The Latest: Trump concedes Iran war impact on elections but insists he’d ‘do it again’

As he takes stock of his Republican Party’s midterm drubbing, President Donald Trump faces the difficult question of what to do about his unpopular 8-month-old war against Iran. For weeks, Trump threatened a post-election full-scale bombardment if Tehran didn't accept his terms. On Thursday, Trump suggested that the election losses aren’t weighing on his calculations.

A handful of remaining Senate and House races, still to be called by The Associated Press, will determine the strength of Democrats’ majority in Congress. Contests in Alaska and Mississippi have narrow margins with votes still outstanding. As the scale of the Democrats’ nationwide victories comes into focus, dozens of House races have not yet been called.

The jockeying to replace Sen. Marsha Blackburn is intensifying after she won the Tennessee governor's race, with one Republican congressman publicly expressing interest and speculation swirling around Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. But Hegseth is not currently being considered for the seat, according to a person familiar with the matter who discussed the private conversations on condition of anonymity.

The Latest:

In an X post replying to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina is defending a House effort to impeach him.

“This is about you: the incompetence you’ve displayed, the bad advice you’ve given to president, and your shameful and embarassing episodes from firing our top generals to texting war plans to reporters,” Tillis wrote.

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who was defeated by a Trump-backed candidate in this year’s Republican primary, has introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth, citing his handling of the Iran war and other issues. Massie has said he will drop the effort if Hegseth resigns.

Tillis was replying to a video Hegseth posted defending himself. Hegseth said he has restored the Pentagon to its central purpose which is fighting wars, and “we don’t back down.”

The call between Trump and Qatar’s emir came as the Middle East remains on edge over the possibility of renewed U.S. military action against Iran.

Trump’s discussion with Emir Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al Thani centered on international efforts to end tensions, according to a statement Friday from the Qatari ruler’s media office that cited Qatar’s mediation efforts aimed at reaching “a comprehensive agreement that ends the crisis and achieves security and stability in the region.”

Sheik Tamim “stressed the importance of continuing dialogue and adopting diplomatic means to resolve disputes, sparing the region further escalation, and ensuring freedom of maritime navigation and the security of energy supplies,” according to the statement.

Qatar and other U.S.-allied Gulf Arab countries came under heavy fire by Iran and have been anxious to avoid a new escalation that could leave them vulnerable to attacks.

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Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, said in an interview on CNBC that even if the construction of data centers slows, the United States can “still have a blockbuster economy.”

Hassett spoke after stock markets plunged Thursday in the wake of Democrats’ sweeping election victories that saw the party gain large majorities in the House and Senate and sharply increase their power in state governments across the country, fueled partly by anti-data center sentiment.

Hassett also praised Friday’s jobs report that showed an unexpected boost in hiring and a small dip in the unemployment rate.

“The data right now are singing a beautiful song and I expect the momentum on that to continue,” he said.

Yet the jobs report also showed that hourly wage gains trailed annual inflation for the seventh straight month, a key indicator that most households are seeing rising prices erode their spending power.

Rockefeller died Thursday night at his home in Washington, said Mary Stewart, vice president for external affairs at WETA, the public broadcasting station where Rockefeller’s wife, Sharon, serves as president and CEO.

Rockefeller, a Democrat, came from one of the nation’s richest families to spend a half century in public service in one of the poorest states. He arrived in 1964 as a worker in an anti-poverty program, was elected governor a dozen years later and served two terms, then spent 30 years as a U.S. senator.

“I could not imagine a more rewarding career,” Rockefeller said upon his retirement in 2015.

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The hiring was far stronger than the 65,000 new jobs that economists had expected.

Friday’s jobs report comes three days after voters frustrated with Trump’s management of the economy — and especially the high cost of living – handed full control of Congress to the Democrats.

America’s economic output and job market have proven resilient in the face of Trump’s double-digit taxes on imports and the war with Iran, which has driven U.S. gasoline prices above $4 a gallon and pinched family budgets.

The gross domestic product advanced at a sprightly 3.4% annual pace from July through September, lifted by strong consumer spending and booming investment in artificial intelligence.

But wage gains haven’t been keeping up with persistently high inflation.

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The temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from breaking ground on a towering memorial arch for two weeks represents a major setback for one of Trump’s most prominent projects in his vision to remake Washington.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s temporary restraining order followed a series of steps taken earlier Thursday by the government, including the final approval of the arch by the National Capital Planning Commission in an 8-4 vote after a 9½-hour hearing where scores of witnesses opposed the construction.

The administration’s court filings made it clear that it was taking the steps needed to begin construction.

In approving the temporary stop, Chutkan said Virginia and the District of Columbia had shown that the immediacy of the construction would cause real harm to the plaintiffs.

Just a handful of races for Senate and governor have not yet been called by The Associated Press as of 4 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.

In the House, 59 races where party control of the seat is at stake have yet to be called.

In Mississippi’s Senate race, Democrat Scott Colom has a lead of a few dozen votes over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. Several thousand provisional ballots are expected to be counted in the race and the state has until Nov. 10 to resolve those ballots. Those votes will be decisive. In 2022, the state counted about 5,700 provisional ballots. Mississippi does not have an automatic recount process, but a challenger can seek a court order for one.

