The president’s war is an ever-escalating disaster. He is increasingly reviled. And his speech won’t change either of those things.
Narcissist that he is, Donald Trump needs an audience fawning over him at public events. Otherwise, he gets bored. When he has to read a prepared speech without the aid of an audience, his soul seems to leave his body.
Thus, when Trump addressed a group of supporters and regime-friendly media in a press conference on Wednesday, he was ad-libbing, relaxed, and animated. But there was no adoring crowd on Wednesday evening, when Trump gave a much-touted prime-time speech on the Iran war.
Polls show lagging support for the war, and Trump’s approval rating is hitting historic lows. If there were ever a time when the president needed to bring some energy and focus to his communication with voters, this speech was it. Instead, we got the version of Trump that always emerges when he has to read from prepared remarks and pretend to be a dignified holder of his office: groggy, droning, and disengaged. Anyone looking for a coherent explanation of why the US is at war and where the conflict is headed would have been left badly wanting.
In the press conference, Trump was asked about what he planned to say. He replied, “Basically, I’m going to tell everybody how great I am. What a phenomenal job I’ve done.” This got a laugh from the MAGA fans, but it was also quite revealing.
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Despite Trump’s loud, shameless tooting of his own horn—always a go-to for this most self-obsessed of men—he must know that his war of choice is damaging his presidency.
Everyone can see that the war is not the quick victory Trump promised. As he himself admits, he “predicted” the war “was going to be over in three days.” In fact, the war has gone on for a month and is increasingly looking like a major failure.
The US and Israeli military have inflicted massive damage on Iran, assassinated many of its leading politicians, and killed thousands of civilians. But this carnage has served little strategic purpose. The Iranian state has proven remarkably resilient and has retained the capacity to inflict damage on Israel, US troops, and US-allied Gulf states. Most importantly, by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has demonstrated that it possesses a potent economic weapon. Iran’s ability to close the Strait has led to rocketing oil prices, sinking stock markets, and the possibility of a global recession.
Trump desperately needs to explain to people why any of this bloodshed and hardship is necessary. But instead, he keeps inadvertently showing Americans just how disconnected his war aims are from their daily lives.
One moment from the press conference underscored just how little Trump seems to have a handle on the politics of the moment. Asked about federal funding for daycare, Trump responded, “The US can’t take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We’re fighting wars. Medicaid, Medicare—they can do it on a state basis. We have to take care of one thing: military protection.” Even a political party as feckless and incompetent as the Democrats often are should be able to exploit Trump’s confession that paying for this wildly unpopular war means the government can’t provide basic services to the public.
Trump’s speech is unlikely to persuade a skeptical nation to support the war. Rather than offering anything new, he hit some of his stalest talking points and rehashed the contradictory arguments that have already fallen flat with voters. Thus, we got the greatest hits: “Barack Hussein Obama” made a bad deal with Iran, which Trump was right to tear up; Iran was on the cusp of getting nuclear weapons; previous presidents were too weak to do what Trump did; regime change was not the goal but has been achieved; the Iranian government is eager to negotiate, but if they don’t, the US and Israel would bomb them “back to the Stone Ages.”
This mix of boasting and barbarism was typical of Trump. But it couldn’t mask the gaping holes in his presentation. Notably, Trump was unable to answer the question of how the Strait of Hormuz is to be reopened. At one point, he said, “When this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It’ll just open up naturally.” This is pure magical thinking, and as Chris Hayes noted on MS NOW, echoed comments Trump made about Covid in April of 2020: “But I think what happens is it’s going to go away. This is going to go away.” Needless to say, Covid did not just “go away.” Despite the intermittent lockdowns and vaccines, it is still with us. Without a political solution involving negotiating with Iran, the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is also likely to be a problem that persists for years.
Aside from his indulgence in fantasy, Trump’s other solution to the blocking of the Strait was to ask other countries to solve the problem he had created. His deeply irresponsible words are worth quoting at length :
The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future. We don’t need it. We haven’t needed it, and we don’t need it. We’ve beaten and completely decimated Iran. They are decimated both militarily and economically and in every other way. And the countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They could do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.
So to those countries that can’t get fuel, many of which refuse to get involved in the decapitation of Iran—we had to do it ourselves—I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And No. 2, build up some delayed courage. Should have done it before. Should have done it with us as we asked. Go to the Strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy.
Needless to say, opening the Strait is not going to be “easy.” If it were “easy,” then the United States and Israel would be able to do it. Nor are other countries likely to take up Trump’s offer, given that he is showing every day how foolish it is to go to war with Iran.
Behind all his bluster, Trump’s speech reeked of desperation. He has trapped himself into a war he doesn’t know how to end, especially since the Iranians have every good reason to inflict as much pain as they can to secure genuine concessions (including ironclad guarantees against future attacks).
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Trump’s flop sweat was most evident in how he addressed the question of the length of the war. He said it would be over in “two or three weeks.” That in itself will do much damage. But he also tried to wave away the problem of the war going on far longer than expected by comparing it to other conflicts such as World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War. Trump noted that the Vietnam War went on for “19 years, five months, and 29 days.” This is not in fact a reassuring comparison, since the worry is that, like Vietnam, the Iran War will become a quagmire the US can’t extricate itself from.
Trump might get a little dopamine hit from gloating about how well the war is going. But even his tawdry sales pitch can’t hide the fact that he’s a desperate man who knows he has created a catastrophe.
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