter turnout. Public schools. So then you get moms who are outraged that their kids are only going to school four times. If you remember the redistricting fight before the Calais decision started in Texas, they tried to strip away aggravated Latino voters, aggregated black voters. How dare you come in and overreach? And I'll say that was one. My final example is that I actually forgot about this before the election.

35:18Erin Burnett: I was with a young woman before the election and I was with her today. And she told me the story of her miscarriage today, but she didn't talk about it before because now they think that the abortion ban that is in Texas might go away. And people forget about that. But when you think about just general reproductive care and you have to leave and doctors, you get that even without Kim Paxson. People were pissed. You know, it is incredible. And I will say, now you look at it and you say, well, gosh, James Tallarico won it on the early vote. The Tallarico campaign had their suspicions early in the day.

35:52They were telling me, well, you think you could maybe call it at 9 o 'clock. 9. 9 o 'clock. Now, that would be 10 o 'clock Eastern. But even so, an unprecedented situation. And it really, they were not far off. So they were pretty close. Texas Railroad Commissioner, when we spoke to the commissioner-elect, Mr. Rosenthal, the one who won 95 % of the University of Texas, he talked about Beau French and the racist post. And here's what he said about it. My opponent was pretty bad and actually an albatross for the rest of the Republican slate. So anybody who refused to disavow his really blatant racism, that just became kind of a litmus test.

36:33The Republicans ended up putting forward a slate of really terrible candidates. I mean, Ken Paxton, definitely the most corrupt politician in Texas and impeached by his own party, used his office to enrich himself and definitely violated the law as far as I can tell. And then you have Beau French who said, move over, Ken Paxton, hold my beer, because I'm going to add blatant racism on top of all that kind of corruption stuff. Okay, there was a lot in there. I like the understatement. My opponent was pretty bad. But, you know, this isn't, Pat, hold my beer, Ken Paxton. Hold my beer. Look, I do think that Ken Paxson set the tone, though, right?

37:20I mean, you know, you'll know a tree by its fruit. And this was just rotten fruit. But Donald Trump picked him. Right. Cornyn could have won that seat, I believe, because people will just rally around. But Paxson symbolized that corruption and cruelty, chaos and rising costs that sunk Republicans. And then Beau French was sort of the, you know, double down on that. And so Republicans, they overreached. They got the backlash. It's just we haven't seen anything like this after so many years of people talking about Texas and Republicans acting like, you know, the demographic changes in the state don't matter at all.

37:54And we should say also it was also Laredo flipped.

37:57Erin Burnett: Yeah. You know, a lot of those folks who, you know, Hispanic voters who've been in our country for centuries. Yes. Who voted for Donald Trump last time because they were angry about the border. This time said, well, wait, they're not going after the criminals and the worst of us. they're going after my neighbors. And what do you hear from Republicans today in Texas? Now they've had a day. They're shell-shocked because so many people lost and so many Republican House members lost as well. But you still are dealing with MAGA world and everything that sort of goes around that. And the finger pointing is massive.

38:26So I'd predict to you that come Thanksgiving, Mar-a-Lago, the GOP's Jonestown, it's going to be a much smaller place. All right. I appreciate all of you very much. And thank you. And next, a special report on the brutal blame game that's erupted inside the MAGA movement after the GOP's brutal wipeout, plus the world reacting to voters' rejection of Trump. What are they saying? Step up. Stand by your break, master. In three, two, one. Effect. Roll your break, please.

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40:09Tonight, Republicans blaming a lot of things. The Iran war, tariffs, even Fox News for this historic collapse. The losses are still piling up as we speak. Democrats have won eight more House seats just here during these daylight hours. 253 total so far, as you can see. And we have 26 races still to call. More wins likely to come in. And Tucker Carlson, who's been taking some of the blame himself, is also pointing the finger straight at the top. But the person who said, vote as if I'm on the ballot, well, maybe many people did. Of course, we're talking about Donald Trump. And moments ago, Tucker Carlson posted a 15-minute video blasting the president, titling it The Great Betrayal.

40:46Joni O'Sullivan is out front. It is a political catastrophe of historic proportions. The MAGA blame game and an unmitigated disaster has begun. Now is a time to point fingers, to call out the losers, to remove them so we can start winning again. Some, like Vice President J.D. Vance, are blaming the Iran war. Even President Trump acknowledged Vance was right. Well, I think it's largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term. Beyond that, others are blaming Fox. Let's go back to Darlene Graham. She was a reluctant candidate but pushed by Hannity and other people at Fox as a tribute to Lindsey Graham.

