It was a night when cable news seemed to turn on its head.
The “celebration can absolutely begin,” declared Rachel Maddow just after 10 p.m. Eastern on MS NOW, where she and a band of beaming liberal pundits had just projected a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives.
Two years ago, back when the network was called MSNBC, hangdog faces dominated as President Trump clinched one battleground state after the next. On Tuesday, Chris Hayes was looking giddy.
“There are races on the board right now that have no business whatsoever of being close,” he said, marveling at the reach of a blue wave that was sweeping even obscure Democratic candidates into Congress. “I’ve never seen these people’s names before! The Democrat — I’m like, ‘Who’s this dude?’”
It wasn’t long until actual candy was being passed around on set, and that was before the Democrats were projected to win the Senate, too. “The miasma of sugar coming off you guys!” Ms. Maddow said, teasingly, as Nicolle Wallace and Michael Steele giggled and acknowledged they had been sneaking some sweets.
Over on Fox News, the mood was subdued. The buoyancy of Mr. Trump’s 2024 election night was replaced with pensive exchanges about what it meant for the Republican Party to be repudiated so starkly.
In a rare concession, Sean Hannity, perhaps Mr. Trump’s most loyal television defender, acknowledged that the president’s foreign policy had proven politically unsound. Asked by Bret Baier if the war in Iran had changed the night’s outcome, Mr. Hannity replied: “One hundred percent. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.”
He described the shock defeat of Darline Graham, the Republican candidate for Senate in South Carolina, as “brutal.”
Laura Ingraham, another staunch Trump ally, called the American military intervention in Iran “really tough, and not well explained.” She added: “The people just don’t like war. They do not want to go to war.”
A number of Fox pundits invoked “history,” arguing that incumbent presidents frequently face tough midterm losses and implying that Mr. Trump did not deserve blame.
“The more dominant of a personality that a president is, the more dramatic of a loss in the midterm,” Mr. Hannity said, citing Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. “There is an ebb and flow.”
Karoline Leavitt, Mr. Trump’s former press secretary and now a Fox News contributor, complained that “the mainstream media wouldn’t cover” the president’s perceived achievements. (Another former press secretary, Dana Perino, interjected that Mr. Trump deserved some blame for not selling his agenda.)
Ms. Leavitt was quick to add that Fox News was an exception. But one notable network viewer may not have agreed.
Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Trump repeatedly lashed out at Fox News, calling its polling results “the worst” and claiming its ratings were “way down, not because of me, but because they are AGAINST me!”
At one point, he texted complaints directly to Greg Gutfeld, a co-host of “The Five,” who read his comments on the air. And shortly before midnight, Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Fox News bears responsibilities for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition.”
None of that stopped Mr. Trump from then calling in to Fox for a live on-air interview. He talked with Mr. Baier and Martha MacCallum for roughly half an hour.
Across all the broadcast and cable networks, it was apparent in the early hours of Tuesday’s coverage that the results were headed in one direction. Just before 9 p.m., as CNN’s John King zoomed in on House races in Ohio on his “Magic Wall” map, he told viewers, “Your eyes don’t lie.”
“That’s just a whole lot of blue,” Mr. King added.
Network executives were anticipating high interest for this year’s midterms. NBC announced it would provide 13 consecutive hours of coverage to its affiliates, more than doubling its coverage from election night in 2022.
NBC’s livestream of its data analyst Steve Kornacki punching at his touch-screen monitor turned into an instant hit. The YouTube stream of the “Kornacki Cam” had 335,000 viewers watching at one point, with commenters expressing their admiration of the NBC map man.
“im getting a kornacki tattoo in the morning,” one wrote. “Vote yes on prop Kornacki!” said another.
The MS NOW crew was enjoying itself, too. At one point, Ms. Maddow stepped away from the set; when she returned, she discovered that the channel’s decision desk had declared the Senate races in Ohio, South Carolina and Texas were all headed in the Democrats’ direction.
“I was gone for like 30 seconds,” Ms. Maddow said, to a chorus of laughter. “Would you like me to go away again?”
The post Candy and Smiles on MS NOW, and Some Regrets on Fox News appeared first on New York Times.
