It's possible that the Dems would have held the House, barely, if the New York Democratic party hadn't completely screwed up redistricting, so that's maybe a "soft false." I think what he means by "charismatic" is someone like Reagan who appeals to the other side of the aisle (Reagan Democrats in this case); Trump is only charismatic to his own followers. I consider the Afghanistan withdrawal to be, overall, a highly positive thing; yes, it was handled badly, but it's the easiest thing in the world to keep a forever war going, and at least there Biden put a stop to it, so I give him high marks for that at least. Anyway, I wonder if that is considered a foreign policy failure; I don't, but others might. Not trying to blindly defend Lichtman or anything, just trying to cling to whatever shred of hope remains. I think it ends up sort of being how Lichtman himself interprets the keys a month or two before election day.
EDIT: Rereading key #1, "After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections," I guess that even if the NY Dems hadn't screwed up there probably would have been a smaller majoirty than before, ergo false.