The Final 5: November 04, 2026

The Matrix 7, Interstellar, or La La Land. The goal, bring back the excitement of those first-time plot twists. For the record, the theater is not promising it will work. Oh my gosh, Bruce Willis' character was dead the entire time? Have a good night. I see Jim Loke in the final five. And that's something that... Thank you. Now, I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I did last night. All right. You know, I'm sure there are easier ways to learn these lessons. That was then-President Barack Obama describing the 2010 midterms as a shellacking as Democrats lost dozens of seats. But now it is the shellacked doing the shellacking. Tonight, the postmortem as Republicans point fingers and Democrats count down to the new Congress. This is your Final Five. Let's do this. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Final Five. Last time I was on this show was last Thursday, and much has changed from then to now. The long-awaited midterms are officially behind us. Washington looking ahead to the final two years of the Trump presidency, which will be tempered by a Democratic Congress boasting some of the widest margins in almost two decades. The ballots have still been counted in several races, are still not called, but as of tonight, Democrats are projected to control at the very least 240 House seats. Well beyond the 218 they need for a simple majority. Democrats were widely expected to take the House with a razor-thin margin already, but the Senate was much more uncertain. Despite that, Democrats gained seven seats. That's as of tonight, 54 projected seats to the Republicans, 44. Those numbers could change slightly. The results are still up in the air in Alaska and Mississippi, where at one point the margin was down to just a few dozen votes in favor of the Democrats, but they will have. Several seats of insurance, no matter what. And a lot of people weren't expecting all of that. One of them? Oh, yeah. We're talking George Anthony Kitaro Ravash Devolder Santos. He's still around. He's doing reality TV now after getting kicked out of Congress and jailed for lying his ass off to get elected, but then later pardoned. Back in October, Santos was so sure Republicans would win in the midterms, he said, quote, If Ohio goes blue for the governor and senator race, I'm dressing in drag and doing a cold plunge. Bookmark this. Well, we did. And today he followed up saying, quote, I guess I have to do this. He commented more to TMZ. George Santos, it is a blue tsunami. Your reaction? We up. We really did. I mean, I'm getting foggy. I gotta tell you. We up. It's like, I will say this, Republicans literally squandered their majority. Some deep analysis there by Congressman Santos, today, the former Congressman. Today, President Trump quickly moved on to other issues facing the country right now, among them. Daylight saving, he posted online criticizing the current Republican-controlled Senate who have, quote, not yet approved the Sunshine Protection Act or the I Don't Want to Change My Clocks Anymore Act, saying, quote, it is so dark outside so early. Sunset was at 5.06 p.m. and it was dark by 5.31 p.m. Isn't that ridiculous? He says he didn't bring it up earlier because he didn't want to have certain senators lose their race quote in a landslide. But apparently that strategy did not work. But he also discussed other things today that he discussed on the campaign trail. No, not affordability. No, not gas prices. He talked about the marble he's using to build that big ballroom at the White House. We ordered the marble for the floor. The marble is a really magnificent marble. It's a cut. It's a vein that people have been after for 50 years. And the owner of the quarry didn't want to sell it, but he liked me. That's not a Marie Antoinette moment. I don't know what is. The widespread Republican losses last night weren't just limited to the House and Senate. Democrats won a majority of the governor's offices in the country for the first time in 16 years, flipping strongholds like Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, and even Texas. That was the big surprise where Greg Abbott lost his reelection. One of the people most surprised, another Republican governor by the name of Ron DeSantis. Let's just be clear about what happened last night. This is close to an extinction level event for Republicans in many parts of the country, as we have seen probably in the last hundred years. And if the Republican Party doesn't have Texas as an anchor, then we are not going to be viable nationally going forward. And if there's anybody who knows anything about not being politically viable nationally, it is failed presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. And who knows, maybe he's positioning himself to be the new voice within the Republican Party. There certainly seems to be a vacuum, but politicians and political analysts have only just begun the blame game to figure out what led to the widespread GOP losses last night. One of them was Vice President J.D. Vance. In fact, before we heard from President Trump today, we heard from Vice President Vance, who put on a long message reading, in part, quote, The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. If you'd like to argue it was worth it that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree. Does he know that X has videos? He could just put this out. Agree or disagree. That's at least honest, but everybody knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go must start here. President Trump responding to his veeps comments today. I know how he feels about it. I think it was fine. I thought it was good. We knew that. I knew that when I went in and we stopped them from having a nuclear weapon and they will never have a nuclear weapon. Have you spoken to Vice President Vance? Yeah. I speak to him about a lot of things. The White House has long admitted the war in Iran has contributed to the rise in inflation and