WASHINGTON—In yet another attempt to throw red meat to what remains of his MAGA base, President Trump spent 19 minutes of prime-time TV on April 1 struggling to explain his war on Iran. “We have all the cards,” he trumpeted. “They (the Iranians) have none.”
He had so much trouble coming up with an explanation, other than repeating much of what he has been saying for weeks, because he could not speak the truth about the purposes of his war: rewarding the fossil fuel companies with record high prices for their products and lining the pockets of his family and himself with the fruits of billions of dollars in deals made in the Middle East since the advent of his second presidency. If anything, the deal-making to enrich himself has intensified with the onset of the war on Iran.
He could not very well mention in his speech the calls by some in the GOP to cut healthcare even more deeply to pay for his war. As it is, the Trump healthcare cuts are leaving millions with no healthcare whatsoever.
The speech failed to put forward any solutions for the rising costs of fuel at the pump and almost everything else Americans must pay, including housing, food, and transportation. Instead, it was, “We’ll continue until our objectives are achieved and we’ll continue to hit them [Iran] extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” Trump declared, even threatening to “bomb them into the Stone Age.”
Trump did not mention that in his 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns, he had denounced “forever wars” and pledged never to enter one.
Trump bragged about how the Iran War has lasted only 32 days—so far—and compared that to the other wars, starting with four years for World War I, some 112 years ago. He said we’d get out “soon,” but didn’t mention his decision just hours earlier to send more ground forces to Iran. Total U.S. troops in the Middle East are now more than 50,000. He said nothing about his decision to launch the war while keeping Congress in the dark.
Trump lauded the 13 U.S. service members who’ve died in the war, and declared their families told him, “Go finish the job.” He didn’t show any tape of them saying so or provide any proof.
He said Iran’s defense capabilities, including its navy, air force, munitions factories, and nuclear program, have been “obliterated”—just minutes after he reminded viewers Iran’s nuclear capacity was destroyed a year ago by joint bombing by the U.S. and Israel, led by his far-right ally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He bragged about having destroyed Iran’s factories but failed to mention how Iran is able to continue to make missiles which he claimed, without evidence, could reach the continental U.S. and Europe.
And while Trump claimed Iran has been a Middle East aggressor for 47 years and blamed his predecessors, of both parties, for doing nothing about it, he didn’t say why he chose to make an illegal war on Iran now.
Trump said “regime change” is not his goal in Iran, but he crowed about killing top Iranian leaders. The remaining ones are “more moderate,” he claimed. But unless they genuflect to U.S. demands, more U.S. bombing awaits, he promised.
Trump dumped one key goal, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint of world oil trade. He wants U.S. allies in surrounding states and Europe to handle that. The strait is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, with a much narrower shipping lane. Iran is on its northern shore, and the oil-producing U.S. allies of Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates are on its south shore.
“It’ll open up very, very easy,” Trump predicted. “After all, they [the Iranians] want to sell their oil.”
The Europeans can always buy oil from the U.S., Trump urged. “The U.S. is now energy independent” and a top oil producer. Buying oil from the U.S. makes Trump’s corporate backers among fossil fuel firms very happy—but he didn’t say so.
The alternative for Europe is to “take it [the Strait], protect it and use it for themselves.”
And so it went. Then Trump turned to bragging about the U.S. economy and about how taxpayers would see bigger refunds from his “Big Beautiful” tax cut for the 1%, enacted along party lines last July.
Trump also promised yet another large tax cut, without saying how he’d get it through the narrowly divided Congress. He didn’t mention other economic facets, such as inflation of basic commodities such as gasoline, milk, bread, and eggs. He also did not grapple with the rising unemployment problem.
After all, some inconvenient facts aren’t good for the campaign trail, and this rambling monologue sounded just like that—a Trump campaign speech.
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