>> congress influx. trump's influence in question. >> definitely not a republican wave, that is for sure. >> control of congress hangs in the balance as the number of key races are still being decided. >> donald trump gives us problems politically. >> for republicans, the finger-pointing begins as the red wave falls flat. and some openly criticize former president trump. >> tuesday was a good day for america, a good day for democracy. a strong night for democrats. >> meanwhile, president biden celebrates better than expected after democrats define history. >> we will never ever surrender to the woke mob, florida is where woke goes to die. >> we will make michigan a

leader, a place where every person is respected and protected under the law. >> a look at some of the winners this week and what lies ahead for 2024. next. ♪ >> this is washington week. corporate funding is provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no contract plans and our u.s.-based customer service team can find one that fits you. visit consumer cellular.tv. >> additional funding provided by coo and patricia ewans for the ewan foundation. committed to making differences for our committees. rose hirschel and andy shreeves. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again from washington, moderator yamiche alcindor. >> good evening and welcome to a special edition of washington week. it has been a wild midterm cycle. election day has stretched into election week. it is still unclear which party will control the house or the senate. several key races, votes are being counted. votes could take weeks. republicans are expected to hold a slim majority in the house, 28 races undecided in the senate. three races undecided. next month, the high-profile georgia senate race between raphael warnock, republican herschel walker will go to a runoff. the race could end up determining which party controls the senate. while there is a lot of uncertainty, the republican red wave simply did not happen.

many of former president trump's highest profile endorsements ultimately lost their races. it has led some to question whether trump is a drag on the party while still celebrating party wins. democrats, including the president, are praising the results. >> two years ago when i became leader, republicans have less then 200 seats in the house. that cycle, we picked up 14 seats. tonight, we built upon those gains two years ago. it is clear that we are going to take the house back. >> we lost fewer seats in the house of representatives than any democratic resident in the income. th is we couldn't beat the odds, but we did. >> joining me to discuss l this and more, the chief correspondent at the washington post, senior white house correspondent for cbs news, jonathan martin, politics bureau

chief at politico, and the host a weekend edition sunday on npr. dan, you have covered politics longer than all of us. i will start with you. it was the red wave that wasn't. the gop, even if they take back the house, it will be the best midterm election of any last two decades. what is your biggest takeaways for what the election tells us? >> having covered a lot of these election nights, this was one of the most astonishing. certainly for a midterm. it defied almost all elements of history we use as guides to give us a sense of where things are going. one of the big takeaways is donald trump has created the different electorate in this country. 2018 with record turnout, 2020 with record turnout. 2022, near record turnout. the party that holds the white house has trouble getting voters outdta ielermionecm e lti

ik this case, they came in droves, and it defied the expectations. as a result, you have the party that may well capture control of the house, disappointed and fighting among themselves, and the party that could lose the house quite jubilant that they are as close as they are. senate is still up for grabs, it is very possible, likely at this point democrats hold that. it is just a year in which it really was a choice and not a referendum on the party in power. >> there are a number of races that are still not likely to be called, but there is nevada, arizona that are those key senate races. tell me about what you are thinking and seeing on the house and senate side. >> i think we are coming on the air tonight, and your viewers should know there have been thsands of votes counted in nevada. it looks increasingly like senator masto, the incumbent

democrat, is probably going to find a path to reelection. she is only down under 1000 votes statewide. there are still 40,000 more votes to come just from las vegas and reno alone. she appears to be on track. that is important. if she does close the gap and overtake her gop challenger, that all but guarantees democrats will hold the senate. kelly in arizona is even better right now than her. that would make georgia only relevant as the dems would have a one seat majority or zero seat majority. nevada is the key tonight. it looks like masto will be able to hold on. >> a lot on the house side. >> there is drama in terms of both sides of the aisle, in terms of who will be in charge.