things like gas prices, but some Republicans say things went far beyond the war as well. The Vice President says it's the war that's responsible for those losses. Are you saying he's wrong? I'm saying that that's an oversimplified assessment. That is one of several factors. Do you honestly believe, for example, respectfully, Mr. Vice President, that we saw the departure of Hispanics over the war? Give me a break. It's more complicated than that. Of course, Tom Tillis decided not to stand for re-election after the president indicated he would likely endorse somebody else. He did, and Republicans lost that seat in North Carolina. Vice President Vance distance himself from the White House's stance on the war could just be the beginning of a changing political landscape in the coming months. He has been widely considered a frontrunner for the 2028 nomination, but he still has plenty of vice presidential duties ahead of him, as pointed out by one of his most frequent critics and frequent targets, Democratic Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed. My name And I am so proud and honored to stand here as your senator-elect from the great state of Michigan. J.D., Habibi, there is this delicious irony in the fact that you're constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January. But here's the thing. Democrats now have the power. The question is, what is it going to look like? Leadership votes are set for next Tuesday in the Senate. Current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said today he has every intention of becoming a majority leader again today. Some new Democratic senators, including El-Sayed, have suggested it might be time for a change, something Senator Schumer doesn't seem to phase by. How do you deal with those candidates who won, who said they're not going to vote for you? Adam Hamilton, Troy Jackson. Again, to repeat the answer, the issue is not me. I'll be reelected as majority leader. But the issue is focusing on the American people and what they want. Meantime, House Speaker Mike Johnson seen here and is why didn't this helmet protect me from the shellacking helmet? Says he will not try to stay on as House Minority Leader now that he has to give the gavel back, which leaves Congressman Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan in the running, two men who tried and failed to be Speaker in the last Congress. But I'm thinking that it's safe to say that this did not go as Johnson had expected. In fact, here he was a couple of months ago. Hakeem Jeffries will not have a race for speaker because Republicans are going to win. I'll be the speaker in the next Congress. I'll be administering the oath to some of these people who ran for Congress as Marxist, sadly. We'll see what happens, but he's going to have to run. Hakeem wants to remain the leader of the Democrats. He'll be the minority leader. By the way, when the Washington Sun's Reese Gorman came on the show last week and said flat out his connections with Johnson thought it would be a bloodbath for Republicans, I thought he was overstating things. But as you see the returns, it certainly was accurate there. Meanwhile, New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries seen here in his wearing this helmet is going to be fun, right, helmet? Could become the first black speaker of the House. What his leadership will look like remains to be seen, but there are plenty of different directions where it could go. One of his deputies is expected to be California Congressman Robert Garcia, who will likely be in line to chair the powerful House Oversight Committee. Seemed excited about it last night, posting simply, quote, lawyer up. Garcia has long called for congressional investigations into Trump administration officials. Others are talking about impeachment. A lot of people are wondering, will this be the focus for the Democratic majority in spite of the affordability message they were trying to put forward? Jeffrey seems noncommittal so far. The American people don't want us to get even. They want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive. We ran on affordability. We won on affordability. And now it's our job to govern on affordability. As a matter of fact, we made clear that we're fighting for an affordable America and explicitly promised the American people that we would fight hard. To lower the high costs of groceries and gas and housing. So whatever direction they go in, voters have decisively put Democrats in charge of Congress starting in January. Tackling concerns over war and affordability is a fantastic talking point to get elected. But whether you can actually do anything about it is always the big question. Because do you think new congressional majorities are gonna stop Washington from doing what it does best? You know, like this? How are you gonna do affordability? How are you gonna do that? Well, we're gonna start by getting rid of your illegal tariffs. Which have driven up prices. Then we're going to try to end your illegal war. You're our vice president. You can't pass laws. Wait, we can't pass laws? You don't have 60 votes in the Senate. You don't have 60 votes in the Senate. So how do I need to remind you of that? Gentlemen, I hate to interrupt you. In other words, what is implying is... We do have to sneak in. What is implying is you can't create... You can't give a civics lesson. You don't understand how this place works. I'm giving you a civics lesson. What you're saying is that two parties can't work together. Gentlemen. You're way to the Democrats. Gentlemen, I think... This is progress for America. By the way, the difference is Dan Crenshaw will not have a job. He lost that Republican primary. Raskin's going to head up judiciary. When we come back on the Final Five, we'll talk more about the midterms with my guest after this. Let's talk more about the midterms, what we've learned, and what's next. Joined now in studio by Democratic strategist and founder of New Blue