Biden White House Describes Mood as 'Defiant,' Tells Voters Who Chose the Other Party to 'Buckle Up'

WASHINGTON — As the last Senate seat of the night changed hands, an official in the Biden White House offered the administration's considered reaction to the loss of both chambers of Congress. It was two words: "Buckle up."

The official described the mood inside the building as "defiant," said the President's "resolve to fight" the new majority "will only grow stronger," and explained that the candidates who lost had been let down mostly by themselves. "The President did a better job promoting some of them than they did themselves," the official said, of candidates the President chose.

Asked about the two-thirds of voters who told pollsters the administration's policies had made the economy worse, the official said that anyone who voted for the other party "will have buyer's remorse when gas prices fall." The official did not name a date. Gas prices, reached for comment, said they had not been consulted on the schedule.

The statement arrived roughly an hour after Biden himself posted that his party would have won in a landslide if he had been a candidate, which he was not, a fact he had asked voters to overlook for the preceding month.

The Press's West Wing desk applies the standard test. When a White House of the other party answers a historic midterm defeat with "buckle up," the word "unhinged" appears in the second paragraph of every write-up and a cabinet secretary is dispatched to walk it back by lunch. Under Biden it is being filed under "message discipline." The seatbelt is identical.

At press time no one had clarified what, specifically, the country was being asked to buckle up for, though the official suggested it would become clear "soon."