Julia hymen is watching the markets as stocks climb on the republican victories. We begin with a reporter round table on the midterm elections. White house cordens Phil Mattingly and margaret have analysis has america looks at a new political dynamic for barack obama. Phil, let me start with you. Did the white house really not see this coming . No, mark. I think they had a good sense of what was going to happen, especially over the days leading up to the election. I do think that it ended up being the wave, the wave, the number of seats that have gone down, seven already with the possibility of two more was more than any democrats were able to comprehend going into this. But the president s Political Team had stayed in pretty close touch with the Congressional Campaign committees and had been briefing him regularly. He was calling for numbers throughout the day. Was interested in it. Mark, they had a sense it was coming. Just didnt maybe grasp the scope of it. Margaret, where did the democrats of the white house get this wrong . Well, i mean so much of it was that they just werent able to do what they were trying to do well enough. They had to engage voter sentiment. They knew they were up against it because so many of those states that were pivotal to the senate were states that voted against barack obama. He was additional unpopular and that hurt them. And some democrats ability to turn out the way they wanted to just didnt succeed. While republicans were able to turn out in much stronger democrats than the democrats. As you well know this isnt first time the president s been humbled during midterm leakses. It happened to ronald reagan, bill clinton, george w. Bush. How does an administration begin to regroup when the voters have so clearly said they are not thrilled with your performance . The president will focus on his priorities which are trying to sustain obamacare and trying to do something on immigration reform. Probably quickly before the republicans take over. Then hell look for any areas ever compromises. It will probably be things like infrastructure. Roads. Economic austerity. That sort of stuffer. Phil, the congressional leadership from both parties will be at the white house on friday. For the cameras its going to be the picture of compromise. As you know theres been six years ever resentment and mistrust and lack of intrigue. Will president obamas last two years in office be the very definition of lame duck . Hes on the verge of it, mark. I think when you talk about relationships with members of congress, thats an area where the white house has just simply not done the job over the last six years. As you mentioned, theres a bunch of lawmakers coming in on friday. Margaret mentioned while she was chuckling there are small bore areas of bipartisan compromise that are sitting out there for them to come to agreement on. However, every republican lawmaker and staffer that i have talked to over the last couple days makes the same point, there is no trust. There is no trust whatsoever that the white house is serious. White house officials scoff at that remark, its real. Its very real in the republican conference. On the democratic side, its almost as bad right now. Look, the president overhauled his legislative affairs team and its made a difference. A positive difference. The relationship onetoone between the president himself and lawmakers is nonexistent on the democratic side. And that has had major, Major Concerns on the congressional side of things and is not helping them move anything forward any time soon. Phil, mark, it is true. Theres not a whole lot of love loss at this point between the president s team and harry reids team, for example. You see so many of these lawmakers like mary landrieu, who are just tremendously frustrated by the position some of the president s policies have put them in. Her entering into a runoff. Mark warner, so extremely close in this race that should not have been that close. And you dont see the president theres not that pass of the background of the president having Close Relationships that will pull them through. Its one thing to have control of congress. Now republicans must show they can govern but do this with one eye on the white house in 2016. How can the g. O. P. Lead knowing that any accommodation they might make with the president might be perceived as traitorous or capitulation by their right . When you look at it, it is the sort of capitulations or deal makings that may carry republicans forward in a general election. The problem is then the republican who wants to run for president has to get through the primary. That will be the balancing act. How to how do you impress your party enough to make it to the next act without alienating swing voters. Phil, does the road to the white house for the republicans go through texas and ted cruz . It might. Hes definitely hes almost certainly going to run. Hes got the infrastructure to to it. He set up a team to do it. Now hes going to have the platform over the next two years. I think hes been somewhat quiet over the last couple months. Wasnt heavy on the campaign trail. Wasnt making a lot of inflammatory statements. Over the last three days thats changed. Hes grabbed the mantle again to really kind of put a lot of pressure on soontobe Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell. Setting the tone for where hes going to be the next two years of the ted cruz is a player here whether you like it or not if youre a republican. Phil, margaret, thanks so much. Live to louisville, kentucky, presumptive Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell speaking to reporters. Worked on with the university over the last 20 years. Best and biest program for the students inside kentucky, nonresidents, 10 each year. They are here today to witness what we may talk about. Let me just make a couple of observations. I think what the voters were saying yesterday was a couple of things. Number one, they are