Interactive, Taryn Rosenkranz, and Chris Johnson, executive director, founder? Founder, president. President, I'm just kidding. When you start your own organization, you can give yourself all kinds of titles. The American Energy Leadership Institute. Thank you. Both up late with me tonight here on The Final Five. Good to see you. By the way, Taryn has been gracious, joining us on Zoom many times. She was on our coverage last night. First time we met in person, so it's good to see you tonight. Good to see you in person. Since you made the schlep in tonight, I'll ask you, we talked about the surprises and the lessons learned from last night. Now that it is setting in 24 hours later, what's the path ahead for Democrats? Because you can look back at what went right, but you have to now look at what you can do to sustain that. I think that everybody is really excited about governing and just like making the economy work. And there's been so many things that they felt like have been obstacles and so many things that just haven't been able to move on. And I think that they're feeling with strong majorities in the House and the Senate that there are things that they can actually legislate and try and make happen. Okay. Mr. Ohio over here. Look, I know that there was a lot of talk about what was happening in the final weeks of this campaign, the Ramaswamy ad against Amy Acton. And a lot of A lot of people are looking at that and saying maybe that That was what helped carry Sherrod Brown across the finish line there. You know, he's somebody who's won statewide, but he's also lost statewide in the past. What are you looking at? What's the lesson Republicans learned day one after the midterms? They learned that they need to listen to voters. I think we were trying to tell a story to voters rather than listening to their actual concerns. And the other lesson is that candidate quality matters. And so a lot of these races could have been a lot more competitive had we had a candidate that didn't have some of the baggage that was going on. But ultimately, it became the affordability election. And our answers on what to do to reduce prices were not sufficient. And that is what voters punished us for. Democrats were listening to voters. Finding ways to articulate how they were going to bring prices down, lower inflation, lower gas prices. I, as a Republican, don't find a lot of those arguments compelling, but it worked with voters. In the grand scheme of things, though, too, they learn the lesson about messaging and what people respond to. And obviously social issues have come to the forefront in recent—it was very successful in 2024 when Republicans talked about the trans discussion. That was the centerpiece of an ad, an anti-Kamala Harris ad back in 2024. But it seems like... For once, they got the party on the same page, which has been tough, as you know, as a Democrat. Yeah, no, I think it's really important that when you're starting, especially when you talk about attack ads, like you used the Amy Acton example of attacking her, and if you're using a bunch of attack ads and you're kind of going after these people, talking about trans, talking about things that aren't affecting people's day-to-day lives, and then they're going to the pump and they're paying $5 for gas and they're paying exorbitant prices at the grocery store, they're like, you know what, I don't really want this kind of divisiveness. I don't want this kind of... In fighting and negative attacks, I want you to be talking and hearing and listening and fixing the things that are going on in my real life. It makes a real difference. Yeah, right. As you look ahead, though, Chris, one thing you and I have talked about on this show has been the data center discussion. And there are places where it has been, it's economically successful, but there are other places where it has been a thorny issue. And in states like Texas, in states like Georgia, where the governors had embraced data centers, In both of those states, you saw those governors' mansions flip blue. Do you think that that was a factor in a lot of these races, or are we overstating it? On the margins, potentially, it's a little bit beneficial for Democrats. But for Republicans, it clearly doesn't help us to be anti-data center. Greg Abbott put a moratorium in Texas, and he's still lost by basically the same amount that Ken Paxton, the Senate candidate, did. So there's also data that shows that this is a really low salience issue. Folks are focused on affordability, they're focused on national security, they're focused on a bunch of other issues well before the data center or AI concerns. And then when you look at actual data, the folks that emphasize the data center stuff actually performed worse in a lot of situations. Now, that might be because they're further left candidates who support a lot of other policies that are unpopular. But when you look at the data, the idea that opposing data centers was beneficial, I don't think is merited. And ultimately, it doesn't really matter because Because 92%, and once you take. Take Virginia out, 92% of the data centers being built in America right now are being built in red states. You know, as I look at this, and I think because you worked in digital organizing for years as well, President Obama did a very poor job of- We're emphasizing investment in state-level races, and Republicans saw monumental gains in state houses across the country. But those are the races that, first of all, you see the next generation of leaders come through, but also where a lot of those issues, you know, the AI issue, the data center issue is not necessarily getting settled on the congressional level. It's getting settled on the state level. Yeah, and I think we've seen a really growth in power. There's a political committee. Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee that's really dedicated to, like, making sure. And that is probably one of the things, if you look at the last five years, they've really concentrated on, was winning up and down the ballot, that these races mattered in state legislatures because that's where things were happening. That's where you're growing your base of people who are going to be up there and eventually maybe run for president. And I think that we've really seen the importance of that and actually really seen that that was also what was helping to stop things. Like, if Trump was doing overreach, people were like, well, look, you can go down. here and these actual races matter on other places on the ballot besides just the Senate and the House. It's been interesting. Yeah. Pennsylvania is one of those states, too, where it worked, where you had the Democrats finally, they flipped the House and Senate. But Chris, as we wrap things up here tonight, when you look at some of the states, the Michigans of the world, the Pennsylvanians, which went for President Trump, President Biden back to President Trump, you know, Michigan, Abdul Al-Sayed getting elected there in what was a very contentious race that saw the political lines flip a little bit. What do Republicans, what's the focus on now ahead of 2028, aside from finding a leader for the party after President Trump? I think it's all about affordability. The first step, I had a Wall Street Journal op-ed today about the opportunity around permanent reform. And so, and it's just fun for this journal. But it's about the opportunity for permanent reform. It's going to require bipartisanship. It's going to depend on whether Democrats see their mandate as to. You know, work with Republicans to bring prices down, or if they are worried about their base treating this as giving Trump or giving Republicans a win on the affordability issue, and their base sees that as some kind of betrayal of that mandate. So we really just need to focus on any way to bring prices down. So that means dealing with Iran. We're unleashing our energy industry as much as possible, getting regulations out of the way, and getting permitting reformed. That brings it full circle, though, to what you said off the top just about governing, because permitting reform is not something that people on the granular level get excited about, but it is important to achieve a lot of those, and that all comes back to governing. We're out of time here. Taryn, great to see you tonight. Great to see you. Chris, as always, appreciate you. Thanks for having me. We've got a lot more to get to here on The Final Five. Stick around. We're back after this. Start again. We'll be right back. Listen. Start again. It's time now for the third block. And while last night was a big one for many Democrats, there were plenty of others who lost their races. You might remember Jamie West, the Democrat running for county council in Fayette County, Indiana. She received a whopping 297 votes on Election Day, falling to a Republican who got just over 1,200. She went viral for slurring her way through a local TV interview, before which she later admitted she had been drinking. That wasn't that obvious, right? I mean... I've been threatened so many times to my face by MAGA, we'll call them. But, you know, what are you going to do? Well, that brings us to your opportunity to say just a few last words to the voters. Hmm. We have guns, too. All right. There was a lot of intense anticipation leading up to Election Day, and different people had different ways of dealing with it. Michigan Democratic Congressman Debbie Dingell, for instance, says a very specific vice helped her get through Election Day. Posting in the morning, quote, fueling up for today, standing in front of a big pile of Diet Coke bottles. That was at 2.41 in the afternoon. Then four hours and 19 minutes later, she posted, quote, I'm on my 30th Diet Coke of the day. My good friend Governor Gretchen Whitmer is going with something a little stronger. And yeah, that's a lot of friggin' Diet Coke. She admitted as much this morning, saying, quote, My doctor sent me a note last night about my Diet Coke consumption. I didn't know she followed me. Thought I'd better start with orange juice this morning instead, which is great. However, assuming she averaged 30 12-ounce cans of regular Diet Coke, that's more than 1,300 milligrams of caffeine in just four hours. More than three times the FDA's limit for adults. Maybe Debbie is fudging the truth a little bit, or maybe she needs it. Because remember this? When she was fast asleep in a house hearing last year? Yeah, Dingle, by the way, is 72 years old. She won re-election last night for another two years, but it happens to a lot of people, I guess. By the way, we'll tell you who's sleeping soundly and who's tossing and turning when the final five comes right back, and it's none of these people. Nancy Pelosi was not on the ballot yesterday. She is retiring from Congress, but voters in her district made it clear she does not get to pick her successor. She went all in for a candidate named Connie Chan. However, Scott Wiener won anyway, and that is a rare home turf defeat for one of the most powerful Democrats of the generation. And there's some symbolism here. Pelosi spent nearly four decades building her legacy, but the moment it became an open seat, voters decided the next chapter would be written by somebody else. But the midterms didn't just go badly for Republicans. They went badly for John Fetterman. For two years, the Pennsylvania senator's power came from being the Democrat who might say no. The maverick, the guy Republicans could court and Democrats couldn't afford to lose. Well, Democrats now have enough seats. They don't need him. As Pennsylvania Democrat Malcolm Kenyatta put it, the Fetterman proved the Senate. That's the irony. Fetterman spent years building a brand around not needing his party. Now his party doesn't need him. That is your final five. Thanks for watching us tonight. We're back at it again tomorrow at 1130. Please bathe me in the cloak of darkness. But it's only me and I.