President Donald Trump said on Tuesday night that the war in Iran played a role in Republican losses in the midterm elections. He made the comments in separate phone interviews as Democrats prepared to take control of both chambers of Congress.
Trump spoke first with Fox News. “I think a part of it was Iran, but at the same time people understood the importance of what I’ve done with Iran,” he said.
Later he repeated the point in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Iran was a piece of it,” Trump said when asked whether the conflict contributed to the party’s poor performance.
He maintained he did not regret starting the war earlier in the year. “I don’t think about it. I did the right thing. I would have done it again,” he told the newspaper.
The conflict had driven up oil and gasoline prices for months. Voters cited those higher costs as a major concern. Meanwhile Democrats secured the Senate and stood poised to regain the House, according to media projections.
Trump also addressed the results more broadly. He congratulated Democrats for their performance and said they fought hard. At the same time he warned he would veto legislation he viewed as extreme. “They’ll send over things that are insane, and I’ll veto them,” he said.
The midterm results left Republicans with reduced power for the final two years of Trump’s presidency. The war with Iran remained ongoing at the time of his comments. Trump had previously argued the conflict would prove historically more important than any single election night.
