Mario Echigo

The word is out about the Election Night Watch Party at the White House on Tuesday. For weeks, Trump had been assured by Susie Wiles and his staff that all the polls were wrong, and that, once again, the Blue Wave would only be a ripple, if one even showed up at all. And the DOJ was ready to pounce on it if it did. Trump, after all, was on the ballot. "Vote like I'm on the ballot,' he said, "Because I am." He told every rally that. He said it on FOX. He had a 90% approval rate, he said. And $5000 checks for everybody. What could possibly go wrong? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . So the East Room was decked out with the finest crystal and china. Staffers thought it would be a fun "cheeky rebuke" to order in platters of finger food from Cheesecake Factory. Just to give a finger to Barack Obama, for his viral joke about Trump’s gaudy renovations to the White House. EVERYONE showed up in their party clothes. His Staff. His Cabinet. Top GOP politicians. Donors. But there was no Host or Hostess to greet them. Which was a little odd. The guests mingled among themselves, and waited to be formally welcomed and invited to sample the refreshments. Where were Trump and Melania? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trump waited upstairs in his residence, in order to make a grand entrance to a standing ovation with cheers, once the happy results started pouring in. And was Melania also waiting upstairs, to march in at his side? Nope. Melania was not at the White House at all. On election night, the most anticipated night in politics, with the rest of her husband's term on the line, Melania was somewhere else. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Finally at 8:00 the first election results came in. But during that entire first hour, not ONE Republican was named. It was only Democrat after Democrat, starting with Jon Ossoff. Trump never came downstairs. At all. Marco Rubio was the first to go missing, according to the Daily Mail. Then, one by one, the rest of the party goers slipped out the door. Only two hours later, an enormous decision was called. Democrats had flipped the House of Representatives to their control. And in most cases, the Democrats won, not by slim majorities, but by double digits. It was 10:00, and the East Room was empty. The party goers had gone to a nearby Washington bar to drown their sorrows. The Cheesecake Factory food lay untouched on the East Room tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And Trump? He was upstairs watching the results on FOX News, and posting angrily on Truth Social. He wasn't alone. No, Melania wasn't with him. But Natalie Harp was. The Daily Mail reports that Susie Wiles, his Chief of Staff was upstairs as well. The one who had assured him day after day that Republicans would win. By 11 pm, Trump stopped posting. “He’s watching Fox News barely uttering a word and paralyzed into silence,” a source close to the president told the Daily Mail. “It’s very, very dark in the residence,” one senior official said of Trump’s mood. “It’s a dark scene.” Another source said, “They were delusional right until the very end.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From the Daily Mail