Iran takes credit for handing Trump a midterm defeat

Republicans' resounding defeat Tuesday prompted quiet jubilation in Europe and exultation in Iran, as foreign capitals sized up a domestically constrained White House.

Tehran took credit for handing US President Donald Trump "a strategic defeat on the battlefield… and a POLITICAL DEFEAT in Washington ," following reports that Iranian negotiators stalled talks to keep US gas prices high.

Washington's European allies, who have navigated two years of friction with the US over military funding, the Ukraine war , and Greenland, were largely silent, though Italy's former prime minister said "Europe is much stronger" thanks to the "blue wave." Others were less sanguine. Trump is "quite weakened," France's economy minister acknowledged, but noted that the "unpredictable" president remains " in charge of international policy ."