Donald Trump received a crushing blow in disastrous US midterms as the Democrats seized control of Congress, leaving the president’s second term in office in tatters.

Win after win for the Democrats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate demonstrated an overwhelming rejection of Trump’s policies and presidency.

Vice president JD Vance squarely placed the blame on the war with Iran, saying it would take an “honest conversation” about the conflict to reconcile where “we go from here”.

President Trump admitted this assessment was “largely true”, but said he still would invade Iran if faced with the decision again.

Pressure fell on Secretary of State for War Pete Hegseth, who was expected to be in the firing line for the overwhelming defeat.

The spiralling cost of living and failed tariff policies were also critical to the Republican loss.

The president was unusually quiet in the hours after the result, breaking cover with an appearance at the White House to praise the work being done on his ballroom and the Reflecting Pool.

He told reporters that JD Vance’s comments blaming the party’s historic midterm election defeat on the war with Iran were “largely true”.

The president added: “But at the same time, if I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again, because long-term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.

“The Iran thing we had to do, and ‌we ​continue to ‌do it.”

He again insisted that the Republicans would have won if he was on the ballot, but said: “You can’t transfer the love [from my rallies] to the candidates.”

Asked if he was worried that the Democrats would now try to impeach him, he said: “No, not even a little bit. I think it would destroy the Democratic Party if they did that.”

According to exit polls by SSRS, half of voters nationwide said they saw the midterms as an opportunity to rebuke the president, while three-quarters said they were “angry” or “dissatisfied” with the way the country is headed.

In the early hours, after the polls closed, Trump was ultimately forced to concede that the Democrats “did a good job”, congratulating them on their historic win.

“I don’t view it as a hit on me,” he said in a call to Fox News. “I think we’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the presidency in terms of the economy, in terms of all the things we’ve done.”

The midterms produced several firsts for both parties as in Georgia, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor of any US state, while Byron Donalds, in Florida, became the first Black Republican governor in the US.

Democrat Gina Hinojosa will become the first Latina governor in Texas, while Democrat Xavier Becerra will be California’s first Latino governor. Abdul El-Sayed will became the first Muslim elected to the Senate after his resounding win in Michigan.

The Democratic wave flooded huge swathes of the country, eroding some the firmest of Republican bastions. In Texas, James Talarico became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the state since 1988.

And in Kansas, Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat since the Great Depression nearly a century ago, while in Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown claimed a seat that belonged to JD Vance only two years ago.

The Democrats focused their campaign on corruption and affordability, while capitalising on the unpopularity of the Iran war, while the Republicans under Trump attacked Democrats over culture war issues, portraying their opponents as radicals.

Once seated in January, Democrats are expected to use their power to investigate Trump’s administration, family and allies and demand concessions on major legislation.

Trump offered some insight into his plan to obfuscate Congress, sharing a picture on his social media platform of one of his iconic red baseball caps featuring one word: “Veto.”

On Sunday, ahead of the elections, he had said he expected to issue presidential vetoes for “a month or two” until he can reach compromises with the Democrats.

Dr Rebecca Stone, associate professor of US History at the University of Warwick, told The Independent that Trump’s knee-jerk ‘veto’ reaction reveals how he intends to play out the rest of his presidency.

“There is no limit to the number of vetoes a president can wield,” she explained. “While they can be overridden by a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and the Senate, such a feat would require the support of at least a few elected Republicans.”