USAupdated 46m ago2 min read
JD Vance Blames Iran War for GOP Midterm Defeat, Trump Says He’d Do It Again
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JD Vance blamed Iran war for GOP midterm losses in a lengthy X post. Vance publicly distanced himself from Trump on foreign policy amid backlash.
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Vance blames Iran war
Vice President JD Vance blamed the Iran war for the Republican Party’s midterm defeat, writing, "The reason we lost is the war." Vance added that "The president himself said so last night," as President Donald Trump told reporters he thinks Vance’s post was "good" and said, "I know how he feels about it." Vance’s post argued that voters should debate whether the war’s costs were "worth it," and it framed the loss of the Senate for "the next 6 years" as part of that accounting.
Trump defended the conflict by saying, "We prevented them from having a nuclear weapon," and he told reporters he would "do it again" if given the same choices. Daniel Byman, a foreign policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Vance’s shift would require a delicate balancing act if Vance sought the presidency.
White House tensions
White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a formal statement that President Trump "has full confidence in Secretary Mattis," as the midterm results raised questions about Defense Secretary James Mattis. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told ABC News that "Secretary Mattis will not back down or be deterred by politicians seeking to score political points or launch investigations" and said Mattis is "100% committed to leading the department through the end of President Trump’s term." Reuters reported that Trump surveyed White House aides about Mattis’s future, while some aides expected military leaders to bear some responsibility for the election results.
A former White House official told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that Mattis is "on the verge of being fired," and an administration official said "Trump may change his mind suddenly." The Wall Street Journal said Trump was aware of Vance’s message before it was published, while a White House official told Reuters that most senior staff were surprised by the statement.
Next steps and pressure
Democrats prepared to use their new majority in Congress to intensify oversight and conduct possible investigations targeting the Pentagon and Mattis regarding the war on Iran and his decisions to dismiss some senior officers.
ABC News poll results showed that 34% of voters considered the war in Iran decisive in their vote, compared with 49% for living costs and 55% for government corruption.
Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Wednesday that U.S. midterm election results reflected Americans’ rejection of President Trump’s war, and he warned that if Trump does not heed the message it will bring "a Nightmare."
U.S. sanctions targeted what the U.S. Treasury described as a "vast criminal network" run by two Indian nationals, Suniel Kumar Sharma and his wife Jaspreet Preeti Shahid, aiding Iran’s shadow fleet of oil tankers.
Chuck Schumer told journalists that the Iran war "must end" and said, "The power of the purse" is "one of the ways of deterring a president who".