Donald Trump has lashed out after Republicans suffered sweeping midterm losses, vowing Iran will face a “heavy hit” and insisting he would have won “IN A LANDSLIDE” had his name appeared on the ballot.
The president, 80, delivered the defiant remarks in an interview as early results showed Democrats flipping Senate seats in Texas, Kansas, South Carolina, Ohio, Maine and Iowa, while also seizing control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 2023 by turning seats in Kentucky, New Jersey, Indiana and North Carolina.
Trump pinned partial blame for the defeat on voter resistance to higher fuel prices tied to his administration’s confrontation with Iran. He suggested Americans “probably weren’t willing to do the short-term consequence of paying more for gasoline,” but added that he “understands that.”
“I would say to people, it’s a short term problem for a long-term gain,” he continued. “Historically it’s going to be much more important than this evening because you can’t let the number one state sponsor of terror have a nuclear weapon.”
The president then escalated his rhetoric toward Tehran. “It’s the most dangerous country in the world and we wiped them out practically, and I haven’t finished the job. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t,” he said. “We have to do something large.” He hinted this would involve a “heavy hit,” then declared: “They will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Last month, reports said that the administration was drawing up plans to deploy the “mother of all bombs” against Iranian nuclear sites and energy infrastructure.
On Truth Social, Trump pushed back against any suggestion that the results reflected poorly on him personally. “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE,” he wrote. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.” The post underscored how personally he appeared to be taking the defeat, despite his public congratulations to Democrats for what he termed a “blue tsunami.”
Trump said he had expected Republicans to “do better,” attributing the shortfall partly to a vague “mood in the air.” He argued that GOP candidates “just didn’t inspire the people to get out and vote,” and repeated his claim that his presence on the ballot would have driven turnout.
“But I don’t view it as a hit on me,” he insisted. “We’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the presidency in terms of the economy, in terms of all the things that we’ve done.” He expressed surprise at the scale of the losses, noting the “tremendous rallies” Republicans had held.
The president acknowledged that Democrats “did a good job” and “worked very hard,” a rare concession from a leader who typically savages his opponents.
Looking ahead to divided government, Trump struck a transactional tone about working with the new Democratic majorities. “It’s been done before numerous times. It’s the power of veto. One of the stronger powers that a president has,” he said. “They’ll send over things that are insane and I’ll veto them, and after a couple of months of vetoes they’ll call and say. ‘How do we get this stuff done?’ And we’ll work together.”
The president has already issued two vetoes in his second term, adding to the 10 he issued in his first term, one of which Congress overrode.
The midterm wipeout came after Trump had explicitly urged supporters to treat the elections as a referendum on him, telling them to vote as if his name were on the ballot. Critics pointed to the cost of living, persistent tariffs, spiking energy prices and the Iran war as factors that bred widespread discontent and ultimately punished his party at the polls.
Trump’s threat of intensified action against Iran follows the first direct exchanges of fire between the two countries in approximately a month, with the president separately vowing to “hit Iran hard” after those clashes.