If you look up video from early Wednesday morning of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy

explaining exactly what happened in the congressional midterm elections, you'd be forgiven

for thinking maybe the GOP had a pretty good night.

We are on the verge of historic gains in New York and Florida we gained four seats alone.

We are poised to sweep the entire state of Iowa.

It was 2am when McCarthy gave this speech.

Now let me tell you, you're out late.

So when you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in

the minority.

There were these little tells that this was not quite a victory party.

Like after McCarthy stopped speaking, the camera pans out and reveals the room he's been

talking to is only half full.

And New York Times opinion columnist Jamal Buie says, in spite of his bluster, by this

point in the evening, even McCarthy knew the gig was up.

Kevin McCarthy was predicting 50-60 seats.

If you're looking at a 50-seat gain, if you're looking at a 30-seat gain, you're going

to know pretty early on in the night.

And so when it is 9pm, I started really paying attention to returns at 8 o'clock after

finishing dishes, so it's 9pm and polls have closed across most of the country.

And it's unclear how many seats Republicans are gaining and whether they're going to have

control of Congress.

Then maybe it's not going to be such a good night.

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