The AP has also not called Alaska’s Senate contest between incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola, who has a 626-vote lead over Sullivan with an estimated 74% of votes counted. Under Alaska law, if neither candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, then it goes to ranked-choice tabulation.

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Trump is doubling down on his support for data centers and warned Friday that states that deny them will lose out on “the riches they bring!”

Tuesday’s midterm elections brought a wave of Democrats pledging to clamp down on the energy-hungry behemoths that underpin the artificial intelligence boom. Skepticism of data centers and their impact on electricity prices and overall affordability bolstered successful Democratic campaigns for governor in states such as Texas and Ohio.

Trump has cast data centers as crucial to winning an AI arms race against China but also for lowering taxes and bringing in jobs to communities that allow them.

“As President, I am 100% in favor of Super Intelligence (SI), and will work with the many States in the U.S. that want to become RICH by having them,” Trump said Friday on Truth Social. “They are GOLD, and only foolish leadership will say “NO” to the riches they bring!”

Global shares tumbled Friday following a broad selloff on Wall Street of shares related to artificial intelligence as the prospect of more regulation in the wake of the US midterm elections compounds fears about high levels of debt and spending in the sector.

Stock markets around the world have been feeling pressure from continued declines for companies that have benefited from the boom in the artificial-intelligence technology industry. Critics also say AI stock prices shot too high and were in a bubble amid concerns about high levels of borrowing and spending as companies race to build the massive computing capacity needed to train AI applications. What might come next remains uncertain, they say.

The Democrats’ win in the US midterm elections Tuesday also raises the prospect of more regulation, including at the state level, where popular resistance to data center construction remains strong.

Clergy members and other Democratic candidates with an unapologetically Christian message to “love your neighbor” helped their party flip control of Congress.

It was a striking midterm victory that demonstrated the strength of the religious left as a counter to the stalwart evangelical support for Trump and his fellow Republicans.

“This attempt to corner the market on Christianity by evangelicals was repudiated,” said Brian Kaylor, a Baptist pastor and editor of a progressive faith and politics site.

Instead, American mainline Protestantism, with its less-strident theology, took the election spotlight.

Seminarian James Talarico in Texas, megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton in Kansas and Iowa ministers Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James flipped key seats in the U.S. Senate and House. They’re part of the mainline Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran branches with moderate or progressive beliefs.

Unlike the nationalists wanting America to privilege a particular Christian worldview in public life, the mainline candidates in keeping with their Christian values backed church-state separation and sought common ground across religions, Kaylor said.

In his first public appearance after an election that soundly repudiated his policies, Trump turned to a topic both familiar and, given the context, surprising: not his policies or politics, but his efforts to remake pieces of the city that is the backdrop to his presidency.

Despite Trump’s affinity for project management, though, with Democrats taking control of Congress, the work the administration is doing to change the physical face of the District of Columbia is sure to face far more roadblocks than it did for the first two years of his second term.

The potential collision point between an oppositional oversight from Democrats and the president’s preoccupation with the projects was evident in his last message to the American public before the election — and in his first afterward, too.

Both focused to some degree on his projects. On Monday, it was the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial; on Wednesday, it was a tour of the under-construction White House ballroom, where he talked columns and steel beams and Corinthian designs.

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Latino voters moved sharply to the left in the midterm elections, propelling Democrats to an improbable electoral sweep in Texas and in battleground House races from coast to coast.

It’s a remarkable pivot for a demographic that had shifted toward Trump just two years ago.

“We showed our power and flexed our muscle during this election,” said Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who won his battleground district in New Mexico by around 17 percentage points after winning by less than 1 percentage point in 2022.

Democrats capitalized on voters’ angst over rising prices and government corruption, riding a wave of frustration to retake control of the House and the Senate.

Hispanics joined in that decisive repudiation of Trump and his Republican Party. In Texas, every county voted more Democratic than it did two years ago, when Trump beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race. But the more heavily Hispanic the county, generally the heavier the shift.

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After a campaign season filled with outrage against data centers, the midterm elections ushered in a wave of Democrats pledging to clamp down on the energy-hungry behemoths.

A tougher regulatory environment for artificial intelligence giants and data center developers is expected to follow, even if Trump stalls any federal crackdown.

Data center regulation itself was not on most midterm ballots, and it wasn’t among the top issues for most voters. But hardline stances against the server warehouses were woven into the platforms of many candidates, including the Democrats who upended longtime Republican control of the governorships in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Nevada and Iowa, many of which are data center hotspots.

Skepticism of data centers and their impact on electricity prices often blended with the fight for affordability — a key campaign talking point for Democrats.

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The jockeying to replace Sen. Marsha Blackburn is intensifying in Tennessee, just days after she won the race for governor, with one Republican congressman publicly expressing interest and speculation swirling around Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who won reelection Tuesday, told The Associated Press that he wants to be considered for the Senate seat when Blackburn becomes governor in January.

