US President Donald Trump has acknowledged that the Republican Party's loss of control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections was not accidental, but the result of accumulated political factors, chief among them the war in the Middle East and its economic fallout, along with mounting public discontent with Israel.
In his first detailed public assessment of the election results, Trump identified three main reasons behind the resounding defeat suffered by his party: the war with Iran, the resulting rise in fuel and gasoline prices, and the very deep discontent with Israel among broad sections of American voters.
Speaking to the press, Trump said there is "tremendous hatred of Israel" in American public opinion, considering that this shift in the popular mood was one of the decisive factors in voters' shunning of Republican candidates, alongside their rejection of the continuation of the war in the region.
Trump's reading intersects with what his vice president, JD Vance, had previously announced, explicitly blaming the "Iran war" for the election loss and noting that the president himself had acknowledged it.
Vance explained that many voters who had backed Trump in the previous presidential election changed their positions in the congressional elections because of the war and its repercussions on the economy, as well as their desire to change the nature of the relationship with Israel.
Despite this political admission, Trump appeared committed to his decision to go to war, stressing that he "would repeat the same step" if necessary, justifying his position by the need to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, as he put it.
