WASHINGTON—President Trump said on Tuesday night that the war in Iran was partially to blame for widespread Republican losses in the midterm elections. But he maintained that he didn’t regret launching the war earlier this year.
“Iran was a piece of it,” he said in a phone interview with The Wall Street Journal when asked whether the war contributed to Republicans’ poor performance in the election.
The president said he doesn’t have second thoughts about the war, which has dragged down the popularity of his presidency. He has struggled for months to end the conflict and complained to advisers about how it has become a constant problem.
“I don’t think about it. I did the right thing. I would have done it again,” he said.
The president said he believed the spike in oil prices—rather than the war itself—was the biggest political liability. Gasoline and diesel prices have shot up as a result of the conflict, frustrating U.S. voters.
The president rejected the notion that the results were a rebuke of his presidency, even as Republicans lost in deep-red states such as Kansas, South Carolina and Texas, and his poll numbers have dropped significantly across many states.
“It was a point in time, and I wasn’t on the ballot,” he said. “The biggest issue is that I wasn’t on the ballot.”
He contended that voters weren’t repudiating Republicans because they were frustrated with the economy or alleged corruption inside the Trump administration. He said he didn’t regret not talking about the economy more often on the campaign trail.
The president said he had no plans to make personnel changes inside his administration, and he expressed support for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has led the war effort. “I think he’s terrific actually,” he said.
The president acknowledged that some Republicans on the ballot “could have been better.”
“Some of them had a lot of flaws, and obviously they were not acceptable to the voters,” he said, adding, “You know, you can only do so much.” Some of the candidates who lost on Tuesday were pushed by Trump himself, including Republican Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina.
“I tried to help them,” he said. Regarding Graham and Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who lost his Texas Senate bid to Democrat James Talarico, Trump said: “Darline worked very hard, they worked hard. But they both didn’t make it.”
Trump didn’t challenge the validity of the election results and said he looked forward to working with Democrats but would use his “veto power” if he needed to.
“I think we’ll work with the Democrats, and we’ll get along very well with them. If we don’t, we’ll be very tough on them, they’ll be very tough on us,” he said. He didn’t answer when asked which Democrats he would work well with.
“It’s just the way the ball bounces sometimes,” Trump said of Tuesday night’s results.
Write to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com
