Speaking on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” President Trump initially attributed the Republican defeat to his absence from the ballot before acknowledging broader dissatisfaction with the conflict and rising fuel costs.
“I was not on the ballot. And I think if I was on the ballot, it would have been a much different situation,” President Trump said.
“But there’s something beyond that. They didn’t like the war. They didn’t like the fact that gasoline went up,” he added.
President Trump linked higher gasoline prices to the military campaign against Iran but defended the war as necessary to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
“Because I think everyone agrees that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
“And they will never have a nuclear weapon. They won’t have that. And there’s a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi responded to PresidentTrump’s interview by accusing Israel of drawing Washington into prolonged military conflicts.
“Americans are fed up with Israel maneuvering the US into being dragged into endless wars. They and our region are fed up,” Araqchi said.
Meanwhile, Rubio rejected reports that negotiations aimed at ending the conflict had achieved a breakthrough.
“I wouldn’t say we’re close to a breakthrough. The president always prefers to resolve things through diplomacy, unfortunately that’s not always possible,” Rubio said before departing for the G7 summit in Paris.
He described Tehran’s negotiating positions as unacceptable and, in some cases, “outrageous, ridiculous —and not really realistic.”
Separately, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Navy source claimed that Iranian forces had disabled enemy navigation systems along the southern route of the Strait of Hormuz.
The source told Iranian state media that no ships violating Iranian restrictions had entered the route overnight.
“Oil smuggling through the southern route of the Strait of Hormuz has been completely stopped,” the source told Iranian television.
Source: Iwpost.com