41:25One of the lessons tonight is that the Fox era of the Republican Party is probably coming to the end. It was the Iran war that really caused the wedge issue with the base. Turning Point USA blamed former prominent Trump supporters who broke with the president. We had infighting. We weren't singing from the same song sheet. We were all over the place. We saw the Megyn Kellys, the Tuckers and all the Marjorie Taylor Greene's break away. But Dave Smith, a comedian and podcaster who backed Trump in 2024, before later becoming a critic of the president, accused Turning Point of not honoring their founder Charlie Kirk's legacy.

42:00Charlie's favorite congressman was Thomas Massey. So when he was unseated by the lobby for Israel, representing this other wing that you're talking about that I guess Turning Point and Charlie didn't represent, why didn't you guys lift a finger to defend him? Charlie also was extremely vociferous against the Iran war. Why weren't you advocating against that war more aggressively the way he did? This is bullcrap. We said before the war started that they shouldn't do it. We said it would go badly if they did and they weren't selling this conflict. If they thought it was important, they should actually explain it.

42:31They never did. Well, that was a disaster. Looming large over all of this is Tucker Carlson. We can say without hyperbole or gloating, this is the end of the Trump era. Last night, we're done. Carlson broke with Trump over Iran and is said to be close with Vice President J.D. Vance. So if you're a Republican, you're probably not as mad at J.D. Vance as you are at Donald Trump, but you're probably pretty mad because like, why didn't he speak up? Fair. Totally fair. And this is not in any way like an attempt to resurrect J.D. Vance or argue that he should be the nominee in 2028. Carlson praised the social media posts Vance wrote on Wednesday, blaming the Iran war for Republican losses.

43:11Sincerely, it's not shilling for J.D. Vance. It is appreciating the truth when it's told, which all people should do. It is a virtue to appreciate the truth for its own sake on its own terms. When someone says something true, it doesn't matter who it is. If it's true, you should nod in reverent appreciation and say thank you for telling the truth, because the truth is what matters. But others who are still close to the president say this week's results may have the party reconsidering its options for 2028. One of the things you have to ask yourself is, is it possible now that Republicans turn to an outsider in the 2028 presidential election because Marco Rubio and J.D.

43:49Vance, the two strongest candidates inside Trump world, may own a big part of these failures. And you heard there Aaron Tucker Carlson saying that MAGA is over. It certainly is a movement in disarray. And you can really see the challenges that Republicans, conservatives are going to have in these next couple of years. Everybody's pointing fingers there. You heard Tucker, of course, who is a former Fox News star, blaming Fox, amongst others. Where that is coming from is, you know, the sort of podcast sphere, which is so important now, especially in the mega space. They view the sort of establishment conservatism like Fox News as having promoted the Iran war, which really was the great schism in this movement.

44:36Yeah, schism, the word. All right, Doni, thank you very much. And next, the top Canadian official who says he was doing cartwheels down the street after the midterms. So the world was watching these. Maybe they woke up first thing in the morning and said, whoa, like Americans were. The world's reaction to this historic vote is next.

45:03And finally tonight, leaders from around the world hailing the results of the U.S. midterm elections. Let's go straight to Will Ripley. He is in Taiwan tonight. And Will, leader after leader wasting little time weighing in. That's right. And not just leaders, but people on social media as well, unleashing this really blue tsunami of AI slop, which we're not going to show you, but we will show you what people around the world are saying tonight. On China's heavily censored internet, this six-minute AI-generated takedown of Trump, blaming his own loyalty purges for helping cost Republicans control of Congress and declaring him a lame duck.

45:44And it's not just social media. The economist portraying Trump as a surfer wiping out. Britain's Guardian declaring him trumped. Iran's Tehran Times proclaiming U.S. hegemony crumbling. In Canada, quite the slap. Australia, dawn like a dinner. Aussie slang for a crushing defeat. And London's Metro, lame Donald Duck. Some world leaders are choosing their words more carefully, but the premier of Canada's Ontario province, hit hard by Trump's tariffs, said he was doing cartwheels down the street when he learned the result. Spain's prime minister calling it a vote against hate and climate denial. Poland's prime minister declaring democracy the winner.

46:27Russia hoping Trump keeps pursuing peace. China calling it America's internal affair while seeking stable ties with Washington. Japan insisting its alliance with the U.S. remains unchanged. changed. And tonight, that tone echoed by the German chancellor, the British prime minister, the president of Mexico, Aaron. They may be watching their words because while President Trump did suffer a major political defeat, he still has enormous power over trade in the military and American foreign policy. And with two years left in the White House, they know they need to work with him. He's even scheduled to come here to Asia later this month for two major summits, including a possible meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

47:04Aaron. All right. Well, Ripley, Thank you very much. And thanks so much to all of you for joining us. AC 360 begins right now. We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about Blinds.com. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Customers who shop at Blinds.com experience excellent customer service from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you. Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com.

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48:12See terms.