November 9, 2026
American disagreement regarding the Iran war.. Trump defends the strikes and Vance warns of their electoral repercussions
In an indication of internal disagreement in the US administration regarding the repercussions of the military escalation, US President Donald Trump defended the strikes that targeted Iran, stressing that he would repeat the operation again, in an indirect response to criticism leveled by his Vice President, J.D. Vance, of the war’s repercussions on the results of the midterm elections.
In press statements prior to his departure from the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to return to Washington, Trump commented on Vice’s positions by saying that the latter’s statements regarding Iran “were not well received by many, and I am not one of them,” explaining that Vance was correct in most of his proposals, except for a fundamental point related to the feasibility of repeating the military operation.
Trump added: “He was right except for one thing: He should have said, ‘If you had the opportunity to do it again, would you do it again?’ And the answer is yes.” He stressed that the strikes will be engraved in history as “one of the best achievements ever,” justifying this by preventing Tehran from possessing a nuclear weapon that would have led, as he described it, to “blowing up the world.” He considered that the military operations saved the Middle East and Israel, and he threatened again to target the Jabal Ax nuclear facility if any suspicious movements were detected.
Trump’s statements come in reaction to previous positions by J.D. Vance, in which he held the war on Iran directly responsible for the harsh loss suffered by the Republican Party in the midterm elections. Vance attributed this defeat to voters’ punishment of the Republicans as a result of the economic repercussions, especially the rise in inflation and the cost of living, calling for a quick end to the conflict, redirecting the compass towards internal crises, as well as a comprehensive review of American foreign relations and a re-evaluation of the partnership with Israel.
On the diplomatic level, Trump announced expected meetings this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China. The American President described the upcoming meetings as “deserved and interesting,” noting that they will address prominent international files, most notably nuclear disarmament efforts and efforts to end the war with Tehran, at a time when the reverberations of the Iranian conflict continue to cast a shadow on the domestic political scene in the United States.
