First posted on Instagram
President Donald Trump gave his first extended public remarks since the midterm elections on Wednesday afternoon, and he gave them standing inside the construction site of his new White House ballroom. When reporters pressed him about Vice President JD Vance’s post blaming the Iran war for Republicans’ sweeping defeat, Trump backed his vice president’s claim, calling it “largely true” — and then insisted he would launch the war again.
The appearance was not on the president’s public schedule. Trump summoned reporters to the cavernous site and talked for nearly 20 minutes about the ballroom itself, signing the project’s final steel beam and watching crews raise it into place. He told the more than 500 workers on the site that construction is ahead of schedule and under budget, and described the ballroom as built to withstand drones, bullets and small missiles — the safest place in Washington, as he put it.
The president did not mention the election results during those remarks. It was only when reporters pressed him afterward that he addressed Vance’s post. “I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term,” Trump said. “Probably it’s true. But at the same time, if I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again because long term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.” Of Vance’s post itself, he said: “I thought it was good.”
Asked when the war would end, Trump answered: “Whenever I want it to.” He had said the same to the Wall Street Journal on election night, after the scale of the Republican losses became clear: “I did the right thing. I would have done it again.” He repeated on Wednesday that the energy at his rallies had not carried over to Republican candidates — “We weren’t able to transfer the love to candidates” — and Donald Trump Jr. also publicly backed Vance’s post.
For ordinary Americans, the exchange settles where things stand. The president concedes the war pushed gasoline prices up in the short term — a cost carried by every driver and every household budget — and says plainly that he judges it worth paying so Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. And by his own words, the war now ends on his decision alone, which means relief at the pump also waits on that decision.
— Previously posted on Wednesday, November 4, 2026 —
Vice President JD Vance has blamed the war with Iran for Republicans' sweeping losses in the November 3 midterm elections, in which Democrats seized control of both the House and the Senate, saying bluntly: "The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night."
Vice President JD Vance points to the Iran war as a major reason behind Republicans' sweeping midterm losses, and says Republicans must take a hard look at what went wrong, including the war's impact, rising cost-of-living concerns, the party's America First priorities, and its relationship with Israel; those who warned about the war's political consequences have every right to say "I told you so."
Vance said the biggest problem was not getting Republican supporters to the polls, but persuading them to vote Republican once they arrived: MAGA voters did show up, but in key states too many crossed over or refused to support Republican candidates. He said he had gathered feedback from respected pollsters and data analysts after Tuesday's elections.
The four leading responses from former Trump voters asked what would bring them back, Vance said, were ending the war, addressing the cost of living and inflation, putting America First, and changing the United States' relationship with Israel — and those four issues accounted for nearly all of the responses from voters who had abandoned the party.
Vance also told Fox News that the Iran war's unpopularity was "part of" the reason for the scale of the Republican losses, and President Trump himself acknowledged the war played a role in the losses, according to CBS News reporting cited in coverage of Vance's remarks.
Context: the United States and Israel launched the war against Iran in February 2026 (Operation Epic Fury); Vance, a longtime sceptic of foreign wars, had pushed back against the war in its opening days and later became the administration's lead negotiator with Tehran. The war has driven energy and cost-of-living concerns through the campaign.
Vance's warning, as framed in the Instagram post: Republicans must reckon with voters' frustrations, their America First priorities and the party's relationship with Israel, and with how it reconnects with voters heading into 2028.
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