Tim Wildmon: Welcome to Today's Issues, everybody. It's Wednesday, November 4, 2026, and Election Day has come and gone. No more texts all day, every day, and no more TV ads telling you that if you vote for this person, you're voting for the devil. At least Americans get a relief from all the campaigning and political ads.
Ed Vitagliano: That's looking at the silver lining right there.
Tim Wildmon: I'm trying to find some positives coming out of yesterday. I'm Tim with Ed Vitagliano.
Ed Vitagliano: Good morning. Good day. Good morning to you.
Wesley Wellman: Good morning.
Ed Vitagliano: Nothing's better than just being honest with yourself. That's how you move on. That's how you improve, by recognizing your failures and making adjustments. Have you talked to President Trump?
Tim Wildmon: When we're off, we will get his reaction to what happened last night in just a few moments. But I wanted to make one more announcement before we get started. In light of what happened last night across the country, which we're going to talk about unfortunately, I have decided, and I'll stay on the show with you all for a while, but I'm moving. I'm going Amish.
Ed Vitagliano: You're going Amish?
Tim Wildmon: I'm going to join the Amish community. That'll be the new Tim, because then you don't have to vote. You don't have a television. You don't know what happened. You're always in work mode, and all you live for is the next barn raising. So there's something to be said for that. Am I right?
Ed Vitagliano: Do we have Amish listeners? I think someone corrected me once. We actually have Amish listeners.
Tim Wildmon: That's what I'm saying. I'm going with them.
Ed Vitagliano: I didn't know they were allowed to do that.
Tim Wildmon: I'm only kidding, obviously, because I don't think they vote. I don't think they participate in elections, and they don't have electronics. Therefore, you can just ignore what happened last night.
Ed Vitagliano: So one bad loss, and you're surrendering? Waving the white flag?
Tim Wildmon: I've seen bad losses before, and I've seen great wins before. It's kind of like sports. We are going to talk about the results of yesterday and what it means going forward, especially for the next two years. We have two years between now and the next presidential election. What is that going to look like? I don't think anybody has a clue right now who the Democratic nominee or Republican nominee will be.
Ed Vitagliano: Maybe we have a clue, but the Republicans don't have a clue, and the Democrats cannot be counted out.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Fred, set the table for us if you would.
Fred: Let's review the results as we know them right now. We talked about the House in our story meeting this morning. It looks like the Democrats are winning 258 seats and the Republicans 177. That may be projected, because I'm looking at different maps and I don't see it that high yet. But I think it's safe to say there could be a difference of 30 or 40 seats between the two parties.
Tim Wildmon: There are 435 House seats across America, is that true?
Fred: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: So tell me, as of right now, how many seats do the Democrats hold?
Fred: On the tabulation I'm looking at, Decision Desk Headquarters, Democrats have 247 seats.
Tim Wildmon: How many do Republicans have?
Fred: One hundred fifty. It's a flip of 36 seats at this point.
Tim Wildmon: There are still some uncalled.
Fred: Right.
Tim Wildmon: So we don't know yet, but it is a big swing. They have control, and they're going to be in command. When it comes to the Senate, we have at least eight flips from Republican to Democrat, with the potential for more because Alaska and Mississippi have not been decided yet.
Ed Vitagliano: I never thought I'd hear that.
Tim Wildmon: The big ones are the races we've dealt with so much in our programming. Texas was not even close. Talarico had at least a million-vote margin over Paxton.
Fred: That's the amount by which he won.
Tim Wildmon: Yes, and that is the stunner. It is a shock.
Ed Vitagliano: Is that the same Talarico who believes that God is nonbinary?
Fred: Yes, that is him.
Tim Wildmon: The other one is Michigan. The United States now has its first Muslim senator in its history, Abdulrahman Muhammad El-Sayed. He was very proud of himself last night when he gave his victory speech, and he was unkind to a few people.
Abdulrahman Muhammad El-Sayed: My name is Abdulrahman Muhammad El-Sayed, and I am so proud and honored to stand here as your senator-elect from the great state of Michigan. Mike, enjoy your retirement. J.D., habibi, there is delicious irony in the fact that you're constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January. Donald, I know you struggle with my name. After J.D. swears me in in January, you can just go on and call me senator.
Tim Wildmon: You've got to put up with that kind of thing. That's politics. That's the arrogance of man. If you're going to participate in politics, you've got to take the good with the bad.
Ed Vitagliano: Listen, you've got to roll with the punches. When you've had a lot of hard stuff back and forth, you have to expect that arrogance. You're just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. There's not a lot of humility in politics.
Tim Wildmon: He pronounced his name in Arabic, though, didn't he? He used an Arabic dialect or something.
Ed Vitagliano: He's Egyptian, right?
Fred: Egyptian. That probably would be Arabic for something.
Tim Wildmon: Talarico won in Texas, and El-Sayed won in Michigan. Those were the two big races that everybody was watching. But meanwhile, back at the farm, the chicken coops are getting raided by the foxes, or whoever raids chicken coops, because the Republicans got beat in South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa. These were upsets. These were basically red states. South Carolina certainly was, and Kansas hadn't had a Democratic senator since the 1980s or something like that.
Tim Wildmon: At the end of the night, what's going to be the new count in the United States Senate?
Fred: It looks like it's going to be 56, but there are two uncalled.
Tim Wildmon: Alaska and Mississippi.
Fred: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: So what is it now, without those being called?
Fred: Fifty-four to 44.
Tim Wildmon: Before yesterday began, it was 53 to 47 Republicans.
Fred: Yes, but the Republicans had a lot more to lose yesterday. They were defending 22 Senate seats because it's a third of the Senate every two years, and the Democrats were defending only 13 seats. The Republicans had to play more defense and had more to lose.
Tim Wildmon: This is not unusual for midterms. We've seen huge losses in similar midterms. Gerald Ford lost 48 House seats in 1974. In 1994, Bill Clinton lost 54 in the House and eight in the Senate. That's similar to what happened yesterday.
Fred: In 2010, Barack Obama lost 64 House seats.
Tim Wildmon: What?
Fred: Sixty-four in the House. That's the worst in recent memory. He also lost six in the Senate, and Barack Obama lost nine Senate seats in 2014. Donald Trump lost 41 House seats in 2018. We've been here before.
Tim Wildmon: I just don't want people to think this is the death of the Republican Party. The Republican Party will come back. We'll continue this cycle of Democrats controlling this and then Republicans controlling that.
Ed Vitagliano: How does this affect the deer-hunting community?
Tim Wildmon: We'll find out. I don't think it does, but all of that is true, and it's helpful perspective. Losing Texas, turning it blue in every possible way, is a whole different story in itself. That's the story. You said you listened to our friend David Barton's podcast this morning.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes. It was Rick Green, David Barton, and Tim Barton. They have great programs about WallBuilders and Patriot Academy. Their programs are also played on AFR. They're all Texans, and they were shocked at Texas.
Tim Wildmon: They weren't shocked at what you just read, the national changeover?
