Donald Trump Jr. blamed the war with Iran for Republicans' crushing defeat in this week's U.S. midterm elections, arguing that rising gasoline prices and voter frustration over America's involvement in another foreign conflict had overshadowed the achievements of his father's administration.
His comments echoed Vice President JD Vance, who had pointed to the Iran war and Washington's relationship with Israel as major factors behind the Republican losses that handed Democrats control of both chambers of Congress.
Trump Jr. rejected suggestions that President Donald Trump's domestic policies were responsible for the electoral setback, instead arguing that the economic consequences of the war had driven away voters who previously supported his father.
"The Trump coalition is made up of millions of disaffected Democrats... who felt left behind," he said, arguing that those same voters had now helped deliver control of Congress to the Democratic Party.
Trump Jr. claimed his father's administration had achieved record-low levels of poverty and crime while maintaining secure borders, but said those accomplishments were overshadowed by the war's impact on household finances.
"There are ultimately downstream effects of things like the Iran war that pushed voters in a different direction. Perhaps they felt them a little bit more than they did safety," he said.
He sharply criticized fellow Republicans who dismissed the Iran war as a factor in the election results. "It's disgusting, actually," he said.
"Whether you think it was the right decision or not, the Iran war is largely what shifted voter sentiment and caused this wave," Trump Jr. said. "It jacked up the price of gas—that's the thing that people feel most immediately in their pockets—and it changed their minds."
'We campaigned on not getting into these things'
Trump Jr. also pointed to promises made during his father's 2024 presidential campaign to keep the United States out of new foreign wars.
He suggested that American voters had supported Trump partly because they wanted to avoid another prolonged military engagement following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We also campaigned on not getting into these things," he said.
Donald Trump Jr. and US President Donald Trump
(Photo: Mandel NGAN / AFP)
Trump Jr. said the debate over whether the war was justified should be separated from its political consequences.
"We don't have to debate whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing... but it was definitely something, after Afghanistan and Iraq, that we probably didn't want to get into, even though I don't believe this is going to be one of those forever wars," he said.
His remarks reinforced a growing argument among some Republicans that the party's electoral losses stemmed from the war and its economic consequences rather than broader dissatisfaction with Trump's domestic agenda.
Republicans look toward 2028 after Democratic sweep
The comments came as Republicans began assessing the political fallout from the Democratic wave that swept this week's midterm elections, giving the opposition party control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
With attention already turning toward the 2028 presidential election, Republican figures have sought to explain the defeat while distancing the outcome from the administration's broader policy record.
Vance had attributed the losses in part to the Iran war and the administration's relationship with Israel, an assessment Trump Jr. publicly supported.
The president himself offered a different explanation, arguing that his personal popularity had not translated into support for Republican congressional candidates.
"If I had been running, we would have won," Trump said. "We just weren't able to transfer that love to the candidates."