usually after a house election, at least one party we know who will be leading the caucus. it is now uncertain. speaker pelosi, if democrats go in the minority, if she would stay, resign, or perhaps serve minority, or perhaps try and serve as minority leader. she has three options that are sort of fascinating to watch. there is intense hope among younger democrats in the house. there will be a passing of the baton to the next generation. but they were not expecting that election to be so close. now pelosi, i think it is more of an open question whether or not she will move on. it is a mess with the house gop because of the opposite. they had high hopes for this election. now it seems if they do have the majority, it is only going to be three or four seats majority, which is so darned close, it could be even closer. if that is the case, kevin

mccarthy will have a hard time finding the votes to become speaker, because he has critics on the far right of his caucus that will not vote for him for speaker. that would be an extra ordinary story on the floor of the house in january. you have to get 218 votes in the house. if he can't find his entire party unified, those democrats will not bail him out. >> they definitely will not bail him out. one of the happiest people i have seen this week is on your beat, president biden is chipper. tell me what you are hearing at the white house and what they think it says about the message democrats are putting out there that was -- democracy, threats, a trifecta. some people thought it was messy, but it worked. >> it is not in this administration's dna to gloat and said i told you so. but behind the scenes they are saying i told you so. there was so much criticism against their strategy to focus on a variety of issues.

not just the economy. his last primetime address was about the threat to democracy. he made it a few days before election day. republicans said it shows he's out of touch because people are so stressed about paying their bills that he's choosing to focus on something that is not what is top of mind for people. but we just saw that is not true. abortion was a factor. the economy was a factor, but threat to democracy was a factor. that is what we heard from the white house from the very beginning, that they would focus on these issues and on the president's accomplishments, because they wanted it to be a policy driven campaign. not a personality driven campaign. that is why the president did not do a lot of the big campaign rallies previous presidents had done until the very end, when he wanted to make sure it would drum up enthusiasm to get people to vote. the other reason why he's very happy is even though the republicans look like they are poised to take over, the white

house feels there is enough wiggle room, fractures within the party, that they will still be able to accomplish things on his agenda. it will be tough. but there certainly must -- much more optimistic than they would have been if the red wave would have happened. >> we were talking about personality not being at the forefront. i don't think thais very much true. candidates do matter in some ways. how much did candidate quality matter? especially in a place like pennsylvania, where john fetterman bested out dr. oz that some saw as unqualified. >> i think this election was a real test of whether races had been nationalized to the point, and whether the electorate was so polarized that if you had in our and you were republican, they would vote for you. i think what this shows is it matters who you are.

you saw those split tickets, you saw in georgia where you had governor kemp get reelected. then you had herschel walker, people voted for him. they did not vote for walker. you had dr. oz, trump that the thumb on the scale, and you got him, but people did not glean to him. people felt he was a carpetbagger, kind of a snake oil salesman. that is what people felt. that is the way people felt, and that is what happens when it came to, and you saw the results. it really hurt the republicans. >> you are also hearing some in the gop saying their criticisms of trump, on background somehow materializing on national news. the capitol attack, people ran from trump and ran right back. i wonder how many people will run or run right back, or if it is a real test of example of

people saying it is the limit for us. >> it may be an inflection point. we said that a lot of times. i would say almost every time, weave been proving wrong. i don't want to go too far on that limb. there is something different. after 2020, and after the attack on the capital, despite the packet, republicans felt they could not win this year without trump being in the tent, and they needed his voters, but getting those voters, they got donald trump mentally in these elections to look at the senate. you can argue had they had different candidates in pennsylvania, they would have one those two races. so i think the issue now is will they conclude from this that

instead of thinking they can't win without trump, they can't win with him. >> for the past two years, the open ended question we have talked about is what power tru still has within the gop. i think candidates were concerned. it remained a lot of power. we see the results, that is not the case. actually underperformed. on the flipside, the president was trying to avoid the areas where there are primary races. and it turns out the places where he did go, the candidates over performed. now the question is how much trump could help a candidate, how much he can hurt them. >> as we discuss the midterm week that was, at 2024, we have to do it. former president trump is widely expected to announce another run for the white house next week.