Ed Vitagliano: No, they anticipated that. They were shocked at how the Democrats swept in Texas and at the margin by which they did it.
Tim Wildmon: Before we get to the comments by President Trump, you said you had something from Vice President Vance that you wanted to share.
Fred: Vice President Vance put something out on X this morning, just a few moments ago. He said, "I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by what this poster he had talked to in his polling said. He saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back to our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses, were number one, end the war; number two, focus on cost-of-living inflation; number three, put America first; and number four, change our relationship with Israel."
Tim Wildmon: I think I have an explanation for that. I'm not excusing that answer or trying to detract from how frightening it is, but I think the belief was that Israel was responsible for dragging us into the war with Iran. So that's tied to the number one issue, which was to get us out of that war. I think that's the belief, but it is frightening.
If I were a Jew in America, I would be looking over my shoulder from now on, because I think this is going to give permission to people on the left, this blue wave, and it was a tsunami, to go forward with the antisemitism, pro-Palestinianism, and pro-Islam sentiment that we've seen creeping in. I think they're going to go all out. This may explain why President Trump, yesterday morning on Fox & Friends, announced that we are ending our yearly $4 billion in aid to Israel, effective almost immediately and by the end of 2026. Everybody said, "Why would he do that on Election Day?" This may explain it. People were blaming Israel for dragging the United States into this war.
Ed Vitagliano: I reject that personally, because Donald Trump doesn't get dragged by anybody. They made the decision to go. At one point, you remember what Donald Trump said: "I tell Israel what to do."
Tim Wildmon: He said, "I call the shots in Israel."
Ed Vitagliano: "I call the shots." So you can't have it both ways.
Fred: I reject that premise too, but if he had gotten out in three months or less, I don't think we would be where we are.
Tim Wildmon: Absolutely. I made this comment back at Memorial Day, and this is just one person's opinion. I said Trump needs to announce that we're leaving. You don't even have to say we're leaving, but say we're ceasing our military actions in Iran. We have completed our goal. We hope the people of Iran make a regime change, but we can't force that. Secondly, if you mess with America, we will be back. You could say something like that. That would give closure and list the accomplishments all the way.
Ed Vitagliano: Your gas prices would have come down, and the Strait of Hormuz would have been closed at that point if they had just hit them and gotten out.
Tim Wildmon: I don't personally know why that didn't happen. I don't know why what I just described couldn't have happened. I think whoever was advising the president tacked regime change in Iran onto the initial thought of stopping the nuclear weapons program. Big mistake.
I think that's why they hit the leaders and took them out. Remember, he said, "Help is on the way." Once you tack regime change onto stopping the nuclear weapons program, now you've got to get regime change. I think President Trump was advised, "You could flip Iran and set those people free. You'll get a Nobel Peace Prize for doing that." That meant we had to stick with it because the regime would not quit. Then it became a contest of wills. With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, it became incredibly politically painful for the president.
Tim Wildmon: We were talking about what happened yesterday with the elections all across America. The Democrats had a blue tsunami. I was going to say salami, but I don't think "salami tsunami" works.
Ed Vitagliano: It was a blue salami.
Tim Wildmon: The Democrats won big all over the country. I was stunned that in our home state of Mississippi the race is tied, and they may have to go to a recount. For those who don't know, Cindy Hyde-Smith is the Republican incumbent. Republicans have always won statewide in Mississippi, usually by five to seven points. That's why Mississippi has been called a red state.
Yesterday, the Democrat, Scott Colom, seemed to come out of nowhere and is now tied with her, or actually ahead by a handful of votes.
Ed Vitagliano: This is how you know every vote counts. I'm looking at the results with 96 percent reporting, and there are almost a million votes in. It looks like somewhere between 920,000 and a million votes were cast in Mississippi. The lead for the Democrat is about 50 votes out of almost a million. The chances of that happening are astronomical. To have nearly a million votes cast and, at the end of the night, have the race separated by 50 votes is stunning.
Tim Wildmon: Does Mississippi have to go to a runoff?
Fred: I don't have the answer to that, but they'll probably do a recount.
Ed Vitagliano: I think you have to have 50 percent, or you do a runoff, because there was an independent candidate.
Fred: Yes, he got two percent.
Ed Vitagliano: He would be out of the picture if there's a runoff. They would do a recount. I think this is the way most states run it, and I'm sorry I don't know the rule here in Mississippi. I assume it's the same as everywhere else: somebody has to get 50 percent, or you have a runoff if you've got a third-party candidate.
Tim Wildmon: Anyway, it was a wipeout for the Republicans across the country, and they're going to have to regroup and recover because we've got a presidential election and another House election coming up in two years.
Ed Vitagliano: Before we get to that discussion, I want to go back to the Israel issue and J.D. Vance. Am I dreaming this, or do I remember there being some indication that J.D. Vance was soft on support between America and Israel at some point?
Tim Wildmon: When Hezbollah was throwing missiles into Israel, and we were at a point where there was almost a solution, J.D. Vance got very upset when Israel responded to those missiles and basically accused them of throwing a tentative deal off the rails because of their response to Hezbollah. People were shocked by that because he was very open about it.
Ed Vitagliano: Wait a minute. You're saying Israel cannot respond? You're more worried about your supposed peace plan with Hamas than you are about Israel defending itself against terrorists?
Tim Wildmon: Trump said something similar. That's when he said they don't know what the blank they're doing. The only reason I bring this up is that there are different views on how Israel should conduct itself. Set that on a shelf. The thing that concerns me is the radical views on the left, but also the splintering on the Republican and conservative side of the spectrum, which seems to be a splintering of support for Israel.
That used to be guaranteed. America was going to support Israel. You weren't a Republican if you didn't agree with that. The Democrats supported Israel too, decades ago. Barack Obama agreed with Benjamin Netanyahu to give Israel between $3 billion and $4 billion a year for ten years.
Ed Vitagliano: The Democrats' support is done.
Tim Wildmon: Yes, they're hostile. I'm wondering where the Republican Party is going to go from here. Are they even going to touch that issue from now on, because their base is so divided on it?
Fred: I think this is largely spiritual, quite frankly. I can't prove it, but why the obsession with Israel? Nobody talks about free Ukraine. I don't hear "Free the Uyghur Muslims in China" or "Free North Korea." What about the Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria? You don't hear anything about that. It's just Israel, Israel, Israel. We've got to hate Israel.
Ed Vitagliano: We'll be back.
Tim Wildmon: Welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. We were talking about the Senate race in Mississippi, with somewhere between 900,000 and a million votes cast, representing roughly a third of the population. Nearly a million votes have been cast, and the Democrat has a 50-vote lead with about 97 percent reporting. The question I asked was, if nobody gets 50 percent, is there a runoff?
Fred: Thanks to our own Billy Davis from the American Family News team, we found out that for federal general elections in Mississippi, there is no runoff. This race between Scott Colom and Cindy Hyde-Smith will be decided once they do a recount, if a recount is necessary. All you have to have is a plurality, the most votes, to win. For statewide state elections, you do have runoffs, but not for the federal general election.