obviously not satisfied with the direction of the administration. But at the same time i heard a lot of discussion about dysfunction in washington. I think there are a lot of people who believe that just because you have divided government it doesnt mean you dont accomplish anything. Earlier today i got a call from the president. Also from senator reid and the speaker. And ted cruz, too. Which i thought you would be interested in. All of whom i think have the view that ought to see what areas of agreement there are and see if we can make some progress for the country. I always like to remind people that divided governments not unusual in this country. Weve had it frequently. I think maybe even more often than not since world war ii. When the American People choose a divided government, i dont think it means they dont want us to do anything. I dont think it means tshi think it means they want us to look for areas of agreement. Reagan never had the house in eight years. Clinton didnt have the house or sfat during six of his eight years. I can think of at least four fairly significant things done. Reagan and tip oneill saved Social Security for a generation. The last comprehensive tax reform. Need to do that again. Bill clinton and the republicans had welfare reform. And balanced the budget three years in a row. I think we ought to start with the view that maybe there are some things we can agree on to make progress for the country. On an institutional point of view, the senate needs to be fixed. I made a speech back in january, not widely covered, probably shouldnt have been widely covered, but a lot of people inside the senate paid a lot of attention to it. The senate in the last few years basically doesnt do anything. We couldnt even dont even vote. Senator begich, who may have been defeated yesterday, had the handicap of trying to explain to the people of alaska why in six years he hasnt had a roll call vote on the floor on an amendment. The first thing i need to do is to get the senate back to normal. That means working more. I tonight think we have had any votes on friday in anybodys memory. It means opening the senate up so that amendments are permitted on both sides. And it means occasionally burning the midnight oil in order to reach a conclusion. I can remember the way we used to get bills finished was the majority leader to announce on monday we were taking up a particular bill and we were going to finish it. Finish it thursday night, friday morning, or saturday, but you have to mean it. And its amazing what happened around midnight on thursday. People who were very aggressive on Tuesday Morning were awfully anxious to leave friday morning. And amendments would go away and bills would pass. Another thing is to have the committees be relevant again. If a bill comes out of committee on a bipartisan basis, that means you got both democrats and republicans who are interested in seeing it pass. So a bipartisan constituency for moving forward. Now, having said that, there are differences. And we will certainly be voting on things as well that we think the administration is not fond of. They seem to have had no interest, for example, in doing anything serious on the energy front. We havent had an energy bill in seven years. When you say energy these days, people think of the Keystone Pipeline. But thats only part of it. We need to embrace the Energy Revolution thats going on if in our country. Promote it. Its hugely advantageous to america. Not only in the area of Energy Independence but employment. I mean the employment figures connected with keystone are stunning. If we would just get going. So interests certainly going to be areas of disagreement, but thats not unusual going back to the founding of the country. So with that let me just throw it open. Based on what the message of the voters was, many say they want to see gridlock end. What can you do, and can you assure the American People that gridlock can end under your leadership . The senate was the problem. Not the house. The house passed over 300 pieces of legislation. Many of them on a bipartisan basis. And nothing was done with them in the senate. The American People have changed the senate. So i think we have an obligation to change the behavior of the senate and to begin to function again. That doesnt guarantee that the president s going to agree with everything we do, but we are going to go back to work and actually pass legislation. I, by the way, have been called by three prominent democrats since last night. Prominent democrats. The presumptive Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell of kentucky speaking at the university of louisville. A day after the republicans won the majority in the senate. Of course they held on to their majority in the house of representatives. The republicans now controlling the United States congress. Bloombergs White House Correspondentent staying with me on set through senator mcconnells comments. Margaret, he said the American People have changed the senate. We have an obligation to change the behavior of the senate. Easier said than done. I heard him say two things. Number one, they are going to press ahead on the Keystone Pipeline as soon as he gets a chance. Number two, he wanted the senate to get back to normal. Its important to remember that it is actually senator mcconnell who sort of perfected the art form of the filibuster threat starting back in 2007 that helped get the senate to the situation its in today. Margaret, thank you so much. Good to see you. Again this press conference with senator mcconnell senator mcconnell is being live streamed on the web. You can see it there. Stay with bloomberg as we bring you live coverage and analysis of president obamas News Conference and his take on the election day fallout. Mark and john of Bloomberg Politics will anchor our coverage scheduled for 2 50 p. M. New york time. Bottom line on Bloomberg Television coming up more on the results of the