Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday defended President Donald Trump’s decision to go to war in Iran, portraying it as an act of courage that broke with his predecessors’ approach.

“It would have been very easy to do what multiple presidents before him have done, which is just ignore the Iran thing, leave it for the next guy,” Rubio said in Florida.

“But this president didn’t do that,” he added. “He confronted it because what Iran wants to do is not just destroy our country; it’s destroy our way of life and threaten our children.”

Rubio’s defense contrasted with remarks by Vice President JD Vance, who explicitly blamed the war for the midterm election results.

Donald Trump traveled to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday.

Joined by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, Trump discussed his administration’s plans for space travel.

“Before the end of my term, the United States will return American astronauts to the surface of the moon,” he said.

“Within the next two years, NASA will launch the first ever nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars,” Trump added.

On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump posted a series of midterm election charts on Truth Social.

One appeared to put Tuesday’s GOP losses into context, pointing out that parties of just two presidents gained House seats in midterms since 1946.

Another highlighted that Democratic turnout significantly exceeded Republican turnout.

In his first sit-down interview since the midterms blowout, Trump told CBS News that while he “loved” his Cabinet, he would be making “maybe a few changes.”

But he declined to name names – even when pressed by correspondent Ross Douthat on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is rumored to be at risk.

Rep. Robert Garcia, a California Democrat and the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, vowed to investigate President Donald Trump and his family, following the midterm elections.

“Oversight Democrats are ready to take on the crooks, the con men, and the Trump crime family,” Garcia wrote on X Friday. “Lawyer up.”

A newly-elected Congressman has shared the moment he told his father he had won his race as he announced his dad had passed away after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Democrat Richard Ojeda, a retired Army Major, defeated seven-term Republican Congressman Richard Hudson for North Carolina’s Ninth District on Tuesday.

Read Andrew Feinberg’s analysis…

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, praised Susie Wiles after it was announced that she would be replaced by Stephen Miller.

“Stephen has been with me from the beginning. He gets it,” President Trump told reporters Friday afternoon after tapping Stephen Miller to serve as his chief of staff. “Very good politically, and he’s a very good man. He’ll do a great job. Great manager.”

Tuesday’s midterm elections raised a central question about President Donald Trump’s final two years in office: How would he govern with Democrats in control of Congress?

Would he seek common ground or use his veto power to thwart their agenda?

Trump initially struck a conciliatory tone. He told Fox News on Wednesday that he was willing to work with Democrats and later told reporters: “I’ll get along probably with the Democrats unless they want to be destructive.” He also called Chuck Schumer, who is likely to become Senate majority leader, “not a bad guy.”

But his decision to elevate Stephen Miller to chief of staff points toward a potentially more combative approach.

Miller, the architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policy, is seen by some as more ideologically uncompromising than his predecessor, Susie Wiles.

He’s helped shape some of Trump’s most controversial policies, including separating migrant families at the border, restricting travel from Muslim-majority countries, limiting asylum, expanding deportations and seeking to end birthright citizenship.

Miller has certainly used far more incendiary partisan rhetoric than Wiles.

He has labeled Democrats “extremists, freaks and America-hating lunatics” and described them as “a party that openly aids, encourages and foments violence.”

Trump himself appears to have acknowledged that Miller’s views are divisive.

“I would love to have [Miller] come up and explain his true feelings. Maybe not his truest feelings,” Trump said at an Oval Office event last year. “That might be going a little bit too far.”