Stephen Cusack

My Times Radio monologue on The Times at One with ANDREW NEIL today: @TimesRadio Vote as if my name is on the ballot, President Trump urged Americans in the run up to yesterday’s midterm elections.  Americans did as they were told — and delivered the most decisive repudiation of a sitting president in modern times.  Make no mistake this was a referendum on Donald Trump — which he lost, big time.  His Republican Party was washed away by a blue wave in the House and the Senate. The Democrats will now have comfortable working majorities in both.  There are still about 60 House seats to report. You need 218 for a majority. The Democrats already have 231. They’re projected to end up with 258 — the widest House victory margin since 1993. In terms of the House popular vote, the Democratic share was 54%, the Republicans 44%. It doesn’t get much more definitive than that.  The Senate was a tougher nut to crack. But with two seats still to report the Democrats have picked up seven gains, lost none, giving them a 54:44 clear majority.  Mr Trump immediately defaulted to rewriting history. As he does. ‘I wasn’t on the ballot,’ he suddenly claimed. ‘If I was, we would have won BY A LANDSLIDE.’  Of course by his own words we know that not to be true.  The man in the Oval Office is almost entirely to blame for his party’s defeat.  At a time when ordinary American families — the kind who re-elected Trump in 2024 — were reeling from soaring prices at the petrol pump and supermarket check-out counter, Trump was droning on about a reflecting pool in Washington, men’s bodies and his White House ballroom project. Compared to Trump’s delusional campaigning, Marie Antoinette had the common touch.  He had been elected on a promise to foreswear forever wars, especially in the Middle East. A year after his inauguration he launched yet another forever war — in the Middle East.  He promised to get on top of inflation. It rose. All the higher because of what his attack on Iran did to fuel prices. And because his tariffs pushed up prices too.  China would pay the tariffs, he insisted. It was always a lie. By the time they voted yesterday Americans knew it to be a lie. They, not the Chinese, were picking up the tab.  A massive nationwide poll taken yesterday found that 90% of voters saw the cost of living — affordability — the biggest midterm issue. They thought Trump’s war and his tariffs had made inflation worse.  Six in 10 specifically mentioned the price of food, petrol, diesel; 60% opposed his war, which was unpopular from day one and grown even more unpopular.  Trump responded with a tin ear. ‘Inflation is solved’, he insisted, bizarrely, as the campaign came to an end. Americans knew otherwise.   There are times when the Trump administration and its cronies look like the ruling class in the Hunger Games — living the life of Reilly in palatial splendour and bling while most folk struggle to make a living.  Corruption was an issue in these elections for over 70% of voters.  They see the Trump administration as something of a kleptocracy, the Trump family and its cronies enriching themselves with lucrative multi-billion dollar deals with foreign potentates and billionaires while plain folk struggled with diesel at over $6 a barrel.  Thus did Trump reap what he had sowed. The Democrats won all their target Senate seats and a few others — Kansas, South Carolina — besides.  They will have a majority in the House beyond their wildest dreams.