It has not yet been officially declared, but it looks increasingly likely that Republicans will have gained majority control of the House, albeit only by a slim margin, once all of the still-outstanding congressional races have been decided.

President Joe Biden appeared to acknowledge on Monday that Democrats had lost their control of the House in the midterm elections during a press conference ahead of the G20 summit in Indonesia, Fox News reported.

The admission from Biden came in relation to a question about his previously pledged plans to try to legislatively codify abortion rights at the federal level, something that is highly unlikely to happen now that Republicans will control half of the legislative branch.

Biden’s list of pre-selected reporters … again

President Biden opened the press conference on Monday in Bali with his assessment of last week’s midterm elections which seemed to indicate that he believed Democrats and “democracy” had largely emerged victorious.

He then proceeded to take just a few questions from only four reporters whose names were on a list that had been provided to him, and attempted to end the event after he had called upon those four reporters.

NBC News’s Peter Alexander wasn’t one of those reporters on Biden’s list, according to Fox News, but he shouted out a question anyways at the conclusion of the press conference and actually earned a reply from the president.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it”

The reporter shouted, “Mr. President, what should Americans expect from Congress as it relates to abortion rights after the midterms?”

“I don’t think they can expect much of anything other than we’re going to maintain our positions,” Biden replied. “I’m not going to get into more questions. I shouldn’t even have answered your question.”

Undeterred by that retort, Alexander pressed the matter and reminded Biden of his vow to try and codify abortion rights, but Biden shut that down by acknowledging that he would lack the numbers in Congress to achieve that goal.

“I don’t think there’s enough votes to codify, unless something happens unusual in the House. I think we’re going to get very close in the House. But I don’t — I think it’s going to be very close, but I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Biden said.

Finally acknowledges reality

The Hill reported that this appeared to be the first time that President Biden had acknowledged the likely reality that Republicans had gained control of the House, as just prior to his departure for the international trip he had assured reporters that Democratic chances of retaining control of the House were “still alive.”

Biden and the Democrats had made codifying abortion rights a top priority during the midterm elections, to arguably mixed success, and it is true that a Republican-controlled House pretty much assures that the goal won’t be achieved, at least not in the next two years, along with so many other Democratic legislative plans that may have been laid out for the second half of Biden’s term as president.