US midterms: 'Largely true' Iran war led to loss, Trump says

Follow the latest developments from the US midterm elections:

Donald Trump spoke about the outcome of the midterm elections to reporters at the construction site of the White House ballroom.

He hailed the ballroom, which is being built after the East Wing of the White House was demolished, as a "structure the likes of which has never been seen anywhere."

During the remarks, Trump was asked about Vice President JD Vance's post which blamed the Iran war for the midterm losses to the Democrats.

"I think it's largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term," Trump said. "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."

The president also ruled out firing Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, who has guided efforts on the Iran war, saying "I think he's doing a very good job."

In regard to the Democrats, Trump said he was willing to work with the opposition. However, he warned the Democrats against impeachment.

"I think it would destroy the Democrat Party if they did that," the president said, while arguing there is "no reason" for him to be impeached.

Trump was impeached by the House two times during his first term, but was never convicted and removed by the Senate.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he believes Trump will continue to bypass the US House and Senate in his last two years by issuing executive orders.

"Trump has, for the past two years, largely governed without consulting Congress. Why should things be any different now?" Merz said during an economic forum of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz's center-right Christian Democrats are in a governing coalition with the SPD.

The German chancellor said he wasn't so "excited" about the Democratic victory in the midterms.

"What will change is budget planning — and of course planning for the armed forces as well," Merz continued.

The US Constitution grants the Congress the power of the purse. Congress can also influence military factors such as troop levels in Europe.

US Vice President JD Vance, in a long post on X, said many voters who backed Trump in the 2024 presidential election showed up to the polls and cast ballots for the Democrats out of anger.

"The reason we lost is the war," Vance said, referring to the US-Israel war on Iran.

"If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so," Vance said. "Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest."

"But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start here," the vice president said, while saying he remains hopeful "about our country."

Mike Johnson, a representative from Louisiana who currently serves as US Speaker of the House, is unlikely to seek the position of House minority leader when Democrats take over in January, AP and Reuters reported.

Johnson, a close Trump ally, has served as speaker since October 2023.

Jake Sherman, the founder of US congressional outlet Punchbowl News, reported that Jim Jordan, a Republican congressman from Ohio, is expected to announce his candidacy for House minority leader later on Wednesday. Jordan just won reelection in Ohio's 4th Congressional district.

Shares of SpaceX and Tesla, companies run by tech billionaire and world's richest man Elon Musk, were both down about 5%, as US markets opened on Wednesday.

Musk is a Republican megadonor and had spent nearly $500 million to back Republican candidates in the midterms, including efforts to keep Republicans in power in Texas, a state home to both the automaker Tesla and rocket-to-AI company SpaceX, as well as being a hub to AI data centers.

But with Democrats seizing both houses of Congress and Gina Hinojosa defeating Greg Abbott in the Texas governor's race, Musk and his companies could face increasing scrutiny by Congress as well as Texas state authorities.

Observers expect Democrats to tighten regulation of data-center ​projects and push for ‌construction moratoriums as local opposition grows over surging electricity costs.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said she hopes the new Democratic-majority Congress will continue support for Ukraine and pressure Russia. The next US House and Senate will be sworn in on January 3 next year.

"US voters have made their choice clear," Kallas said.

Previous Democratic President Joe Biden was a keen supporter of Ukraine when the the Russian invasion began in February 2022. US President Donald Trump, a Republican, has since pressured Ukraine into giving up land to Russia since his term began last year and has threatened to stop selling arms to the Ukrainians.

The Democratic House and Senate will likely put a check on Trump's foreign policy toward Ukraine and Russia, with stronger congressional oversight expected. However, Trump is unlikely to make a major U-turn on foreign issues during his last two years in office and leads the US military as commander-in-chief.

After sitting out the counting and results phase through the night, the White House press office made its first post-election foray on social media with what it termed a public service announcement.

"PSA: Trump is still your president," said a caption in block capitals beneath a photo of Trump staring intently at the camera shared online.

The post was captioned with what tends to be the 47th president's catchphrase signoff on his personal account on his own social media site Truth Social: "Thank you for your attention to this matter."

Trump and senior members of his Cabinet were yet to wade back into the public debate as the clocks ticked past 9:30 a.m. on the East Coast.

Stock markets around the world were mostly in the green on Wednesday as traders digested the midterm election results.

As of around 3 p.m. on the trading floor in Frankfurt, the DAX had gained just under 2% since the start of trade.

This was broadly in line with the major indices in London, with the FTSE 100 up 1.94%, and Paris, with the CAC 40 up 2.19%. Spain's IBEX 35 was even more buoyant, up by more than 3%.

