Trump Responds to Midterm Elections by Creating His Own Alternate Universe

It looks like Donald Trump got about five hours of sleep last night, because as of 6:21 a.m. on Wednesday morning he was up and tweeting furiously about the midterms, which to hear him tell it, were absolutely a Big Win for him (they weren’t).

In case you were asleep for most of yesterday evening and all of last night (sounds nice!), here’s a very quick recap: Democrats took the House in a resounding victory. In the Senate, however, things were more grim. Ted Cruz held off Beto O’Rourke, Rick Scott won in Florida, and the Republicans actually increased their majority. The governors’ races were a mixed bag: Andrew Gillum lost in Florida but so did Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, and Democrat Jared Polis won in Colorado. Democrat Stacey Abrams is down about two points in Georgia but is refusing to concede, waiting for uncounted votes to come through.

Trump, however, would like you to know that it was all him, baby, Winning Big.

When the Democrats secured a majority in the House, the discussion turned to the House’s ability to run investigations of the president (Rachel Maddow pivoted MSNBC’s discussion to Russia so fast I almost forgot it was election night for a few minutes, but anyway.)

Per CNN, Democrats in the House are now free to pop off on a whole host of issues they’ve been prevented from investigating for years:

Democrats will surely use their subpoena power to change all this, aiming it at executive branch agencies, top Trump agency officials, and the Trump business. Just for a start:

House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) made it clear when he was in the minority that he wanted to open a more aggressive Russia investigation.

House Ways and Means Chair Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) could well try to get Trump’s tax returns.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) could investigate Trump’s Saudi Arabia policy in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) will be on the lookout for inappropriate interference with the Justice Department.

Trump would like you to know that he is Not Mad about this at all and plans to Use the Senate.

That’s… not exactly the point. The Senate has investigatory powers as well, but the point is that before last night, the Democrats didn’t have a majority stake in either chamber of Congress. Now they do. Republicans already had control of the Senate and likely know that the nebulous “leaks of Classified Information, and much else,” are a far weaker case than, say, demanding the president’s tax returns or looking into his extremely sketchy business dealings.