Election Day Talk: Trump Rants, Piker Asks About MAGA, and the Podcasts Weigh In
The commentary on the US midterm elections started early on Tuesday 3 November 2026, hours before polls closed. Variety gathered reactions from television, podcasts and social media in an updating article, Variety reported, and the loudest moment came from Donald Trump.
On Election Day, Trump posted on Truth Social attacking Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for US Senate in Michigan. In the post, he said El-Sayed "Hates Jews and Hates Blacks" and "also Hates Whites."
That morning, Trump also called into Fox & Friends, the morning show on Fox News. The call included a long rant that touched on the war in Iran. The Daily Beast reported that the hosts had trouble getting him off the phone. Trump turned 80 this year. The Hill also reported that he spent time on the algae in the Reflecting Pool, the long pond on the National Mall in Washington.
Twitch streamer Hasan Piker took a different route. On X, he asked how much "cult" thinking was left in the MAGA movement, the political wing built around Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. He also asked whether racial polarization and vitriol still work after a stretch of negative real wage growth. Real wage growth means pay after prices are taken into account, so a negative figure means paychecks buy less than they did before.
On the morning edition of the podcast Pod Save America, Jon Lovett said that if Democrats "can't win both chambers, then yes, that will be a loss." The two chambers are the House of Representatives and the Senate, which together make up Congress.
Joe Scarborough, the host of MS Now's Morning Joe, called the Republican Party's closing arguments "astronomically stupid." He said the party was talking about Communism when voters were thinking about gas, diesel and grocery costs.
Those were the voices. The votes themselves covered a lot of ground. All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats were up for election, according to CNBC, and Republicans were defending narrow majorities in both chambers going in. Majorities are the groups of seats that control a chamber. A narrow one means a few seats can change who is in charge.
The Associated Press planned to call every one of those races, which means declaring a winner once it judges the result clear. Its live tracker showed vote counts, maps and race calls for Senate, House and governor contests. PBS NewsHour noted on the day that it could take a while to know who will control Congress.
For viewers, the commentary is one part of the night. The counting is the other, and it will keep going after the studio shows sign off.
