Trump says he'd launch Iran war again after GOP loses Congress

Donald Trump said the United States may have to “destroy” the rest of Iran, days after acknowledging that the war helped cost his party control of Congress.

Democrats won both chambers in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Trump has tied part of the Republican defeat to the Iran war and the higher gasoline prices that followed, but he has not backed away from the decision to launch it. “I did the right thing. I would have done it again,” he told The Wall Street Journal.

What Trump conceded: Trump told reporters that Vice President JD Vance’s assessment of the losses was “largely true.” Vance had put it more bluntly: “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.” Trump said the conflict was necessary to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

He also told Fox News that voters may have supported his policy toward Iran but were not willing to accept the short-term cost of higher gasoline prices. The war, which began with a US attack alongside Israel in February, helped trigger a global fuel crisis after the Strait of Hormuz closed, according to Al Jazeera.

The split inside the party: Vance questioned whether the war was worth losing the Senate for six years. Senator Ted Cruz, who has long taken a hard line on Iran, said the conflict should have been “brief, decisive, and over,” and that it had dragged on too long.

Trump offered other explanations for the Republican losses, too. He said his absence from the ballot hurt turnout and blamed weaknesses among candidates he endorsed. He singled out defeated Texas Governor Greg Abbott, saying Abbott had become a “Republican in name only” in the final six months of his political life. Trump also said he did not plan to change his cabinet.

What Congress can do: The incoming Democratic-controlled Congress will have more leverage over the war’s funding. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said, “this war must end,” pointing to Congress’s power over federal spending. Representative Ro Khanna has proposed a measure that would bar funding for US military combat activities in Iran.

Trump’s warning on November 6 raises the immediate question: whether the administration is preparing to widen a war that has already reshaped control of Congress.