President Donald Trump says Americans punished Republicans in the midterms over the Iran war, rising gas prices and what he called “a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel,” but he insists he would go to war again.
“They didn’t like the war. They didn’t like the fact that gasoline went up,” Trump told Ross Douthat in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes that aired Sunday night. “There’s a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel. There seems to be a dislike for Israel. So you have that, you have the war itself, you have the gas prices, and I think those are the primary reasons.”
He also argued that the result would have been “a much different situation” if his own name had been on the ballot.
Vance asked first
Trump said he doesn’t disagree with Vice President JD Vance’s post-election statement blaming the war for the defeat and calling for a change in the relationship with Israel. He revealed that Vance had asked him beforehand what he thought. “I said, write what you feel,” Trump recalled.
The one thing Vance left out, Trump said, was whether he would do it all over again. “My answer is an emphatic yes, because you can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “I think historically this will be a very good decision. Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not. But I have to go with what’s right for our country.”
Asked whether he plans to escalate now that the election is over, Trump said: “I’m not looking to. I don’t think there’s any reason to.” Iran’s remaining nuclear material, he said, is “buried under thousands of tons of rock,” and U.S. satellites are watching the sites around the clock. If Washington needed to strike the Pickaxe Mountain site, he added, “we would have that done in one hour.”
He also claimed that a deal with Tehran had been close before the vote: “We would have had a deal except for this election. And we’ll make a deal anyway.”
“Israel would not exist except for Donald Trump”
Trump said the countries the U.S. protected during the war will cover its costs. “Those countries that we’ve protected are going to pay us back any and all costs that we’ve had for the war. We’re going to get all that money back,” he said. “Without us, they wouldn’t exist. Without us, Israel wouldn’t exist.”
He went further: “Israel would not exist except for Donald Trump,” crediting the B-2 strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. “If I didn’t do that, there would be no Israel right now. Israel would be gone.”
He did not say how much he expects to collect, or how.
Hegseth, 2028 and his enemies
Trump said he expects to make “a few changes” in his cabinet but expressed confidence in War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who faces an impeachment push. “We’ve won two wars,” he said, referring to Iran and Venezuela.
On 2028, Trump said he would “probably, not necessarily” endorse a successor. Asked who besides Vance was on his list, he praised Secretary of State Marco Rubio as “great.”
Asked whether he could forgive his political enemies, Trump said no. “I do hate some of my enemies and I always will,” he said.
On Eisenkot: “Very similar” to Netanyahu
Speaking separately to reporters outside Air Force One, Trump commented for the first time on Gadi Eisenkot, who has been tasked with forming Israel’s next government. “Eisenkot and Netanyahu are very similar in terms of their policy and their views,” he said, adding that Eisenkot “said very nice things” about him and that there is “definitely competition” between the two.
