NBC's "Meet The Press" anchor Chuck Todd put the onus mostly on Harry Reid for the Republican wave that has swept Washington.
"I think there are two people to blame here for this — for the problems the Democrats have. You can say President Obama is one," he said. "Harry Reid is the other,"
The Daily Caller reported.
Todd made the comments during MSNBC's election night coverage with Rachel Maddow and panelists including Al Sharpton looking on.
Some liberal-leaning commentators have been hesitant to describe the GOP's capture of the Senate and its expanded control of the House to post-World War II levels as a wave. Todd was not one of them.
"This is a wave tonight. Let's not beat around the bush. This is a wave. This is a big win. They could get up to nine seats, I think when you look at it. That's big," said Todd, who is also political director for NBC News.
He continued, "This was clearly Republican momentum. ... They'll have the largest House majority since World War II. Maybe they find another seat and it's the largest number of Republicans in the House of Representatives since 1928."
Todd went on, "I don't know what else you want to come up to with the definition of a wave. Listen to this stat. Bruce Rauner, the new Republican governor elect in Illinois, first time the home state governor lost re-election since 1892."
To which Rachel Maddow replied, "Wow."
Todd then summed up: "I think there are two people to blame here for this — for the problems the Democrats have. You can say President Obama is one. Harry Reid is the other. How he ran the U.S. Senate and he did this to protect all these guys from taking tough votes, it hurt Mark Pryor, it hurt Mary Landrieu."
Elsewhere on
NBC, Todd said that even if Hillary Clinton managed to win the presidency in 2016, Republicans had secured the House and that it was hard to imagine their "firewall" wouldn't hold "for the rest of this decade."