Tim Wildmon: So there would be no runoff to determine this.
Fred: There would be a mandatory recount, and then the winner is the winner.
Tim Wildmon: Thanks to Billy Davis for clarifying that. It's not looking good for Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Ed Vitagliano: The most recent numbers I'm looking at have her losing by 2,000 votes.
Tim Wildmon: With what percentage reporting?
Ed Vitagliano: Ninety-five or 96 percent.
Tim Wildmon: We'll see what happens there. Thank you for that update from the Wesley desk: 2,000 votes.
There were other things to look at last night that were voted on by different states. We were involved in some of those, and joining us to talk about them is Jamison Taylor, director of governmental affairs for American Family Association and AFA Action. Good morning, Jamison.
Jamison Taylor: Good morning.
Tim Wildmon: You're in the Jackson, Mississippi, area. Were we right that there will be no runoff and that whoever wins the recount wins?
Jamison Taylor: That's right. After the recount, we will see the winner. When George Bush and Al Gore were running and things were so close in Florida, the first thing that my friends and I did was get down on our knees and pray. That's what I say now. We have to pray. We have to pray Cindy Hyde-Smith into her leadership position and pray that the Lord uses her in this new position in the Senate to stand up for righteousness and truth.
Tim Wildmon: What if she loses? Are you telling Jamison to pray for a recount?
Jamison Taylor: Pray that she prevails in the recount and that she can be senator.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't know about your theology on that, but in Jamison's defense, you could pray that there be no shenanigans and no cheating either way. Pray for the truth to come out. There's nothing wrong with that.
Tim Wildmon: There we go. Absolutely. Come on, Ed. You can't get on board with that?
Ed Vitagliano: You know, pray for a state to win?
Jamison Taylor: I've prayed for a hockey team.
Ed Vitagliano: My co-ed football prayers have gone unanswered.
Tim Wildmon: This is bitterness in your heart.
Fred: I would say that not only have they gone unanswered, the Lord has said no. "You shall not prevail in prayer."
Jamison Taylor: We did have some glory years there for a while.
Tim Wildmon: I knew I could get them off on football.
Let's go over one other question about the Mississippi Senate race. Cindy Hyde-Smith was in a national trend, but Republicans typically win statewide races every time in Mississippi by four to eight percentage points. It's always a fairly comfortable margin. Last night we found out she was in a tight race with Scott Colom, the Democratic candidate for senator in Mississippi. Was that just the national trend, or is it something he did right or she did wrong that closed the gap?
Jamison Taylor: I think, to begin with, there's definitely an anti-incumbent sentiment. Voters are tired of the same old, same old. The second thing, frankly, is that Colom's messaging was really good. It addressed pocketbook issues, and people could connect with his family through the ads he was running. He did a good job.
Ed Vitagliano: He's not a far-left radical, as far as I can tell.
Jamison Taylor: He's a Democrat, no doubt about it, but he's not a radical. I have a friend in Mississippi who is an attorney and knows Scott Colom. He disagrees with Colom's positions but says that he personally is a likable individual. That might have influenced people. He seems like a decent man, although he's not a rock-ribbed conservative for Mississippi.
Tim Wildmon: Cindy Hyde-Smith had a rally with Trump in Corinth, Mississippi, two or three weeks ago, and she said about ten words. I didn't attend, but I'm thinking, you have a rally and you don't even talk?
There were some statewide referendums we were paying attention to involving core issues that AFA cares about. Would you take a couple of minutes to list those and tell us how we did?
Jamison Taylor: When we're talking about ballot initiatives, we're talking about efforts to amend state constitutions. Fortunately, Mississippi does not have a ballot initiative, and we hope to keep things that way, because sometimes the ballot initiative descends into mob rule. There are no hearings or filter process to determine what good policy is. Groups come in with a lot of money and reduce complicated issues to a couple of words and a yes-or-no vote.
Voters can be inconsistent on these issues. In some states, they approve one measure and two years later approve the opposite. But there are some silver linings with ballot initiatives that we saw around the country.
An argument could be made that voters yesterday were rejecting Trump, rejecting Trump's personality, and rejecting the Republican approach of going along with everything Trump wants, but not necessarily rejecting conservative policy in every case.
We had five out of five citizen voting initiatives pass around the country. That's an affirmation that average voters really want something like the SAVE Act, which Trump and Mike Johnson supported but the U.S. Senate could not pass. The Senate could not pass a law requiring that only U.S. citizens vote. Nevertheless, we saw five out of five of those initiatives pass around the country.
We also saw two sports initiatives pass, basically protecting the integrity of women's sports. That's a conservative issue that passed in Nebraska and Colorado. In Colorado, at the same time, they weakened a longstanding spending cap and instituted a progressive income tax. They raised taxes and voted for more government, but then they voted to protect women's sports. That shows that this is a winning issue for Republicans and conservatives.
On abortion, it's a mixed bag. Efforts to expand abortion passed in Virginia and Nevada. We also saw a Missouri effort to roll back its abortion expansion fail. But in Idaho, voters rejected expanding abortion and rejected the constitutional right to abortion being peddled by the left. That's good news.
We also saw several states vote for tax caps. Iowa Democrats absolutely dominated, but voters there voted to cap taxes. That's a fiscally conservative measure. North Carolina and Arizona voted for similar measures, and California defeated the billionaire tax.
You see that voters voted more against the Republican Party than they did for the Democrats and socialists. At the same time, they supported measures that restrain the socialists a little bit, such as spending caps and tax caps. That will prevent the socialists from growing government as much as they would like to, which is for government to take care of everything.
Tim Wildmon: I'm surprised the billionaire tax failed in California. What was the vote percentage?
Jamison Taylor: I would have to double-check, but it looks like the percentage was around 56 to 44.
Tim Wildmon: Are you surprised? That was a tax on billionaires.
Ed Vitagliano: I think it's exactly as you said. People are catching on that if you tax the rich and they leave, they take their businesses with them and your tax base shrinks. You actually can spend less on the welfare state you want, so it's counterproductive.
Fred: That boggles the mind, because one of the platforms Democrats ran on this time was that they were going to go after the rich and Elon Musk. They want to investigate him. At the same time, you see this vote in California. It's almost like, "Wait a minute. We may feel that way, but we're worried about the impact of that decision."
Ed Vitagliano: As you were laying out the distinctions between what people voted for or against, that is encouraging to me. It makes it seem like voters were playing this a little more intellectually than I was thinking. I thought this was pure rage or envy or anger. You're saying they may have thought their way through some of these votes more than we give them credit for.
Jamison Taylor: I do think there was a lot of anger that came out against Trump and different Republican candidates, but there was a limit to the anger, especially when people asked, "Is this policy going to increase my taxes? Is this going to increase government power?" People actually voted against that.
