President Donald Trump has a plan for the Democratic majorities heading to Capitol Hill, and it fits on a red hat.
Trump pledged to veto legislation he called “insane” after Democrats seized control of both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections held Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. He made the promise by phone to Fox News during its live election-night coverage, “FOX News Democracy 26.” Late Tuesday night, he posted an image of a red hat stamped with the word “Veto” to Truth Social.
“They’ll send over things that are insane, and I’ll veto them,” Trump said.
After a couple of months of vetoes, he predicted, Democrats would start asking how to get things done, and the two sides would work together.
Several Democratic lawmakers have already reached out to him, Trump said. He said he was somewhat surprised by the number of races Democrats won, and that he maintains friendships across the aisle. He also said he would not give ground on issues including border policy and transgender ideology, and that the election results would not prompt him to change his Cabinet.
He Blames the Gasoline Price
“I don’t think it’s the war, Bret, I think it’s the gasoline price,” Trump told Bret Baier of Fox News.
Part of the Republican losses traced back to Iran, Trump said, while arguing that voters grasped why he acted. Many Americans largely backed the war but balked at paying more at the pump, he said. He defended the decision as the only way to keep the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and he said his policy toward Tehran would prove historically more important than the night’s results.
He had praise for the other side, saying Democrats fought hard, did a good job and had been fighting him for a very long time. Some of the candidates he endorsed, he said, alienated his base by opposing him. He argued that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lost to a Democrat because Abbott had behaved less like a conservative in recent months. In a Truth Social post, Trump said Republicans would have won in a landslide had his own name appeared on the ballot.
Why Overriding Him Takes 290 Votes
Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution gives the president the power to reject bills passed by Congress, and Democrats cannot simply vote around him. Lawmakers can override a veto only with two-thirds of the members voting in each chamber — 290 votes if all 435 House members cast ballots, and 67 if all 100 senators do. The chamber where a bill originated votes first. If the override fails there, the other chamber never takes it up.
There is a quieter route, too. A bill the president neither signs nor returns within 10 days, excluding Sundays, becomes law without his signature.
The new majorities bring powers that no veto pen touches. Democrats will steer congressional investigations, government oversight, federal spending and Senate confirmations. Trump keeps his executive authority over trade, foreign policy and the federal bureaucracy, and he can still sign executive orders.
Seven Senate Seats Flip
Democrats flipped seven Republican-held Senate seats on their way to control of both chambers, among them Maine, where Troy Jackson beat Sen. Susan Collins, and Texas, where James Talarico beat Ken Paxton. In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa also unseated Gov. Greg Abbott. Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Senate race and will be the nation’s first Muslim senator, and Keisha Lance Bottoms won the governor’s race in Georgia, where she will be the state’s first Black governor and its first woman governor.
Elon Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing Republican congressional candidates. Florida Gov.-elect Byron Donalds, one of the Republicans who did win, will be the state’s first Black governor. In Tehran, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Americans had “said NO TO WAR.” Trump said House Speaker Mike Johnson “has done a very good job” but stopped short of fully endorsing him to keep leading House Republicans. The new Congress convenes in January 2027.
Trump, for his part, refused to call it a defeat. “I don’t like to consider it a defeat,” he said.
