The Wall Street Journal — owned by Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump’s most loyal media ally — just published one of the most damning portraits of a president in crisis ever to appear in the American press.
His tirade became such a distraction — such a hindrance to the people actually managing the crisis — that his own aides physically removed him from the situation room and opted to brief him at intervals instead. Let that sink in: the commander-in-chief was kicked out of his own war briefing by his own staff.
While his team worked to rescue two American airmen in hostile territory, Trump was “wailing throughout a nearly empty West Wing” about gas prices and European allies who wouldn’t join his war. He was obsessed with one thing above all else — not the safety of the airmen, but his own political fate.
Specifically, he was terrified of becoming Jimmy Carter. “If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter… with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump had said in March. “What a mess.
” So, as two American pilots were missing in Iran, the president’s primary concern was whether this would cost him politically — the same calculation he made when he ignored his generals’ advice and launched the war in the first place. The pilot was rescued later that day.
The second crew member took two more days to recover. Hours after learning of the successful rescue, Trump celebrated Easter Sunday by posting a profanity-filled Truth Social message demanding Iranians “open the F—n’ Strait, you crazy b—–ds, or you’ll be living in Hell” — and signed it “Praise be to Allah.
President DONALD J. TRUMP. ” When advisers expressed alarm, Trump explained he was deliberately trying to seem “unstable and insulting” to scare Iran to the negotiating table. Then — in perhaps the most revealing detail in the entire story — he immediately asked: “How’s it playing? ” He threatened a civilization. Signed it with a religious salutation on Easter Sunday to provoke his own Christian base.
And his first question was about his ratings. Then on Tuesday, he posted that “a whole civilization will die tonight. ” Then he backed down for the fourth time.
and declared “a great victory. ” Then, less than 12 hours later, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard ship fired on a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Journal that Trump “remained a steady leader our country needs” — that is, of course, if you think the country needs a leader who was kicked out of the briefing room by his own aides. the 25th Amendment. Marjorie Taylor Greene called his civilization threat “evil and madness. ” Alex Jones called it a war crime.
And now Rupert Murdoch’s own newspaper is publishing accounts from senior officials describing a president in hours-long freakout, removed from crisis management by his own staff, asking “how’s it playing? ” while American pilots were missing in Iran.