Again, I think so much of this was a rejection of the direction the party has been going in, but it's not a rejection of the principles the party stands for. We're going to see two years of Democratic socialists in charge, and their ideas are going to be horrible. They're going to increase taxes and the debt. If you're worried about inflation now, wait until these people are running the country. It's going to be horrible.
Ed Vitagliano: They won't be able to do much if Trump vetoes everything.
Jamison Taylor: That's right, and that's what we're looking forward to the president doing. He says he's going to veto everything for about two months and then see if the Democrats are willing to come to the table.
I think at the state level there are a lot of changes in state legislatures around the country. Several states that used to have a Republican trifecta will not have one come January. Texas is one example. Wisconsin is now a Democratic trifecta.
I think what you're going to see is that Democrats at the state level will be chaos agents. I don't think they have any interest in governing and working across the aisle. They're going to create chaos, and then two years from now they're going to blame Republicans for the chaos they created. That may play out at the federal level as well.
They're going to continue to blame Trump for everything going wrong, even though their policies have caused inflation and limited economic opportunity. Their policies have threatened women's sports and caused these other problems, but they blame Republicans and Trump.
Ed Vitagliano: That's working.
Jamison Taylor: President Trump certainly has some share of the blame. My prayer last night was that President Trump would look at these results and be chastened and humble and turn to the Lord for guidance. That is not what we saw this morning. Instead, he basically said, "I wasn't on the ballot, so they didn't vote against me."
I would beg to differ. I think they definitely voted against the president's candidates. We saw that in South Carolina and several other states.
Wesley Wellman: I mentioned this this morning, Jamison. Trump said, paraphrasing, "If I had been on the ballot, it would have been a landslide." That statement is bad enough by itself, but it gets worse when you remember that on multiple occasions during the campaign he said, "I need you to get out and vote as if I'm on the ballot." Then we got these results.
Knowing that context makes what he said last night even worse. He told them to vote as if he were on the ballot, and America said, "Yes, sir, we will vote as if you're on the ballot."
Tim Wildmon: That's exactly right. Thank you, Jamison. We appreciate it, my friend.
Ed Vitagliano: Keep praying, Jamison.
Tim Wildmon: I'm not offended. I'm not against prayer.
Jamison Taylor: You guys tell me which one.
Ed Vitagliano: We'll get back to you on the hockey.
Tim Wildmon: This brings us to President Trump's reaction. Do we have some quotes or audio from him?
Donald Trump: I've already spoken to some of them. I've had four calls from meaningful Democrats and people, two senators and three congressmen, actually a total of five, and I have three waiting to call me. They obviously want to talk, but I have the power of veto, and the power of veto is impervious.
Tim Wildmon: That was part of his reaction to what happened yesterday.
Ed Vitagliano: His power is not impervious. What is the definition of impervious?
Tim Wildmon: It means insurmountable.
Ed Vitagliano: Congress can override a veto. It depends on what he's vetoing and whether he loses Republican support for it.
Tim Wildmon: That's true. If he decides, for example, to double down on the Iran war and says he's going to send in ground troops, Congress can say no because they're withholding funding. He can veto that, and then Republicans have to decide whether they want to pay for ground troops to go in or side with Democrats to withhold funding.
It is very difficult to override a veto, but it is not impervious or insurmountable. He was incorrect on that.
Fred: It is a very powerful tool.
Tim Wildmon: How many votes do you have to override a veto?
Fred: Two-thirds.
Ed Vitagliano: I'll check on that. For all practical purposes, I think Trump has the right idea. The Democrats probably have a boatload of bills they want to pass on day one. He ought to veto them one after another and tell the Democrats, "You want to make deals? That's what I'm known for. Let's make deals. You're going to have to give, and I'll give, and then we can get some things done."
The problem for the Democrats is going to be in two years. They're going to say, "Look at the way the economy is. That's the Democrats' fault." The Democrats are going to say, "No, President Trump vetoed all our bills. We were about to make this a utopia, and he kept vetoing our bills. You need to give us the White House." That argument will be settled at the 2028 election.
Tim Wildmon: When Obama got beaten in the midterms, he said, "We, meaning the Democrats, got shellacked." Trump says, "If I had been on the ballot, we would have won by a landslide." Is that a team-player concept you're trying to build? Your coach and your team lose, and you go in and say, "All right, we're in this together. We've got to move forward." That sounds like the coach saying after the game, "Don't blame me. I didn't fumble. If I'd been in there, we would have scored a touchdown." It sounds irresponsible for a leader of a party to say that on the night his team got shellacked.
Fred: There are other Republicans, including former Trump deputy communications director Caroline Sunshine, who was very forthright in an interview last night about what has to happen.
Caroline Sunshine: We had a winning playbook in 2024 that built President Trump's coalition. We got young men, independents, Black voters, Muslim-American Democrats in Michigan, and Hispanics. What did we do this cycle? The Republican Party and the president's staff took that whole playbook, ripped it up, and burned that coalition down. We can't stay on this trajectory if we want to win in 2028.
Two years later, we lost young men and independents. We didn't make any TikToks. We weren't livestreaming the rallies. We didn't go talk to the podcast audience. We looked down our noses at them and treated them with contempt, and we paid for it.
Tim Wildmon: Add that to what J.D. Vance said on X this morning. They're going to examine all of this. The question is, who are they going to go after?
Fred: Who are they, and who are they going after?
Tim Wildmon: The Republican Party. Does it have to move a little toward socialism in order to attract younger people who can't afford a house and have been struggling with grocery bills? What is the Republican Party going to do? They only have two years to decide.
Ed Vitagliano: First of all, you've got to have a leader.
Tim Wildmon: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: You've got to have a leader, or maybe two or three leaders. The Democrats don't have this either right now.
Tim Wildmon: When you're talking about Kamala Harris potentially making a comeback, you have real leadership problems in the Democratic Party.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't think she will, but the Republicans are asking, "Who's the leader?" It isn't Trump because Trump is a lame-duck president and isn't running in two years. You could say he's theoretically the leader, but right now it appears to me that it will either be J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio, unless there's something I'm missing.
Wesley Wellman: I'll wait until after the break.
Tim Wildmon: To override a presidential veto, Congress must pass the bill again by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate.
Ed Vitagliano: That's a tall order, but it's not impossible if you have defections and the right legislation that is popular with the American people.
Tim Wildmon: We'll take a break for news and be back with more of Today's Issues. I want to continue this discussion about who is going to emerge as the new Republican leader, because the message Republicans have always stood for needs to be communicated by somebody.
Tim Wildmon: Welcome to Today's Issues, everybody. It's Wednesday, November 4, 2026, and Election Day has come and gone. No more texts all day, every day, and no more TV ads telling you that if you vote for this person, you're voting for the devil. At least Americans get a relief from all the campaigning and political ads.
Ed Vitagliano: That's looking at the silver lining right there.
Tim Wildmon: I'm trying to find some positives coming out of yesterday. I'm Tim with Ed Vitagliano.
