'He has turned opponents into enemies': MJ Akbar says Trump's language cost him the US midterm election

Former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar has offered a blunt reading of Donald Trump's party's midterm defeat, arguing that the US president's own language cost him the election. "Unfortunately, President Trump does not have opponents. He has enemies, largely because of his language. He has turned opponents into enemies," Akbar said.

"What a difference 24 hours makes. 24 hours ago, he was laughing at his enemies. Today, they are laughing at him."

Akbar tied the result to something larger than one election. "Loss of credibility starts the decline of the power," he said. "And this decline of power will affect not only America, but because America is a superpower, it will define relations, it will define decisions all across the world."

“We are most troubled at this moment by the President Trump's actions this year in Iran and in West Asia,” he added.

Republicans' midterm defeat

Trump has been left grappling with a stinging rebuke from voters after Democrats seized both the House of Representatives and the Senate in Tuesday's (Nov 03) midterms. By early Thursday (Nov 05), Democrats held 54 Senate seats and a strong House majority, with races in Mississippi and Alaska still too close to call.

The result leaves the 80-year-old president a lame duck for the remaining two years of his term and signals an end to his grip on the Republican Party.

A party at war with itself

Vice President JD Vance has publicly split with Trump over the Iran war a day after the vote, calling the conflict the "reason we lost" as he distanced himself ahead of a possible 2028 run. Trump conceded Vance was "largely true because it drove the gasoline up," but insisted he would do it again. "You can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon," he said.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the defeat "close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country as we have seen probably in the last 100 years." Florida, he noted, was the party's only bright spot.

What Democrats plan

Democrats have vowed investigations into Trump and his administration, with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries announcing his candidacy for speaker. "The massive corruption the country has experienced from the Trump Cartel explains why very little is getting done to help everyday Americans," he wrote. "That changes immediately."

Trump, meanwhile, has tried to brush off the result, spending his first public appearance Wednesday discussing the marble columns of his new $400 million ballroom.