President Obama will speak Wednesday afternoon on the midterm elections that saw his party lose the Senate in a rebuke to his leadership.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said via Twitter early Wednesday that the president would convene a news conference at the White House.
The press conference will take place at 2:50 p.m. in the White House’s East Room.
Obama will have to address his plans for the last two years of his presidency, during which he will have to deal with a newly reinforced Republican Party from which he is no longer shielded by a Democratic-run Senate. The GOP picked up enough seats in the upper chamber in Tuesday’s election to ensure that a Republican, likely Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, will replace Harry Reid, D-Nev., as majority leader.
House Speaker John Boehner said late Tuesday evening, as it became clear that his party would control Congress, that he hoped Obama would work with the new Republican majority.
Boehner claimed that GOP “proposals provide an opportunity for President Obama to begin the last two years of his presidency by taking some bipartisan steps toward a stronger economy.”
It was in a press conference following the 2010 midterm elections that Obama acknowledged that he had suffered a “shellacking” as Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives. The president will likely aim to avoid a similar concession Wednesday, after the GOP expanded its House membership to the greatest size since the Truman administration.