The only major Asian market to take a hit was Japan's Nikkei, closing down 1.42% on the start of trade. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose by 1.67% and Shanghai's main index climbed by more than 2%. India's Sensex logged more modest gains of around 0.5%.

Even the US markets were expected to open in a bullish mood on Wednesday morning, despite some isolated stocks like Elon Musk's Tesla and SpaceX and a host of AI companies taking a moderate hit on election evening.

Many people in the US, and particularly beyond its borders, might be asking what the Democrats controlling Congress might mean for US foreign policy, not least the long-running Russian invasion of Ukraine and Trump's much more recent war on Iran.

Richard Walker from DW Geopolitics breaks down some of the battle lines, if you'll pardon the pun, between the Trump White House, the Democratic Party and the major foreign players when it comes to these issues.

If you're the read-only, low-data type who'd rather not click play on even the shortest of videos, the super-abridged version goes something like this: On most matters of foreign policy, it's the White House and not Congress that holds sway.

"These conflicts are stuck for a reason," as Richard puts it, and there's every chance that will remain the case at least in the short term. Not least because powerful actors beyond the US' borders remain a core part of both equations.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham told journalists that the midterm results in the US show there needs to be an international focus on the cost of living crisis.

Burnham, a member of the center-left Labour Party, has been in office since July and has vowed to tackle rising costs.

"President Trump has accepted the results, and I feel the world has an opportunity to unite around an issue that is affecting us all, and that's the cost of living," Burnham said.

Burnham was asked how the US midterm result relates to recent losses for right-wing parties in Brazil, Serbia and Hungary.

"I think people want to see the world coming together and focusing on the things that matter to people," Burnham said.

The UK leader said that the US war with Iran needs to deescalate. He said that without a settlement to resolve the Iran conflict, "I can't get people's cost of living pressures down."

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul believes the outcome of the US midterm elections could create new momentum for supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia's military aggression.

"As far as Ukraine is concerned, I am somewhat confident that there will now be more discussions in Congress — including between both parties — about what can be done together to support Ukraine," Wadephul said in Berlin.

"I believe that people there held back for a certain amount of time during the election campaign, and I know that there are strong supporters of Ukraine in both houses and in both parties."

Wadephul stressed that foreign policy played a key role in the elections.

On US-Germany relations, he noted that bilateral cooperation could become broader and "perhaps more interesting in certain areas."

Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil also congratulated Democrats for what he called a "landslide victory."

"That certainly inspires confidence," he said.

For a long time, he noted, the trend had been toward right-wing populism, but now the moderate center has prevailed.

While most foreign policy decisions ultimately rest with the executive branch, the outcome of the US midterms will have major repercussions for adversaries such as Iran, as well as countries like Ukraine, which rely on support from the United States.

Read our full report of how Tuesday's elections in the United States will likely affect other nations here.

German right-wing populist AfD party co-leader Alice Weidel told the t-online news website that, though midterm losses for parties in power are the norm in the United States, "the extent of the Republican defeat is notable and can be best explained with the considerable consequences of the Iran war."

She said one frequent and loud campaign promise from 2016, 2020 and 2024 had come home to roost in 2026.

"Trump promised his voters not to conduct and interventionist foreign policy," she said. "This broken promise has now come back to haunt the Republicans."

Weidel said it was in both Europe's and Germany's interests to bring the war in Iran — but also the war in Ukraine — to an end as quickly as possible.

The politician, whose party tends to be quite closely aligned with Trump's MAGA movement and some of its core backers like Elon Musk, has made no public social media comments on the vote. Instead, her comments to "t-online" focused mainly on public protests over the weekend in some cities, which she linked to "militant left-wing extremists, migrant mobs, and organized crime families."

The speaker of Iran's parliament, Mohammad Qalibaf, who is also the country's chief negotiator in the stalled talks with the United States and intermediaries, has celebrated the result online — saying that, whatever their main motivators were, US voters had ultimately spoken out against the war in the Middle East.

"Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message," he wrote on social media. "If the US [government] betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare."

He did not elaborate on this vague threat, after several tense months of relative inactivity in the military and diplomatic standoff.

Meanwhile, a written statement was published on the website of Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei saying that anybody expecting a shift in US policy after the vote was "seriously mistaken."

"Those who still harbor even the slightest hope that the behavior of the hegemonic system might change through partisan or factional shifts, or who imagine that making concessions to the United States can dissuade it from hostility towards the Iranian nation, are seriously mistaken," the statement said.

Khamenei was severely wounded in the US strikes at the start of the war that killed his father and much of his family. He has not been seen or heard in public since amid conflicting reports about his medical and physical status, but written statements attributed to him appear periodically.