Trump Jr: Iran war shifted voters, cost GOP midterms

Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, has attributed the Republican defeat in the midterm elections to the war with Iran and its economic fallout, backing Vice President JD Vance's analysis that the war and relations with Israel were central to the loss.

"Every word here is 100%," Trump Jr. wrote on X in response to a detailed post by Vance, in which the vice president acknowledged the dramatic defeat and pointed to the Iran war as a major factor in the results.

In remarks quoted by TheBlaze's X account, Trump Jr. said: "Whether you think it was the right decision or not, the Iran war is largely what shifted voter sentiment and caused this. It spiked fuel prices and changed their minds. We also ran a campaign on not getting into things like this."

The president's son defended his father's administration's record, arguing that the government had achieved gains on poverty, crime and border security. According to Trump Jr., the Trump administration broke records with low poverty and crime rates and maintained secure borders, but "the war's consequences pushed voters in another direction, because they felt those more than security issues."

Trump Jr. also addressed voters who had supported his father: "You have to remember that Trump was chosen by millions of disappointed Democrats who felt they'd been left behind." Those voters, he claimed, were the ones who gave Democrats control of both houses of Congress.

The president's son attacked Republicans who argued the Iran war had no connection to the loss, calling it "disgusting, frankly." He added: "The Iran war is largely what shifted voter sentiment and caused this wave, it spiked fuel prices, and that's what people feel in their pockets immediately."

Campaign promises and the 2028 outlook

Trump Jr. recalled that during his father's 2024 campaign, promises were made that the United States would not enter wars. "We don't need to argue whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing, but it was definitely something that after Afghanistan and Iraq we didn't want to get into. I don't believe this will be one of those forever wars," he said.

Following the midterm results and the "blue wave," the Republican Party is already looking ahead to the 2028 presidential election and trying to show that the current failure is unrelated to the Trump administration's policies. The president himself said: "If I had run in the election, we would have won. We just couldn't transfer that love to the candidates."

Trump Jr.'s remarks join the growing internal debate within the Republican Party over the reasons for the loss. Vice President Vance published a detailed post acknowledging the defeat and pointing to the Iran war as a central factor, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has become a major target of criticism over the Iran war.