president biden also said he signaled at least he's intending to run, but left the door open, he perhaps may not, it will be a family decision. there are a lot of questions within both parties about the future. you are about to jump in. you told our producers i have a lot to say. i will let you take it away. >> i can't recall a moment in american politics where the front runners of their parties had so many people in those parties dreading their candidacies. i think on the republican side, it is self-evident, there are people ready to move on. a little more complicated, because there is certainly support for biden and a great deal of goodwill for him. it is just there is a feeling for a lot of democrats to move on, he served purpose of getting trump out of the white house. 82 years old in 2024.

it is time to get somebody of the next generation to run. the other night tt we all saw. all americans want biden to hang it up in 24. he doesn't se quite ready to do that. it is hard. hard for politicians to walk away. he has that competitive gene, i think it will be difficult. i will say real fast, what is happening is it is a conversation that was deferred from 2020. what happened in the aftermath of 20 and his denial is him about the election, it should have been happening then. at that point his party lost the house, senate, and white house. he basically froze that conversation in 20 because he was so fixated on saying that election was stolen, and he has now put off the conversation. the last thing i will say, the gop can tolerate a lot from trump, a whole lot. what they can't tolerate is losing.

ironically, with donald trump, the biggest winner, his ultimate achilles heel can be -- >> abortion was also a big part of the midterm cycle. we saw nationally it was the most important issue to voters only after inflation, based on the polling from nbc news. i wonder what you make of abortion victories. we saw five states voting on abortion-related measures. all five seats, including kentucky, every vote went for people who were supportive of abortion rights. what does it say >> it is an issue a majority of americans support some form of abortion rights. yes, they may not support total abortion rights or may support some limits, but they do not want abortion to be outlawed. that is clear when you look at all of these races over and over again.

i think some in the media, let's take some blame for that, underestimated how much of a role it would play. it was clear after dobbs there was momentum. i think the momentum had stalled. but clearly, that is not the caseand in places like pennsylvania or other places where there was a real fear you can have a rollback of abortion rights, you saw democrats, independents go to democrats because they did not want abortion rights to be taken off of the table. >> another big thing we talk about, the threats to democracy. we were talking about it in terms of the president's speech and focus on that. there were some democrats who people say meddled in the elections by supporting election deniers, and people were worried it was a risk. it turns out all of those election deniers backed by democrats or they spent millions of dollars, they lost. what do you make of the implication of that? is there a danger? >> there is a danger.

i think there is a debate within the democratic party and more broadly, about whether even if it is successful, whether that is the right thing to do in politics. whether you should raise up people who would in fact threaten the state of democracy. that remains an open question. but as a political tactic, it was successful. would it have been less successful if they had gotten involved? perhaps not. that is an open question. i want to go back on the abortion issue. i agree with you, at the end of the campaign, there was a sense that it had faded. i'm as guilty of that is anybody else -- because we saw how important inflation, gas price and sensitive issues were to people. but i remember in august with urban women voters. they were so passionate at that

point, passionate about the abortion issue, passionate about democracy. when you look at what was going through their minds, there was something visceral of those issues. when there's an issue that is that powerful, it doesn't fade away. it is easy for us to look at a poll and say it is not as important as it was. in the way people think, they don't think about issues that way. so i think that ended up being so powerful in the outcome of this election. >> you have two things, abortion, which republicans don't have much room to maneuver on at all. then you have trump, who will not give them room to maneuver. those are two things that will be hanging over republicans when it comes to 2024. what are you going to do on abortion when there is no room to negotiate? trump is not going to allow them to negotiate. >> the other aspect is on the

issue of democracy, for a while, one could say it is trump's problem. over two years, it became the republican brand. that caused people to have a great pause. >> that is the key point, the overarching theme about this election. my co-author and i wrote a book, and the good news and the bad news for democrats is trumpism will not pass. it is bad news for democrats. i think biden's hope was the fever would break after he took office, that the trump era would end. it rbc hasn't. because it hasn't faded, there are voters who are still engaged and extremely tuned in. and independents who can flip either side are still voting democrat because they are afraid of trumpism and want to reject it. just because he is not in office anymore doesn't mean it is not animated. that is the big story.