midterm elections. Well take a closer look at the mandate ahead for republicans and for the white house. Well be right back. Welcome back. Republicans were able to take advantage of a wave of voter discontent to take back control of the u. S. Senate. Joining me from washington are jim, senior trector of Communications Practice at Quinn Gillespie and associates. And john. Gentlemen, welcome to bottom line. Jim, let me start with you. What happened last night . I dont think i can put it as succinctly as that. What happened to the democrats . Im not going to try to sugarcoat it. We took a beating last night. Nothing more, nothing less. So its going to be up to us now to try to regroup and figure out where to go. But no doubt about it. We took a hard hit last night. Ron, as was mentioned during my conversation with our White House Correspondent margaret, this isnt first time that a president s been humbled by the voters in the mid terms. President s reagan, clinton, and george w. Bush went through this as well. Its to the so much now what it means for the party in control of congress. Its what it means for the last two years of the obama administration. As part of his legacy now going to be having to compromise with the republican majority . Well just have to wait and see how president obama will handle this. I will say that the voters voted on president obamas policies. And the president said that himself. They also voted against gridlock. They voted against inaction in washington. When senator reid would go to the house floor and pound the koch brothers, they didnt want any of that. They wanted actual progress. That wasnt happening. And they also blamed the president for that, too. So now that republicans have the majority, they have a chabs to chance to work with the president in a bipartisan way. We still have a brand building to do. Voters didnt necessarily vote for republicans. So we need to convince them that we are able to govern correctly. Jim, was last night as kentucky senator rand paul said, a repudiation of president obamas policy and leadership . No. I honestly dont think thats the case. I think it was repudiation against the gridlock and paralysis that currently envelopes washington. A dynamic by the way, i think was engendered by senator mcconnell. That was his strategy all along. He sillfully used it to run against it. I do not believe it was focused specifically on the president. Jim, as you know, a lot of the pundits were saying last night what we have is an economy that appears to be gaining momentum but not being felt by a majority of americans. Sure, wall streets doing well, profits are up. Corporate people are doing fine. What about the average american . They are still struggling. Isnt the president in their view to blame for that because his party is in the white house and was in control of the senate, at least up until last night . Well, i mean i got to tell you ive got more than a few criticisms about the president. I think and his team. I think hes done a good job of trying to steer the economy out of what was a debacle in 2007, 2008 with the greatest recession since the great depression. I understand that people still arent feeling it. Certainly if you look at the polls thats certainly the case. Again i think that the administrations done as good a job as they can. Ron, senator mcconnell once said his goal was to make president obama a oneterm president. He did not succeed on that front, but is his goal now to frustrate a politically weakened president at every turn . Or will he, as some analysts have suggested, look to cement his own legacy by looking for ways to compromise with the white house . I think its the latter. The republicans in the house and senate have exactly one year to put together legislative accomplishments before the president ial 2016 cycle takes over. And they cant start thinking about whos going to be sitting in the oval office. There is a list of legislation that they need to develop. I think that Speaker Boehner and Mitch Mcconnell should come out together with a united agenda and say this is what we are going to work on on behalf of the American People. This is what we want to work with the president on and Start Building that over the next year. Its not going to be easy. There will be problems. I think thats the way. Speaking of corporate america, im looking at my bloomberg terminal, the markets up today. The markets like the results of last nights election . I think that as i understand it, traditionally the markets go up the day after an election whether its a democrat or republican. Again, i think that if you look at it, this administration has been very, very good to wall street once we got out of the 2008 era recession. Its difficult to argue against the numbers. Jim manly, senior director of Communications Practice at quinn and gillespie, and ron bonnjean, the founder of the company. Both joining me from washington. Thank you for your time and perspective. Appreciate it. Up next, well check the post election trading. Our senior markets correspondent has an onthe markets update. We are approaching 26 minutes past the hour. That means that broomberg television is on the markets. Heres our senior markets correspondent julie hyman. The story on bloomberg. Com tells the story. U. S. Stocks rose as republicans won control of the senate. There is optimism, mark, that with that control will come some more business friendly legislation and perhaps repeal of legislation that was perceived as not business friendly. Could we see, for example, an excise tax on commal device makers be repealed. Still an open question but there is that perception thats affecting the market today. Energy and utility stocks gain the pose in the session. The dow and s p at records. Lets also talk about earnings because this continues to be part of the story as well when we are talking about stocks. Timewarner shares on the list of stocks moving on earnings. The stocks up after the <