[Obama] played as the puzzled observer. He was asked about the meaning of the election, and he said “I’ll leave to others the reading of tea leaves.” Was this really a subtle result? Was this sort of complicated and nuanced? This was the worst wall-to-wall, national, unmistakable, unequivocal shellacking that you will ever see in a midterm election, and it happened on just about every level. You’ve got in the House the Republicans now have the largest majority since 1929.

In the Senate, the Democrats have lost seven, probably nine, and by huge margins, McConnell is supposed to be neck-and-neck, he won by 15 points, Arkansas 18 points. And then the — the one excuse the Republicans have is “well this election was played on their home turf, on red turf.” Well, you know, Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois are not exactly red states. All of them elected, shockingly, Republican governors. “The Economist” called this a massacre and Obama says, “I don’t read tea leaves,” and remember, what he said about the election. It’s about his policies, everywhere, every single one. Of course it was about him, of course it was his ideology and the execution of his leadership. This was a wall-to-wall rejection of Obama-ism and he pretended that this was an election that didn’t have a lot of meaning because two-thirds of the electorate didn’t show up.

The race I liked the most was the one in Maryland, where I live, where the Lt. Governor Anthony Brown was considered such a shoo-in, no one spoke about the Maryland race. No one. You didn’t hear a word, and the Republican, Larry Hogan, came out of nowhere. He won by 8 points. This tells you — the reason I like it, it shows the extent of this political event into the bluest of the blue, Maryland. It wasn’t a tea leaf election. It was a nuclear explosion.

The senator responded to the “F” grade that the NAACP gave him on its legislative scorecard.

“Well, let’s just ask ourselves if we look back over history when the Congress was controlled by the Democrats for 40 consecutive years. If we look at the result of that control what has happened in black America? We saw greater poverty. If we take the statistics from 1970s to the 21st century, what we see very clearly is that poverty’s gone from 11 percent to 15 percent. These are classic examples that the policies of the left have not worked,” Scott said.

“I will tell you that if I have an F on the NAACP’s scorecard, it’s because I believe that progress has to be made, and the government is not the answer for progress.”

Stephanopolous asked: “How do you respond to the argument, a future president comes in and wants lower taxes. Doesn’t happen. Congress won’t do it; so he says ‘I’m not going to prosecute those who don’t pay capital gains tax.’”

“The truth of the matter is George,” said the President, haltingly, “The reason that we, have to do.. uhm prosecutorial discretion in immigration, is that we know, that we – are not even close to being able to deal with the folks who have been here a long time…” Obama then pivoted to immigration talking points, without addressing the original question.

“The vast majority of folks understand that they need to pay taxes, and when we conduct an audit, for example, we are selecting those folks who are most likely to be cheating,” said Obama. “We’re not going after millions and millions of people who everybody knows are here and were taking advantage of low wages as they’re mowing lawns or cleaning out bedpans, and looking the other way.”

“So you don’t think it’d be legitimate for a future president to make that argument?” Stephanopoulos said.

Obama: “With respect to taxes? Absolutely not.”