US President, Donald Trump says it’s “largely true” the Iran war is behind his Republican Party’s midterm losses but he’d “do it again” if needed – what else did he say in his first on-camera comments?
Earlier, Vice-President JD Vance said the war was “the reason we lost”. Make no mistake, Vance is starting his pitch in the battle to succeed Trump.
The Democrats swept to victory in the midterms, decisively winning back the Senate and the House from Republicans – see the results in maps
Oil prices fell below $100 a barrel – to their lowest level in two months – in the wake of the result
Two Senate seats are yet to be called: in Mississippi, the parties are locked in an exceptionally tight race, while a slow counting process rumbles on in Alaska
Meanwhile, after its most bruising night in more than 30 years, the introspection – and finger pointing – have begun inside the Republican Party
Voters across the country had made it clear their ballots would be a reckoning for Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran.
Now some of his closest allies are distancing themselves from the conflict, most noticeably Vice-President JD Vance.
“The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote on social media. “And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”
It was a point which Trump begrudgingly accepted as he spoke to journalists at the construction site of a new ballroom at the White House.
But he insisted he still would not have done anything differently. “You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Many interpret the vice-president’s comments as an unofficial launch of his own presidential bid in 2028.
The results are also being seen as a sign that the US is witnessing the beginning of the end of the MAGA movement under Trump.
