Trump’s WashingtonHow President Trump is changing government, the country and its politics.Good evening. Tonight, I’m covering the unusual way President Trump is posting through the war in Iran. We’ll start with the headlines.
Armistices may never be the same again
War planning is a delicate matter, one that can involve years of strategic thinking and many layers of expertise, as seasoned military commanders game out how they might hit their targets and achieve a goal so that a conflict won’t spiral out of control. There is, of course, another way to run a war and attend to the corresponding statecraft: Just post through it. This is, remarkably, what happened this afternoon, as President Trump used his personal social media website to tell the world that he saw an off-ramp to the United States’ intervention in Iran. “Iran has officially responded to our Obliteration of their Nuclear Facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered,” Trump wrote at 3:52 p.m. He also thanked Iran for giving advance notice of its plans so as to minimize potential casualties. It was an online olive branch, albeit one that belittled Iran even as it urged the country to come back to the table. Two hours later came another stunning missive: The president claimed, before the combatant countries in question had said anything of the sort, that Israel and Iran had both agreed to a “Complete and Total CEASEFIRE.” “On the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR,’” Trump wrote. (As of the time we sent this newsletter, neither country had confirmed there was a deal.) Future historians — assuming they still write books, and not just musings on social-media — will no doubt have much to say about his two posts. In the first, he had sought to bring about the end of a war — one that advisers had spent the weekend insisting was not actually a war with Iran at all — by simply inviting the enemy, in public, to join him in ending it. And in the second, he had declared that peace was a done deal. (And named the war, as if it were a building, or a large body of water.) It was also a striking coda to a weekend of watching the president reflect, in real time, on the way that the war was playing out. He announced the attacks on Truth Social at 7:50 on Saturday night, thanking the public “for their attention to this matter.” He warned Iran to refrain from any retaliation. He berated a Republican who took issue with his ordering of the attack (more on that below). He’d also revealed his insecurities about the attack. He insisted that damage to the three Iranian nuclear sites was “monumental,” and he amplified a claim that the critical Fordo nuclear plant was “gone,” even though American and Israeli military officials have made more cautious initial assessments. And, acutely aware of the political risk of any jump in oil prices, he urged “everyone” to keep them down, and he suggested that the Department of Energy “drill baby drill,” even though that is not the agency’s job. He even alarmed his isolationist base by openly discussing the idea of pushing for regime change in Tehran. “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’” he wrote, “but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” In reality, there is no guarantee that the conflict ends here. You can’t end a war that you entered just by wishing it will end. Former President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner, which referred to the Iraq war, is proof of that. But that didn’t stop Trump. “CONGRATULATIONS WORLD,” he wrote at 4:02 p.m., “IT’S TIME FOR PEACE!”
IN HIS WORDS Friendly fire at a fellow RepublicanPresident Trump took time over the weekend to assail a fellow Republican who had repeatedly made clear his opposition to the American strike on Iran. My colleague Chris Cameron, a reporter in the Washington bureau, explains. Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, has been a legislative thorn in President Trump’s side since Trump’s first term in office, when he tried to block a $2 trillion stimulus bill early in the coronavirus pandemic. Last Tuesday, Massie teamed up with a Democrat to introduce a resolution demanding congressional approval before U.S. troops could attack Iran. On Saturday night, six minutes after Trump announced the bombing of Iran on X, Massie posted a four-word reply: “This is not Constitutional.” That prompted a sustained social-media barrage from the president. On Sunday, he blasted Massie for opposing an attack on Iran and questioned his right-wing bona fides, saying he was “not M.A.G.A., even though he likes to say he is.” “Actually,” Trump wrote, “M.A.G.A. doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him.” On Monday morning, Trump called Massie a “bum” and demanded that he be ousted by a Republican challenger. Massie, a deficit hawk who has taken to wearing a badge on his suit that displays the current $35 trillion national debt, fired back on X, writing that he would “program my debt badge to display the number of milliseconds that have elapsed since @realDonaldTrump has tweeted at me last.” Got a tip? IN ONE GRAPHIC
The damage we can seeAfter the attacks on Saturday, it’s still too soon to know whether Iran still retains the ability to make a nuclear weapon, and the location of its existing stockpile of enriched uranium remains unknown. But satellite images analyzed by my colleagues show the damage we can see right now, just by looking down from the sky. Take a look.
ONE LAST THING The ex-reality TV star who wants you to procreateOver three decades, Americans have watched Sean Duffy evolve from a sex-hungry 25-year-old on MTV’s “The Real World,” gyrating with a woman on a pool table, to Secretary Duffy, a devoutly Catholic husband and father at the helm of President Trump’s Department of Transportation. He’s also pushing young Americans to have families as large as his own. My colleague Caroline Kitchener traces the making of the man who steps to the microphone after a plane crash — and who loves to showcase his nine kids on TV. In fact, Duffy and his wife, the Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, like to call themselves “the longest-lasting (and most fertile) couple in the history of reality TV,” a title they trace to a mid-2000s issue of TV Guide. Chris Cameron contributed to this newsletter. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
|
