The President says so!
Donald Trump used a prime time address to the nation on Wednesday evening to declare the month-long war in Iran a success “nearing completion”, despite a spiraling conflict that has caused economic turmoil across the globe, fractured transatlantic alliances and eroded the president’s approval ratings.
In remarks from the White House, Trump argued that the US’s “little journey” to Iran had nearly accomplished “all of America’s military objectives”, but offered little clarity on how he planned to wind down the conflict over the next “two to three weeks”.
“We are on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world,” Trump said in the 19-minute speech, delivered from Cross Hall of the White House. “We have all the cards. They have none.”
If you believe that, you are so gullible you probably voted for Trump.
A lot of people with a lot of money didn’t believe him, since the S&P 500 declined in real time over the course of the speech.
(I do wish to complain: not basing the Y-axis on zero tells me this segment of the chart was selected to emphasize the drop.)
So what’s next?
Ticking through a list of claimed achievements, Trump said Iran’s navy and air force had been decimated, leaving the country weak and “no longer a threat” to the US and the world. He, however, said the US would continue to hit Iran “extremely hard” for next several weeks.
“We’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong,” he said, even as he said “discussions were ongoing”.
The war is nearly over, so now is the time to throw even more bombs, and the goal is to send a nation of over 90 million people back to the stone age. That’s not a reasonable conclusion, and says we aren’t at all interested in the welfare of the citizens of Iran. More bombs also won’t rescue his terrible poll numbers with the citizens of the USA, which is his real goal.
Market futures are doing a nosedive this morning. Trumps buddies are going to clean up today.
drksky @1 might well be right. I just added a comment about that to a stock market-related post over on Mano’s blog.
I think Trump cares more about the stock market than he does about the polls. His true backers are the wealthy.
Maybe the alleged rise in Satanism is related to Trump’s second term? 🙂
Pope Leo hosts exorcist summit at the Vatican over fears of worldwide surge in Satanism: .https://nypost.com/2026/03/24/world-news/pope-leo-hosts-exorcist-summit-at-the-vatican-over-fears-of-worldwide-surge-in-satanism/
Myself @ 4
….and Trump’s war? The Lord of Flies will be busy this year, buzzing all over the corpses. Hmm…If DJT has an affinity to Baal Shebub it would explain his gross dermal condition.
PZ- “If you believe that, you are so gullible you probably voted for Trump.”
After Trump said he would make Mexico pay for his big, beautiful wall, and they cheered, I started calling them The Gullibles. I also started addressing them as followers, not supporters.
People so easily fooled by a conman deserve what they get, while the rest of us have to suffer. Hopefully, the experience of Trump’s presidency serves as a lesson for individuals who chose not to vote for a Black Woman.
I spent two or three times as long watching Artemis II take off yesterday. But I was content to just catch a few clips of this mess and a summary. Sure feels like the right call. He won’t have anything useful to say until after he figures out how to blame the whole thing on someone else. Before then it’ll just be one lie after another to prop up his ego as he tries to pretend he’s not an abject failure. Impoverishing and killing as many people as possible along the way.
Last night at 10pm EDT (after his speech) I checked the price of crude oil, in about 30 minutes the price jumped over $7 a barrel. This morning I notice it is up over $12 a barrel (since his speech). Maybe people will finally catch on to his deceit.
Yesterday before his speech, gas was over $4 a gallon by me, and I noticed diesel is $6 a gallon. The cost for fuel will spread through the economy, higher prices for everything that needs to be transported.
BTW, we will be charged for gas based on the highest price of oil but if the price drops, the price of gas won’t drop at the same rate.
In Trump’s murky world, “two weeks” means absolutely nothing. It could be two years, two centuries, or never.
I just read summaries of that speech but it is clear that he has no idea how to end his war in Iran. None, whatsoever.
His best idea is one he casually threw out recently, to just walk away and let the rest of the world deal with it.
Ironically, it is his best idea yet although he doesn’t know it.
The USA has become so chaotic, stupid, and malevolent that no one could or should trust us any more. No credibility, no adults in charge.
Really, the EU and Asia should just get together with Iran and negotiate some sort of end to the war.
Almost no one is benefiting from it right now.
I think my favourite quote on this is from someone on BlueSky, quoted on Liars, Guns, and Money: “Anyone watching that speech has no idea whether Trump is escalating or deescalating the war with Iran. But to be fair, neither does he so [shrug emoji]”.
To be fair, the S&P 500 has been around since 1957, so it often makes sense to only look at much more recent data, and if you were to still base the Y-axis on zero, 99.9% of your chart would be empty space.
To use an analogy, anthropogenic global warming disappears into the noise if you consider the entire history of the Earth, but there are perfectly valid reasons why we don’t do that.
Tulsi Gabbard is facing the hangman next, but I suspect Pete Hegseth will be following her shortly. This war is such a catastrophe, and Trump such a coward, that I predict the Trump cabinet is going to get shaken up a bit.
I don’t get this war with Iran at all.
It’s never made much sense to me.
The reports are that we didn’t even plan it or start it.
Two groups asked the USA to beat up on Iran.
.1. Israel, meaning Netanyahu asked Trump to start the war with Iran.
.2. The Gulf Arabs, mostly meaning MBS of Saudi Arabia also asked us to attack Iran.
So, it is a case of, “Why don’t you and Iran fight each other”.
Why are we fighting a major war just because some other countries in the MIddle East asked us to?
We could have said no, fight your own wars.
This is a major mistake on the part of the USA. Wait, not of the USA.
This is a major mistake of Trump, the GOP, and that Fox NoNews host running the Department of Defense.
They never asked anyone and the majority of the US population isn’t in favor of the war.
This moron is being outmaneuvered by Iran at every turn. They’re even winning the social media propaganda war. Now he’s sending in troops and chiding Europe to fix the problem he (and Israel) started.
I never thought tge US could decline this quickly.