U.S. President Donald Trump attributed Republican losses in last week’s midterm elections partly to the war with Iran, higher gasoline prices and what he described as a “great dislike” for Israel.
In an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday, Trump said, “They didn’t like the war.”
“And there’s a great dislike—incredibly—for Israel. There seems to be a dislike for Israel,” he added.
Asked whether he agreed with Vice President JD Vance’s post-election analysis blaming the Iran war for the Republican defeat, Trump said, “I don’t disagree with it.” He said Vance had consulted him before publishing a social media post and that he had told the vice president to “write what you feel.”
In the post on Wednesday, Vance described a conversation with a pollster who asked disaffected Republicans why they were voting for Democrats.
“The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses, were: end the war, focus on cost of living/inflation, put America first and change our relationship to Israel,” Vance wrote. “Our voters showed up, and the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats.”
William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, disputed that explanation in comments to JNS, saying exit polls showed that only 7% of Trump-Vance voters had voted for Democrats.
“The real explanation for what happened is that Trump-Vance voters stayed home in droves,” said Galston.
Despite the electoral losses, Trump defended his decision to strike Iran, crediting the June 2025 U.S. attacks on three Iranian nuclear facilities with preventing Israel’s destruction.
“Israel would not exist except for Donald Trump,” he told CBS, claiming that Iran had been two weeks away from obtaining a nuclear weapon before the strikes.
Asked whether he regretted helping Israel carry out strikes against Iranian leaders, Trump said, “I want to have it for the long term, not for the short term.”
“If I didn’t do that, there would be no Israel right now,” he added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi seized on Trump’s remarks about Israel, writing on X early Monday that Americans were “sick and tired of Israel bamboozling US administrations into Forever Wars.”
Trump also told CBS that he was not seeking further escalation following the midterms and believed a deal with Tehran remained possible.
In a separate telephone interview with CNN on Sunday, he said renewed fighting with Iran was “highly unlikely,” provided negotiations progressed toward dismantling Tehran’s nuclear program and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
“I would if necessary, but we hit them really hard,” he said. “They’re withering away financially. We’ve hit them militarily. We could finish them off.”
Separately, Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yashar Party leader Gadi Eisenkot held “very similar” views.
“It’s certainly a contest between him and Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump said. “We’ll see what happens.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog earlier on Sunday tasked Eisenkot with forming the next government. Eisenkot has 28 days to assemble a coalition, with a possible extension of up to 14 days.
Trump also named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a potential 2028 Republican presidential candidate alongside Vance. Asked whether he would endorse a candidate, he told CBS, “Probably. Not necessarily.”