Ed Vitagliano: Good morning. Good day. Good morning to you.
Wesley Wellman: Good morning.
Ed Vitagliano: Nothing's better than just being honest with yourself. That's how you move on. That's how you improve, by recognizing your failures and making adjustments. Have you talked to President Trump?
Tim Wildmon: When we're off, we will get his reaction to what happened last night in just a few moments. But I wanted to make one more announcement before we get started. In light of what happened last night across the country, which we're going to talk about unfortunately, I have decided, and I'll stay on the show with you all for a while, but I'm moving. I'm going Amish.
Ed Vitagliano: You're going Amish?
Tim Wildmon: I'm going to join the Amish community. That'll be the new Tim, because then you don't have to vote. You don't have a television. You don't know what happened. You're always in work mode, and all you live for is the next barn raising. So there's something to be said for that. Am I right?
Ed Vitagliano: Do we have Amish listeners? I think someone corrected me once. We actually have Amish listeners.
Tim Wildmon: That's what I'm saying. I'm going with them.
Ed Vitagliano: I didn't know they were allowed to do that.
Tim Wildmon: I'm only kidding, obviously, because I don't think they vote. I don't think they participate in elections, and they don't have electronics. Therefore, you can just ignore what happened last night.
Ed Vitagliano: So one bad loss, and you're surrendering? Waving the white flag?
Tim Wildmon: I've seen bad losses before, and I've seen great wins before. It's kind of like sports. We are going to talk about the results of yesterday and what it means going forward, especially for the next two years. We have two years between now and the next presidential election. What is that going to look like? I don't think anybody has a clue right now who the Democratic nominee or Republican nominee will be.
Ed Vitagliano: Maybe we have a clue, but the Republicans don't have a clue, and the Democrats cannot be counted out.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Fred, set the table for us if you would.
Fred: Let's review the results as we know them right now. We talked about the House in our story meeting this morning. It looks like the Democrats are winning 258 seats and the Republicans 177. That may be projected, because I'm looking at different maps and I don't see it that high yet. But I think it's safe to say there could be a difference of 30 or 40 seats between the two parties.
Tim Wildmon: There are 435 House seats across America, is that true?
Fred: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: So tell me, as of right now, how many seats do the Democrats hold?
Fred: On the tabulation I'm looking at, Decision Desk Headquarters, Democrats have 247 seats.
Tim Wildmon: How many do Republicans have?
Fred: One hundred fifty. It's a flip of 36 seats at this point.
Tim Wildmon: There are still some uncalled.
Fred: Right.
Tim Wildmon: So we don't know yet, but it is a big swing. They have control, and they're going to be in command. When it comes to the Senate, we have at least eight flips from Republican to Democrat, with the potential for more because Alaska and Mississippi have not been decided yet.
Ed Vitagliano: I never thought I'd hear that.
Tim Wildmon: The big ones are the races we've dealt with so much in our programming. Texas was not even close. Talarico had at least a million-vote margin over Paxton.
Fred: That's the amount by which he won.
Tim Wildmon: Yes, and that is the stunner. It is a shock.
Ed Vitagliano: Is that the same Talarico who believes that God is nonbinary?
Fred: Yes, that is him.
Tim Wildmon: The other one is Michigan. The United States now has its first Muslim senator in its history, Abdulrahman Muhammad El-Sayed. He was very proud of himself last night when he gave his victory speech, and he was unkind to a few people.
Abdulrahman Muhammad El-Sayed: My name is Abdulrahman Muhammad El-Sayed, and I am so proud and honored to stand here as your senator-elect from the great state of Michigan. Mike, enjoy your retirement. J.D., habibi, there is delicious irony in the fact that you're constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January. Donald, I know you struggle with my name. After J.D. swears me in in January, you can just go on and call me senator.
Tim Wildmon: You've got to put up with that kind of thing. That's politics. That's the arrogance of man. If you're going to participate in politics, you've got to take the good with the bad.
Ed Vitagliano: Listen, you've got to roll with the punches. When you've had a lot of hard stuff back and forth, you have to expect that arrogance. You're just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. There's not a lot of humility in politics.
Tim Wildmon: He pronounced his name in Arabic, though, didn't he? He used an Arabic dialect or something.
Ed Vitagliano: He's Egyptian, right?
Fred: Egyptian. That probably would be Arabic for something.
Tim Wildmon: Talarico won in Texas, and El-Sayed won in Michigan. Those were the two big races that everybody was watching. But meanwhile, back at the farm, the chicken coops are getting raided by the foxes, or whoever raids chicken coops, because the Republicans got beat in South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa. These were upsets. These were basically red states. South Carolina certainly was, and Kansas hadn't had a Democratic senator since the 1980s or something like that.
Tim Wildmon: At the end of the night, what's going to be the new count in the United States Senate?
Fred: It looks like it's going to be 56, but there are two uncalled.
Tim Wildmon: Alaska and Mississippi.
Fred: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: So what is it now, without those being called?
Fred: Fifty-four to 44.
Tim Wildmon: Before yesterday began, it was 53 to 47 Republicans.
Fred: Yes, but the Republicans had a lot more to lose yesterday. They were defending 22 Senate seats because it's a third of the Senate every two years, and the Democrats were defending only 13 seats. The Republicans had to play more defense and had more to lose.
Tim Wildmon: This is not unusual for midterms. We've seen huge losses in similar midterms. Gerald Ford lost 48 House seats in 1974. In 1994, Bill Clinton lost 54 in the House and eight in the Senate. That's similar to what happened yesterday.
Fred: In 2010, Barack Obama lost 64 House seats.
Tim Wildmon: What?
Fred: Sixty-four in the House. That's the worst in recent memory. He also lost six in the Senate, and Barack Obama lost nine Senate seats in 2014. Donald Trump lost 41 House seats in 2018. We've been here before.
Tim Wildmon: I just don't want people to think this is the death of the Republican Party. The Republican Party will come back. We'll continue this cycle of Democrats controlling this and then Republicans controlling that.
Ed Vitagliano: How does this affect the deer-hunting community?
Tim Wildmon: We'll find out. I don't think it does, but all of that is true, and it's helpful perspective. Losing Texas, turning it blue in every possible way, is a whole different story in itself. That's the story. You said you listened to our friend David Barton's podcast this morning.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes. It was Rick Green, David Barton, and Tim Barton. They have great programs about WallBuilders and Patriot Academy. Their programs are also played on AFR. They're all Texans, and they were shocked at Texas.
Tim Wildmon: They weren't shocked at what you just read, the national changeover?
Ed Vitagliano: No, they anticipated that. They were shocked at how the Democrats swept in Texas and at the margin by which they did it.
Tim Wildmon: Before we get to the comments by President Trump, you said you had something from Vice President Vance that you wanted to share.
Fred: Vice President Vance put something out on X this morning, just a few moments ago. He said, "I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by what this poster he had talked to in his polling said. He saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back to our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses, were number one, end the war; number two, focus on cost-of-living inflation; number three, put America first; and number four, change our relationship with Israel."
