Making Daily Headlines · Page 6
Trump Admits the Iran War Hurt Republicans, but Keeps the Same Playbook
· New York time
President Trump acknowledged that the Iran war was partly responsible for Republican losses in the midterm elections, CBS News reported. He also said he did not regret launching the war. The comments connect a major foreign-policy decision to the party's electoral setback while stopping short of any expression of regret about the decision itself. That is a difficult balance for Republicans seeking to assess what happened. The president has accepted that the conflict contributed to the defeat, but his account does not imply that he would have chosen a different course. His party is left to consider the political consequences of a policy its leader continues to defend. The war and its consequences reach well beyond campaign strategy. The election result adds a new congressional majority to the debate, while Trump retains the presidency and broad foreign-policy powers. The president's statement is therefore both an assessment of a loss and a signal that the loss has not changed his view of the original choice. The political logic resembles a coach reviewing a defeat, identifying a costly play and then insisting it belongs in the next game plan. That may be a consistent position, but it leaves the rest of the team with an awkward postgame meeting. They can discuss the result all night without persuading the person who called the play that the call was wrong.
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