Vance Blames the Iran War, and Trump Mostly Agrees

Read the episode (Narration script)

Greetings once again and welcome to Political Science. It's Thursday, November 5th. Let's see what the hell's been going on.

On Wednesday morning, the vice president of the United States posted this on X: "The reason we lost is the war." JD Vance meant the Iran war, and Tuesday's midterms, in which Republicans lost the House and the Senate. Then he added, "If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so."

Vice presidents don't usually pin a defeat on their own president's biggest decision. Presidents usually don't agree. Donald Trump called Vance's take "largely true," though he blamed oil more than the war itself, saying it "drove the gasoline up a little bit short term." He also said that if he had it to do again, he'd do it again. Donald Trump Junior reposted Vance with three red "100" emojis, which in that family counts as a policy statement.

Vance has a stake here. He was reportedly the senior official most skeptical of starting the war, and he's widely seen as a 2028 contender.

Tehran enjoyed the moment. Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote, "Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message."

The war itself did not stop for the post-mortem. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said four tankers hit mines in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, and early Thursday Britain's maritime agency reported a tanker struck by two projectiles north of Qatar. The US blockade of Iranian ports continues. Trump told the Financial Times the military is "locked and loaded," but "there may be no reason for it," and Qatari mediators expected a response to a new peace proposal within thirty-six hours. Oil markets relaxed a little. Brent crude fell below a hundred dollars a barrel for the first time since September.

Back in the Capitol, the losing side is reorganizing first. Speaker Mike Johnson told his staff he won't run to lead House Republicans in the minority. Jim Jordan promptly wrote colleagues that the party has "operated without a clear plan," and Steve Scalise is expected to run too.

Hakeem Jeffries sent Democrats a letter formally asking for their support for speaker. They vote privately on November 18th, and in January he'd need 218 votes on the floor to become the first Black speaker. The incoming Oversight chair, Robert Garcia, says investigations start on day one, with the Trump family and immigration enforcement high on the list. Trump told the New York Times he's "absolutely willing" to accept the results. He also promised to veto "things that are insane," a category with some room in it.

The wave also reached the state capitols, where a lot of everyday law gets made. Democrats won the Texas House, their first majority there since the 2002 election. In Wisconsin they flipped both chambers, ending sixteen years of Republican control. The National Conference of State Legislatures called it the biggest single-election shift in state partisan power since 2010. Democrats also broke or blocked Republican supermajorities in nine chambers, so in Iowa, Ohio and North Carolina, Republican lawmakers will now need Democratic votes to override a Democratic governor's veto. Minnesota's governor-elect, Amy Klobuchar, told her supporters, "You may not like every single thing I do," which may be the most honest victory speech of the year.

In Indonesia, the president's chief of staff is in a police detention center, suspected of tapping the president's phone. Police detained three senior generals Tuesday, including Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who ran the national police until last month, when President Prabowo Subianto brought him into the palace. Police allege the three ordered unauthorized wiretaps over the past two years on the president, officials, politicians, media figures, activists and business people, slipping phone numbers into the police's lawful interception system and later ordering the recordings deleted. The president fired him Wednesday. The palace calls it treason, though officials say the motive hasn't been established, and the generals haven't commented. Listyo is described as a loyalist of former president Joko Widodo, whose relationship with Prabowo has cooled, though nobody has implicated Widodo. Meanwhile the military has moved more than twenty thousand troops and personnel into Jakarta, and calls that "a normal occurrence." Amnesty International Indonesia warns this could become "a secret police apparatus used to tame the opposition."

In Israel, President Isaac Herzog accepted the certified election results, saying, "The elections are over. Now is the time to face reality." The reality is that neither Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot's has a majority, and Arab-led parties made historic gains. One telling detail: the Shin Bet security service asked to interrogate Arab lawmakers, including Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas, over alleged foreign funding. The attorney general refused, citing a lack of evidence. If nobody can build a government, Israelis vote again early next year.

And in Hong Kong, Joshua Wong, who started protesting as a teenager and is now thirty, was sentenced Thursday to ten more years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces. He had been due out in January.

That should do it for today. And remember, if you keep your expectations low, you'll never be disappointed. Thanks for listening, see you next time.