>> i think trumpism and trump are two different things. now we are in a situation where republicans are asking who is the person who can still provide trumpism, still give voters what they want in that sense. that is not donald trump. >> in talking about that and thinking about that, michigan saw these huge wins because for the first time in 40 years, they will have a democratic-controlled legislature and governor's mansion. that message was all about anti-trump and also making sure women's rights were going to be protected, lgbtq rights. i sat with the michigan governor who said it will be a national fight. the people coming up, theames we are seeing, governor whitmer being one of them, as people ready to fight for trumpism. >> i think that was brewing. look what happened to her in particular. i think we should expect to see

much more of that. i think people are less afraid to really confront it. because they see if you do, it doesn't mean it will not cost you. it could actually help you. from that sense, i think it is not necessarily surprising. of course, the outcome is remarkable. >> i have to ask you about patrick maloney. he lost his race, even though democrats are doing well. what does it say? >> he had this hudson valley district in new york. ironically, because it is this bastion of liberalism, they had a rough go in new york because of what is happening in the race for governor. you had the democratic incumbent, an appointed person, someone who took office when andrew cuomo quit, and was fairly weak compared to that state's politics.

it helped down ballot and hurt democratic candidates. i think if democrats do lose the house, it will be almost entirely because of their losses. ironically enough, in new york state. what tuesday night also offered us is a glimpse in both parties of the next generation. certainly on t republican side, folks like ron desantis. but don't forget these democrats elected tuesday. gretchen whitmer overwhelmingly reelected. if you were issued twice as a democrat, you are going to be in the national conversation immediately. don't forget josh shapiro in pennsylvania, a great view on top of the ticket. wes moore in maryland. all of these democrats will be born on tuesday. >> i want to ask about a democrat that has an uncertain future, stacey abrams. she lost, and a lot of people are saying this is what black women do, they work hard.

she was able to mobilize, georgia is kind of purple, some people say because of the work she did. but she lost the race. >> you do hear from some black women that it has been reported about the disappointment and frustration of her coming forward, doing this hard work, but not really seeing the fruits of that for herself. i think that is a tough loss. but i don't think stacey abrams, i don't think we need to count her out. i think she will find aath for herself. she is a political talent. i think the democrats can find something for stacey abrams. it is just not clear what will be. >> how long can biden hold off on 2024 if we see a republican -- >> he says he's in no rush. i'm sure the party is in a rush. 2024 has already started. he will take some time over the

holidays, it will be a family decision. perhaps at the end of the year he will. but not yet. >> but you will be asking him? >> every chance. >> we have to leave it there. thank you to our panel for reporting. for you at home, thanks for joining us. tune in saturday to pbs news weekend. geoff bennett talks to maxwell frost, the first person from generation z elected to congress. and finally, to all of our men and women who served the nation in uniform today and always, we salute you, and we owe you our deepest gratitude. good night from washington. >> corporate funding for washington week is provided by -- consumer cellular. additional funding is provided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. sandra and carl and elaine

magnuson. rose hirschel and andy shreeves. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

announcer: major funding for "tell me more with kelly corrigan" is provided by the quad family foundation, susan and david tunnell donor advised fund through the san francisco foundation, and by the gordon and llura gund foundation. ♪ what can a citizen do? that is the question of this moment. what agency does any one of us have to get smart, think bigger, and activate our communities? for 3 decades, dave eggers has been trying to wake us up to the way things are and the way things could be. he's a journalist, an independent publisher, the voice behind 15 books for adults and another 10 for children, but perhaps most importantly, he is one of the founders of 826 valencia and scholar match, which support thousands upon thousands of kids