By Rachel Roberts
Contributing Writer
President Donald Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that the Iran war played a role in his Republican Party’s resounding defeat in the midterm elections, as Democrats won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
“I think a part of it was Iran,” Trump told Fox News.
“Iran was a piece of it,” he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Trump stood by his decision for the United States to join Israel in attacking Iran, despite the heavy election losses that are likely to make the remaining two years of his second term a very difficult time for the president to pass new legislation.
“I did the right thing,” he told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. “I would have done it again.”
Vance: ‘Everyone Knows’
Vice President J.D. Vance gave his blunt verdict on the election result on X on Wednesday.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance wrote in a lengthy post.
“If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”
The vice president said he remained “hopeful about our country.”
Vance urged Republicans who are angry because they had warned that this would happen, “Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.”
The war, now in its ninth month, has been deeply unpopular with Americans since it began, with Trump’s rhetoric alternating between threats to ramp up U.S. military strikes and statements that he was ready to end the conflict.
Democratic candidates out on the campaign trail across the country blamed the war for driving up the cost of gas and other essential goods.
‘International Blackmailers’
Iranian officials reacted on Wednesday to the election results.
“Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message,” Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, wrote on X. “If the U.S. govt betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare.”
Democrats made significant gains in traditionally solidly Republican states, capturing the governorships of Texas, Georgia, Iowa and Ohio. Among the most striking Democratic gains were in Texas, where Republicans have held the governor’s office since 1994, and Georgia, which had not elected a Democratic governor since 2002.
Following the verdict of the American people, many in the Middle East and politicians around the world are now waiting to see how the results could affect the Iran war.
Iranian leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, whose father and predecessor was killed in the opening strikes of the war in February, cast doubt on any major change in the U.S. approach to the Islamic Republic.
“If there are still those who harbor even a slight hope for a change in behavior or partisan and factional shifts within the system of domination, or who imagine that by giving concessions to America they can dissuade it from hostility toward the Iranian nation, they are gravely mistaken,” he said in a statement posted to his social media channels.
The wider region has been on edge for weeks over the prospect of the United States resuming full-scale military operations against Iran.
Trump has alternated between threatening major military action and saying he wants to secure a peace deal.
Talks aimed at preventing renewed fighting are continuing, while other U.S. allies in the region have urged Washington not to resume the war, which began more than eight months ago, causing huge disruptions to the global economy.
Despite repeated diplomatic efforts and ceasefire agreements, military confrontation has continued in southern Iran and around the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a social media post that Americans had sent a clear message and warned Washington against ignoring it. The spokesman said that if the United States continues the war, “the consequences of this grave miscalculation will extend far beyond what you have already witnessed.”
Thousands marched through Tehran on Wednesday at a demonstration organized by the regime to commemorate the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy.
Hostage Crisis Anniversary
Effigies of Trump and Netanyahu were displayed alongside caricatures of the two leaders. Demonstrators burned American and Israeli flags and chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, taking American diplomats and other citizens hostage, with 52 Americans held for 444 days before they were released.
The hostage crisis cemented the rupture between the two countries, which have had no formal diplomatic relations since 1980.
The United States and Israel began their war against Iran on Feb. 28, killing the country’s longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and triggering a conflict that has disrupted global energy markets and shipping through the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway.
Addressing the crowd on Wednesday, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani said the United States and Israel had collectively suffered a resounding defeat, which he said was also reflected in last week’s Israeli elections.
“The decisive defeat of the United States and the Zionist regime in recent developments and elections is the result of the Iranian nation’s steadfastness and strength,” Zakani said.
The U.S. elections took place one day after what appeared to be a limited strike on Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas transited before the war. Iran has sought to choke off shipping to put pressure on Washington to lift its blockade of Iranian ports.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
