President Donald Trump said Sunday he agrees with Vice President JD Vance’s assessment that the war with Iran, combined with rising costs and the U.S. relationship with Israel, cost Republicans in last week’s midterm elections.
“I don’t disagree with it,” Trump said during an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
Trump said Vance told him in advance that he planned to post his views on the losses on X. “He asked me what do I think,” Trump said. “I said, ‘You write what you want. By the way, what are you going to write?'”
Trump said there was one thing he wished Vance had addressed: whether the vice president, who took part in the administration’s decision-making, would still back a strike on Iran knowing the political cost.
“The only thing I wish he would’ve said there, if he felt it,” Trump said. “My answer is an emphatic yes, because you can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump argued the decision to go to war with Iran mattered more than any political fallout, saying the alternative was letting Tehran acquire a nuclear weapon.
“I think, historically, this will be a very good decision. Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not,” Trump said. “I have to go with what’s right for our country. If they had a nuclear weapon during my term, I would be excoriated far worse than what’s happened.”
Democrats regained control of both chambers of Congress in the midterms, flipping at least seven Senate seats and more than two dozen House districts.
Vance had laid out his view in blunt terms on X last Wednesday. “The real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone,” he wrote. “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.”
“If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 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.”
Like Trump, Vance said the political price of the war was “a worthwhile cost to pay.”