Tim Wildmon: I think I have an explanation for that. I'm not excusing that answer or trying to detract from how frightening it is, but I think the belief was that Israel was responsible for dragging us into the war with Iran. So that's tied to the number one issue, which was to get us out of that war. I think that's the belief, but it is frightening.
If I were a Jew in America, I would be looking over my shoulder from now on, because I think this is going to give permission to people on the left, this blue wave, and it was a tsunami, to go forward with the antisemitism, pro-Palestinianism, and pro-Islam sentiment that we've seen creeping in. I think they're going to go all out. This may explain why President Trump, yesterday morning on Fox & Friends, announced that we are ending our yearly $4 billion in aid to Israel, effective almost immediately and by the end of 2026. Everybody said, "Why would he do that on Election Day?" This may explain it. People were blaming Israel for dragging the United States into this war.
Ed Vitagliano: I reject that personally, because Donald Trump doesn't get dragged by anybody. They made the decision to go. At one point, you remember what Donald Trump said: "I tell Israel what to do."
Tim Wildmon: He said, "I call the shots in Israel."
Ed Vitagliano: "I call the shots." So you can't have it both ways.
Fred: I reject that premise too, but if he had gotten out in three months or less, I don't think we would be where we are.
Tim Wildmon: Absolutely. I made this comment back at Memorial Day, and this is just one person's opinion. I said Trump needs to announce that we're leaving. You don't even have to say we're leaving, but say we're ceasing our military actions in Iran. We have completed our goal. We hope the people of Iran make a regime change, but we can't force that. Secondly, if you mess with America, we will be back. You could say something like that. That would give closure and list the accomplishments all the way.
Ed Vitagliano: Your gas prices would have come down, and the Strait of Hormuz would have been closed at that point if they had just hit them and gotten out.
Tim Wildmon: I don't personally know why that didn't happen. I don't know why what I just described couldn't have happened. I think whoever was advising the president tacked regime change in Iran onto the initial thought of stopping the nuclear weapons program. Big mistake.
I think that's why they hit the leaders and took them out. Remember, he said, "Help is on the way." Once you tack regime change onto stopping the nuclear weapons program, now you've got to get regime change. I think President Trump was advised, "You could flip Iran and set those people free. You'll get a Nobel Peace Prize for doing that." That meant we had to stick with it because the regime would not quit. Then it became a contest of wills. With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, it became incredibly politically painful for the president.
Tim Wildmon: We were talking about what happened yesterday with the elections all across America. The Democrats had a blue tsunami. I was going to say salami, but I don't think "salami tsunami" works.
Ed Vitagliano: It was a blue salami.
Tim Wildmon: The Democrats won big all over the country. I was stunned that in our home state of Mississippi the race is tied, and they may have to go to a recount. For those who don't know, Cindy Hyde-Smith is the Republican incumbent. Republicans have always won statewide in Mississippi, usually by five to seven points. That's why Mississippi has been called a red state.
Yesterday, the Democrat, Scott Colom, seemed to come out of nowhere and is now tied with her, or actually ahead by a handful of votes.
Ed Vitagliano: This is how you know every vote counts. I'm looking at the results with 96 percent reporting, and there are almost a million votes in. It looks like somewhere between 920,000 and a million votes were cast in Mississippi. The lead for the Democrat is about 50 votes out of almost a million. The chances of that happening are astronomical. To have nearly a million votes cast and, at the end of the night, have the race separated by 50 votes is stunning.
Tim Wildmon: Does Mississippi have to go to a runoff?
Fred: I don't have the answer to that, but they'll probably do a recount.
Ed Vitagliano: I think you have to have 50 percent, or you do a runoff, because there was an independent candidate.
Fred: Yes, he got two percent.
Ed Vitagliano: He would be out of the picture if there's a runoff. They would do a recount. I think this is the way most states run it, and I'm sorry I don't know the rule here in Mississippi. I assume it's the same as everywhere else: somebody has to get 50 percent, or you have a runoff if you've got a third-party candidate.
Tim Wildmon: Anyway, it was a wipeout for the Republicans across the country, and they're going to have to regroup and recover because we've got a presidential election and another House election coming up in two years.
Ed Vitagliano: Before we get to that discussion, I want to go back to the Israel issue and J.D. Vance. Am I dreaming this, or do I remember there being some indication that J.D. Vance was soft on support between America and Israel at some point?
Tim Wildmon: When Hezbollah was throwing missiles into Israel, and we were at a point where there was almost a solution, J.D. Vance got very upset when Israel responded to those missiles and basically accused them of throwing a tentative deal off the rails because of their response to Hezbollah. People were shocked by that because he was very open about it.
Ed Vitagliano: Wait a minute. You're saying Israel cannot respond? You're more worried about your supposed peace plan with Hamas than you are about Israel defending itself against terrorists?
Tim Wildmon: Trump said something similar. That's when he said they don't know what the blank they're doing. The only reason I bring this up is that there are different views on how Israel should conduct itself. Set that on a shelf. The thing that concerns me is the radical views on the left, but also the splintering on the Republican and conservative side of the spectrum, which seems to be a splintering of support for Israel.
That used to be guaranteed. America was going to support Israel. You weren't a Republican if you didn't agree with that. The Democrats supported Israel too, decades ago. Barack Obama agreed with Benjamin Netanyahu to give Israel between $3 billion and $4 billion a year for ten years.
Ed Vitagliano: The Democrats' support is done.
Tim Wildmon: Yes, they're hostile. I'm wondering where the Republican Party is going to go from here. Are they even going to touch that issue from now on, because their base is so divided on it?
Fred: I think this is largely spiritual, quite frankly. I can't prove it, but why the obsession with Israel? Nobody talks about free Ukraine. I don't hear "Free the Uyghur Muslims in China" or "Free North Korea." What about the Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria? You don't hear anything about that. It's just Israel, Israel, Israel. We've got to hate Israel.
Ed Vitagliano: We'll be back.
Tim Wildmon: Welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. We were talking about the Senate race in Mississippi, with somewhere between 900,000 and a million votes cast, representing roughly a third of the population. Nearly a million votes have been cast, and the Democrat has a 50-vote lead with about 97 percent reporting. The question I asked was, if nobody gets 50 percent, is there a runoff?
Fred: Thanks to our own Billy Davis from the American Family News team, we found out that for federal general elections in Mississippi, there is no runoff. This race between Scott Colom and Cindy Hyde-Smith will be decided once they do a recount, if a recount is necessary. All you have to have is a plurality, the most votes, to win. For statewide state elections, you do have runoffs, but not for the federal general election.
Tim Wildmon: So there would be no runoff to determine this.
Fred: There would be a mandatory recount, and then the winner is the winner.
Tim Wildmon: Thanks to Billy Davis for clarifying that. It's not looking good for Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Ed Vitagliano: The most recent numbers I'm looking at have her losing by 2,000 votes.
Tim Wildmon: With what percentage reporting?