Hegseth has also surfaced as a potential replacement, with his future uncertain after Republicans’ sweeping losses in the midterm elections. But Hegseth is not currently being considered for the seat, according to a person familiar with the matter who discussed the private conversations on condition of anonymity.

The person said Blackburn is focused on her transition to the governorship and dismissed the speculation about appointing Hegseth to the Senate seat as baseless chatter.

Meanwhile, Hegseth released a video on social media on Thursday in which he acknowledged the threat of impeachment and argued that it would be “all about the politics of personal destruction” and that “won’t work with me. You can rest assured of that.”

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As he takes stock of his Republican Party’s midterm drubbing, President Donald Trump now faces the difficult question of what to do about his unpopular 8-month-old war against Iran.

For weeks, Trump has threatened to return to a full-scale bombardment of Iran once the U.S. elections were in the rearview mirror if Tehran did not come to a settlement under terms acceptable to him.

In his first comments on Wednesday after Democrats’ resounding election victory — a wave powered in part by the American electorate’s dissatisfaction with the war — Trump largely agreed with Vice President JD Vance, who publicly ruminated on the war being a catastrophe for Republicans.

And in an Oval Office exchange with reporters Thursday, Trump suggested that the election losses aren’t weighing on his calculations.

“If we have to do the rest of the Iran thing, we’re very much locked in,” Trump said.

Now, as Trump ponders his next move, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Iran, the Middle East and the global economy writ large.

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Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton speaks at an election night event, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Overland Park, Kansas. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth leaves after attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Defense Ministers' Meeting in Cebu, central Philippines, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, Pool)

Mississippi Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom speaks to his supporters during his election watch party Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today via AP)

President Donald Trump talks to reporters during a tour of White House Ballroom construction at the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers created a surprising 165,000 new jobs last month, and the unemployment rate dipped to 4.1%.

Hiring was far stronger than the 65,000 new jobs that economists had expected.

The jobs report comes three days after voters delivered a stunning defeat to President Donald Trump and his Republican Party in midterm elections. Frustrated with the state of the economy — and especially the high cost of living – Americans handed full control of Congress to the Democrats.

But the latest jobs report looked solid. Labor Department revisions added a combined 84,000 new jobs to the August and September totals.

The unemployment rate fell even though 421,000 people entered the labor force.

Average hourly wages rose 0.4% in October from September, the biggest month-over-month gain since January.

"This was a blowout jobs report,'' said Angelo Kourkafas, senior global strategist at Edward Jones. "Payroll growth exceeded expectations, revisions were positive, the unemployment rate fell, participation improved, and wage growth strengthened.''

The strong job gains will likely make Federal Reserve policymakers more confident in the health of the labor market, giving them leeway to focus on persistently high inflation and raise their benchmark interest rate at their next meeting in December.

The central bank typically seeks to bring down inflation by lifting its key interest rate to cool borrowing and spending. The Fed raised the rate in September but left it alone at its meeting last month. Wall Street investors now see the chance of a December rate hike at 77%, up about 10 percentage points from Thursday, according to CME’s FedWatch.

“For sure, we’re looking at another rate increase in December and possibly another one in early 2027,’’ said Boston College economist Brian Bethune.

Solid hiring also underscores a concern among many Fed officials that their key rate isn’t high enough to slow inflation.

Hourly wages were up a meager 3.1% from October 2025. That means many workers have seen their purchasing power decline over the past year, despite continued hiring.

Professional and business services – a broad category of administrative and managerial workers – added 70,000 jobs. Healthcare companies hired nearly 42,000. Factories added 19,000 jobs. But hotels, restaurants and bars cut 10,600.

The American economy and job market have proven resilient in the face of a series of shocks — Trump’s double-digit tariffs on imports and the war with Iran, which has driven U.S. gasoline prices above $4 a gallon and pinched family budgets.

Gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — advanced at a sprightly 3.4% annual pace from July through September, lifted by strong consumer spending and booming investment in artificial intelligence.

The job market has been solid but unspectacular.

So far this year, employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — have added an average of 86,000 jobs a month. That is modest by historic standards but an improvement over 2025, when monthly job creation averaged 9,700. That was the weakest performance outside of a recession since 2002. Last year, high interest rates and President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policies discouraged hiring.

Despite recovering this year, hiring remains well below the average of 166,000 jobs created monthly in 2023 and 2024, let alone the 491,000 a month recorded during the 2021-2022 hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns.

Economists see a “low-hire, low-fire’’ environment in which employers are reluctant to let go of existing workers but aren’t in any hurry to hire new ones. Young people entering the workforce, or those who’ve lost their jobs, can struggle to find work.

The United States doesn’t need as many new jobs as it once did to keep the unemployment rate from rising. That's because baby boomer retirements and Trump’s immigration crackdown mean fewer people are competing for work.

In late 2023, the so-called break-even point was around 166,000 new jobs a month. It’s now just over 5,000, according to an estimate by Yale University’s Budget Lab, which drew on an earlier Federal Reserve report.

AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this story.

FILE - Workers hold a hose as concrete in poured to form a beam on a residential building under construction, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, File)