President Donald Trump pushed back Sunday on Vice President JD Vance’s social media post blaming the Iran war for Republicans’ midterm losses, saying Vance left out whether he would make the same decision again. Trump said he would.
“He was right, other than one thing,” Trump told reporters as he returned to Washington on Sunday night. “He should have made one other statement,” the president added — posing the question to himself: “‘If you had it to do again, would you do it again?’ The answer is yes.”
Trump said Vance’s comments hadn’t affected their relationship, though he suggested they hadn’t gone over well with everyone. “A lot of people didn’t like his comments,” Trump said. “But not me.”
In an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday night, Trump said he didn’t know whether Vance would make the same call again. His own answer, he said, was “an emphatic yes, because you can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
The president’s comments come after Vance on Wednesday wrote “the reason we lost is the war,” in a lengthy post after Democrats won both chambers of Congress. He challenged Republicans who backed the war to say whether it was worth losing the Senate and argued that many voters who backed Trump in 2024 had switched to Democrats.
Vance drafted the post himself and gave the White House a heads-up before publishing it, as POLITICO previously reported. Donald Trump Jr., a longtime Vance ally, quickly reposted it with his endorsement.
Trump acknowledged Wednesday that the war’s effect on gas prices helped explain the midterm losses. In the CBS interview, he said he believed history would vindicate the decision. “Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not, but I would have to go with what’s right for our country.”