Stance signals vice-president seeks to distance himself from the unpopular conflict ahead of possible 2028 run

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JD Vance said on Wednesday that the war against Iran doomed the Republican party in the US midterm elections, which are widely seen as a sweeping rebuke of Donald Trump’s presidency.

The intervention signals that the vice-president, once the face of the Trump administration’s deal-making efforts with Tehran, seeks to distance himself from the unpopular conflict before a possible 2028 White House run.

Reported move from Republican speaker of House comes in light of party’s disastrous midterms defeat

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Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, has said he is not planning to pursue the role of minority leader once his party loses its majority in the chamber, according to multiple reports.

Coming in light of Republicans’ disastrous midterm defeat, Johnson’s decision effectively yields the position of highest-ranking Republican in the House to whichever member of his party can claim it.

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Wall Street surged at the open, after Democrats scored historic victories in midterm elections and secured control of US Congress.

The Dow Jones rose 2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500 both gained more than 1%. That’s quite a reversal: Overnight, stock futures fell sharply as investors worried about the prospect of tougher regulation of the AI sector and the impact on economic growth.