Ed Vitagliano: Ninety-five or 96 percent.
Tim Wildmon: We'll see what happens there. Thank you for that update from the Wesley desk: 2,000 votes.
There were other things to look at last night that were voted on by different states. We were involved in some of those, and joining us to talk about them is Jamison Taylor, director of governmental affairs for American Family Association and AFA Action. Good morning, Jamison.
Jamison Taylor: Good morning.
Tim Wildmon: You're in the Jackson, Mississippi, area. Were we right that there will be no runoff and that whoever wins the recount wins?
Jamison Taylor: That's right. After the recount, we will see the winner. When George Bush and Al Gore were running and things were so close in Florida, the first thing that my friends and I did was get down on our knees and pray. That's what I say now. We have to pray. We have to pray Cindy Hyde-Smith into her leadership position and pray that the Lord uses her in this new position in the Senate to stand up for righteousness and truth.
Tim Wildmon: What if she loses? Are you telling Jamison to pray for a recount?
Jamison Taylor: Pray that she prevails in the recount and that she can be senator.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't know about your theology on that, but in Jamison's defense, you could pray that there be no shenanigans and no cheating either way. Pray for the truth to come out. There's nothing wrong with that.
Tim Wildmon: There we go. Absolutely. Come on, Ed. You can't get on board with that?
Ed Vitagliano: You know, pray for a state to win?
Jamison Taylor: I've prayed for a hockey team.
Ed Vitagliano: My co-ed football prayers have gone unanswered.
Tim Wildmon: This is bitterness in your heart.
Fred: I would say that not only have they gone unanswered, the Lord has said no. "You shall not prevail in prayer."
Jamison Taylor: We did have some glory years there for a while.
Tim Wildmon: I knew I could get them off on football.
Let's go over one other question about the Mississippi Senate race. Cindy Hyde-Smith was in a national trend, but Republicans typically win statewide races every time in Mississippi by four to eight percentage points. It's always a fairly comfortable margin. Last night we found out she was in a tight race with Scott Colom, the Democratic candidate for senator in Mississippi. Was that just the national trend, or is it something he did right or she did wrong that closed the gap?
Jamison Taylor: I think, to begin with, there's definitely an anti-incumbent sentiment. Voters are tired of the same old, same old. The second thing, frankly, is that Colom's messaging was really good. It addressed pocketbook issues, and people could connect with his family through the ads he was running. He did a good job.
Ed Vitagliano: He's not a far-left radical, as far as I can tell.
Jamison Taylor: He's a Democrat, no doubt about it, but he's not a radical. I have a friend in Mississippi who is an attorney and knows Scott Colom. He disagrees with Colom's positions but says that he personally is a likable individual. That might have influenced people. He seems like a decent man, although he's not a rock-ribbed conservative for Mississippi.
Tim Wildmon: Cindy Hyde-Smith had a rally with Trump in Corinth, Mississippi, two or three weeks ago, and she said about ten words. I didn't attend, but I'm thinking, you have a rally and you don't even talk?
There were some statewide referendums we were paying attention to involving core issues that AFA cares about. Would you take a couple of minutes to list those and tell us how we did?
Jamison Taylor: When we're talking about ballot initiatives, we're talking about efforts to amend state constitutions. Fortunately, Mississippi does not have a ballot initiative, and we hope to keep things that way, because sometimes the ballot initiative descends into mob rule. There are no hearings or filter process to determine what good policy is. Groups come in with a lot of money and reduce complicated issues to a couple of words and a yes-or-no vote.
Voters can be inconsistent on these issues. In some states, they approve one measure and two years later approve the opposite. But there are some silver linings with ballot initiatives that we saw around the country.
An argument could be made that voters yesterday were rejecting Trump, rejecting Trump's personality, and rejecting the Republican approach of going along with everything Trump wants, but not necessarily rejecting conservative policy in every case.
We had five out of five citizen voting initiatives pass around the country. That's an affirmation that average voters really want something like the SAVE Act, which Trump and Mike Johnson supported but the U.S. Senate could not pass. The Senate could not pass a law requiring that only U.S. citizens vote. Nevertheless, we saw five out of five of those initiatives pass around the country.
We also saw two sports initiatives pass, basically protecting the integrity of women's sports. That's a conservative issue that passed in Nebraska and Colorado. In Colorado, at the same time, they weakened a longstanding spending cap and instituted a progressive income tax. They raised taxes and voted for more government, but then they voted to protect women's sports. That shows that this is a winning issue for Republicans and conservatives.
On abortion, it's a mixed bag. Efforts to expand abortion passed in Virginia and Nevada. We also saw a Missouri effort to roll back its abortion expansion fail. But in Idaho, voters rejected expanding abortion and rejected the constitutional right to abortion being peddled by the left. That's good news.
We also saw several states vote for tax caps. Iowa Democrats absolutely dominated, but voters there voted to cap taxes. That's a fiscally conservative measure. North Carolina and Arizona voted for similar measures, and California defeated the billionaire tax.
You see that voters voted more against the Republican Party than they did for the Democrats and socialists. At the same time, they supported measures that restrain the socialists a little bit, such as spending caps and tax caps. That will prevent the socialists from growing government as much as they would like to, which is for government to take care of everything.
Tim Wildmon: I'm surprised the billionaire tax failed in California. What was the vote percentage?
Jamison Taylor: I would have to double-check, but it looks like the percentage was around 56 to 44.
Tim Wildmon: Are you surprised? That was a tax on billionaires.
Ed Vitagliano: I think it's exactly as you said. People are catching on that if you tax the rich and they leave, they take their businesses with them and your tax base shrinks. You actually can spend less on the welfare state you want, so it's counterproductive.
Fred: That boggles the mind, because one of the platforms Democrats ran on this time was that they were going to go after the rich and Elon Musk. They want to investigate him. At the same time, you see this vote in California. It's almost like, "Wait a minute. We may feel that way, but we're worried about the impact of that decision."
Ed Vitagliano: As you were laying out the distinctions between what people voted for or against, that is encouraging to me. It makes it seem like voters were playing this a little more intellectually than I was thinking. I thought this was pure rage or envy or anger. You're saying they may have thought their way through some of these votes more than we give them credit for.
Jamison Taylor: I do think there was a lot of anger that came out against Trump and different Republican candidates, but there was a limit to the anger, especially when people asked, "Is this policy going to increase my taxes? Is this going to increase government power?" People actually voted against that.
Again, I think so much of this was a rejection of the direction the party has been going in, but it's not a rejection of the principles the party stands for. We're going to see two years of Democratic socialists in charge, and their ideas are going to be horrible. They're going to increase taxes and the debt. If you're worried about inflation now, wait until these people are running the country. It's going to be horrible.
Ed Vitagliano: They won't be able to do much if Trump vetoes everything.
Jamison Taylor: That's right, and that's what we're looking forward to the president doing. He says he's going to veto everything for about two months and then see if the Democrats are willing to come to the table.
