Video taking off 27x its usual first day

Trump tells WSJ: "It's just the way the ball bounces sometimes"

Josh Dawsey's account of an election-night call includes a pledge to work with Democrats and no plans to fire administration officials.

Channel:

The Wall Street Journal Story of November 5, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 375,872 views a day, 27 times a normal first day on this channel (13,699).

Trump on Midterms: ‘It’s Just the Way the Ball Bounces Sometimes’

Donald Trump planned no administration firings after Republicans' widespread midterm losses, according to The Wall Street Journal's Josh Dawsey. That included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in whom the president expressed confidence.

Dawsey called Trump as he watched the results from the White House on Tuesday night. His short report captures a president accepting the outcome without accepting it as a personal rebuke, even as Republican states including Texas, South Carolina and Kansas delivered Democratic victories.

Trump pointed partly to the Iran war and high oil and gas prices. But Dawsey reports that the president's central explanation was his own absence from the ballot, along with Republican candidates he considered unacceptable. "It's just the way the ball bounces sometimes, he said," Dawsey recounts.

The report had drawn roughly 348,000 views in 20 hours, an unusually large audience for a Journal Short. Its projected first-day reach was more than twenty times the channel's usual start for that format.

The Journal also found a substantial audience for "Democrats Won the Midterms. Here's What Comes Next." In that companion report, Damian Paletta turns from Trump's reaction to the consequences: a Democrat-led Congress and the Republican Party's direction beyond the president.

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