Donald Trump’s weirdest week has left him isolated with nowhere to go on Iran
But at the end of what has been – in a fiercely competitive field – one of the weirdest weeks of Trump’s second Presidency, America’s troubles feel just about as existential as Iran’s
“Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me”(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
When Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that a “whole civilisation will die tonight”, he probably didn’t mean America.
But at the end of what has been – in a fiercely competitive field – one of the weirdest weeks of Trump’s second Presidency, America’s troubles feel just about as existential as Iran’s.
Democrats are talking about impeachment again, and with Trump facing an absolute massacre in the Midterms, they might actually have a decent shot at it. In the meantime, elements of the mad MAGA coalition that installed him as America’s least serious president are now openly suggesting he’s so obviously insane that the 25th Amendment should be used to remove him from office.
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And all of that was before Melania decided the week hadn’t been quite colourful enough and decided to go on TV to declare: “Hey, remember that Epstein guy that nobody’s talked about for a couple of weeks while we’ve been bombing Iran? Yeah, I don’t know him. Never did. Nothing to do with me. Stop asking so many questions.”
She, notably, said almost nothing about her husband during her deeply weird address. And despite posting on Truth Social about the Artemis 2 mission, the Iran war, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, the refurbishment of the reflecting pool near the Lincoln Memorial and posting CCTV footage of a woman being murdered in Florida, he has yet to publicly address his wife’s weird remarks either.
Meanwhile, Americans are exhausted. If you think it’s bad for us, waking up every day with your body in a full clench, braced for whatever illegal, immoral, incredible nonsense Trump has pushed out in to the world overnight, imagine what it’s like if your retirement savings are dependent on this man.
Trump started the week with a bit of fun – spending Monday morning hanging out with the Easter Bunny at the annual White House egg hunt. He wandered the South Lawn, occasionally mumbling about how he’d like to commit a bunch of war crimes, looting and pillaging Iran for its oil to toddlers who, respectfully, were more interested in the chocolate than the ramblings of an elderly despot.
By the afternoon’s lengthy press conference, the war crimes were just piling up. Iran had until Tuesday night, he said, and then he was going to order the US military to start taking out bridges and power stations.
Now, America has committed war crimes before, don’t get me wrong – it’s just that they normally have the good sense not to broadcast what they’re planning to do ahead of time. And also they usually have better lawyers than the Trump administration can attract.
This, incidentally, was the last time Donald Trump was seen in public until late on Friday night, when he ambled onto Marine One en route to Florida for a meeting with donors.
But as far as taboo-busting, norm-breaking and logic-defying moments, it was just the start.
The next morning came the “civilisation” post, threatening genocide against an enemy – which is arguably a war crime in itself.
Reports suggest Iran, that morning, had been in a fair mood to do a deal, but after reading Trump’s threat were far less amenable.
By all accounts it took China to coax them back around.
And as the 8pm deadline approached, there followed a truly delicious piece of diplomatic am dram – when Pakistan’s PM issued a plea for Trump to delay bombing Iran to the Stone Age and for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz.
Unfortunately whoever tweeted it forgot to remove the label at the top of the text that read: “Draft: Pakistan PM message on X…”. Which was mainly weird because if you’re a Pakistani speechwriter or social media manager, you’d probably just refer to him as “the PM” or “Shehbaz”.
The New York Times later confirmed the White House had at least signed off, if not written the statement before it was posted.
So a ceasefire was agreed, to last Donald Trump’s favourite can-kicking time period: two weeks. Trump walked away without having to debase his armed forces any further than he had so far.
Iran, on the other hand, walked away with complete control over the Strait of Hormuz, which they didn’t have a month and a bit ago when the War started. So until this all gets sorted out they can sit at one end of this watery M6 Toll, charging pretty much whatever they want for oil tankers to get through.
Trump, on learning this, has variously suggested that it’s “totally unacceptable” or …fine, as long as he gets a cut.
The problem with all this is not merely that Trump is burning through every bit of patience the international community has left for America – it’s that he’s burning up his own credibility at an equally alarming rate.
Like Michael Bolton singing a ballad, he’s already belted out the first verse at maximum volume.
When JD Vance inevitably storms out of today’s peace talks in Pakistan, because he’s a moron whose grasp of international affairs is roughly equivalent to A-Level general studies, Trump is going to want to shout the chorus even louder – and he’ll find there’s nowhere left to go.