I think at the state level there are a lot of changes in state legislatures around the country. Several states that used to have a Republican trifecta will not have one come January. Texas is one example. Wisconsin is now a Democratic trifecta.
I think what you're going to see is that Democrats at the state level will be chaos agents. I don't think they have any interest in governing and working across the aisle. They're going to create chaos, and then two years from now they're going to blame Republicans for the chaos they created. That may play out at the federal level as well.
They're going to continue to blame Trump for everything going wrong, even though their policies have caused inflation and limited economic opportunity. Their policies have threatened women's sports and caused these other problems, but they blame Republicans and Trump.
Ed Vitagliano: That's working.
Jamison Taylor: President Trump certainly has some share of the blame. My prayer last night was that President Trump would look at these results and be chastened and humble and turn to the Lord for guidance. That is not what we saw this morning. Instead, he basically said, "I wasn't on the ballot, so they didn't vote against me."
I would beg to differ. I think they definitely voted against the president's candidates. We saw that in South Carolina and several other states.
Wesley Wellman: I mentioned this this morning, Jamison. Trump said, paraphrasing, "If I had been on the ballot, it would have been a landslide." That statement is bad enough by itself, but it gets worse when you remember that on multiple occasions during the campaign he said, "I need you to get out and vote as if I'm on the ballot." Then we got these results.
Knowing that context makes what he said last night even worse. He told them to vote as if he were on the ballot, and America said, "Yes, sir, we will vote as if you're on the ballot."
Tim Wildmon: That's exactly right. Thank you, Jamison. We appreciate it, my friend.
Ed Vitagliano: Keep praying, Jamison.
Tim Wildmon: I'm not offended. I'm not against prayer.
Jamison Taylor: You guys tell me which one.
Ed Vitagliano: We'll get back to you on the hockey.
Tim Wildmon: This brings us to President Trump's reaction. Do we have some quotes or audio from him?
Donald Trump: I've already spoken to some of them. I've had four calls from meaningful Democrats and people, two senators and three congressmen, actually a total of five, and I have three waiting to call me. They obviously want to talk, but I have the power of veto, and the power of veto is impervious.
Tim Wildmon: That was part of his reaction to what happened yesterday.
Ed Vitagliano: His power is not impervious. What is the definition of impervious?
Tim Wildmon: It means insurmountable.
Ed Vitagliano: Congress can override a veto. It depends on what he's vetoing and whether he loses Republican support for it.
Tim Wildmon: That's true. If he decides, for example, to double down on the Iran war and says he's going to send in ground troops, Congress can say no because they're withholding funding. He can veto that, and then Republicans have to decide whether they want to pay for ground troops to go in or side with Democrats to withhold funding.
It is very difficult to override a veto, but it is not impervious or insurmountable. He was incorrect on that.
Fred: It is a very powerful tool.
Tim Wildmon: How many votes do you have to override a veto?
Fred: Two-thirds.
Ed Vitagliano: I'll check on that. For all practical purposes, I think Trump has the right idea. The Democrats probably have a boatload of bills they want to pass on day one. He ought to veto them one after another and tell the Democrats, "You want to make deals? That's what I'm known for. Let's make deals. You're going to have to give, and I'll give, and then we can get some things done."
The problem for the Democrats is going to be in two years. They're going to say, "Look at the way the economy is. That's the Democrats' fault." The Democrats are going to say, "No, President Trump vetoed all our bills. We were about to make this a utopia, and he kept vetoing our bills. You need to give us the White House." That argument will be settled at the 2028 election.
Tim Wildmon: When Obama got beaten in the midterms, he said, "We, meaning the Democrats, got shellacked." Trump says, "If I had been on the ballot, we would have won by a landslide." Is that a team-player concept you're trying to build? Your coach and your team lose, and you go in and say, "All right, we're in this together. We've got to move forward." That sounds like the coach saying after the game, "Don't blame me. I didn't fumble. If I'd been in there, we would have scored a touchdown." It sounds irresponsible for a leader of a party to say that on the night his team got shellacked.
Fred: There are other Republicans, including former Trump deputy communications director Caroline Sunshine, who was very forthright in an interview last night about what has to happen.
Caroline Sunshine: We had a winning playbook in 2024 that built President Trump's coalition. We got young men, independents, Black voters, Muslim-American Democrats in Michigan, and Hispanics. What did we do this cycle? The Republican Party and the president's staff took that whole playbook, ripped it up, and burned that coalition down. We can't stay on this trajectory if we want to win in 2028.
Two years later, we lost young men and independents. We didn't make any TikToks. We weren't livestreaming the rallies. We didn't go talk to the podcast audience. We looked down our noses at them and treated them with contempt, and we paid for it.
Tim Wildmon: Add that to what J.D. Vance said on X this morning. They're going to examine all of this. The question is, who are they going to go after?
Fred: Who are they, and who are they going after?
Tim Wildmon: The Republican Party. Does it have to move a little toward socialism in order to attract younger people who can't afford a house and have been struggling with grocery bills? What is the Republican Party going to do? They only have two years to decide.
Ed Vitagliano: First of all, you've got to have a leader.
Tim Wildmon: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: You've got to have a leader, or maybe two or three leaders. The Democrats don't have this either right now.
Tim Wildmon: When you're talking about Kamala Harris potentially making a comeback, you have real leadership problems in the Democratic Party.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't think she will, but the Republicans are asking, "Who's the leader?" It isn't Trump because Trump is a lame-duck president and isn't running in two years. You could say he's theoretically the leader, but right now it appears to me that it will either be J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio, unless there's something I'm missing.
Wesley Wellman: I'll wait until after the break.
Tim Wildmon: To override a presidential veto, Congress must pass the bill again by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate.
Ed Vitagliano: That's a tall order, but it's not impossible if you have defections and the right legislation that is popular with the American people.
Tim Wildmon: We'll take a break for news and be back with more of Today's Issues. I want to continue this discussion about who is going to emerge as the new Republican leader, because the message Republicans have always stood for needs to be communicated by somebody.
Tim Wildmon and Ed Vitagliano examine the Democrats’ major gains in the 2026 midterm elections, including Republican losses in Congress and a closely contested Mississippi Senate race. They also discuss what the results could mean for the Republican Party over the next two years.
Jamison Taylor discusses ballot initiatives across the country, including measures involving voter citizenship requirements, women’s sports, abortion, tax limits and spending caps. He argues that voters rejected Republican candidates in many races while still supporting several conservative policies.
The program also considers voter concerns about inflation, the Iran war and U.S. support for Israel. The hosts review President Trump’s response to the election, debate the power of the presidential veto and consider who could lead the Republican Party in the next presidential election.
Live
Did you know American Family Radio is listener-supported? Your monthly financial support will allow us to continue upholding Godly values through our numerous channels, like American Family Radio, One Million Moms, The Stand magazine, and many more.
Become a Great Commission Partner TODAY to help AFR transform culture by rebuilding the family. When you donate today, you’ll get access to:
