MAGA publication suggests Trump give honesty a try

A staunchly MAGA publication called out President Donald Trump on Thursday for his “obviously untrue” statements about the war in Iran.

After reviewing how Trump told Fox News that the Iran war is over and blaming the media for claiming otherwise, The Federalist’s Eddie Scarry wrote that “a lot of us who are rooting for a successful end to this conflict aren’t so upset with the media. We know how they operate. What’s frustrating us to the point of furious tears are the wildly inconsistent, contradictory and otherwise obviously untrue statements Trump is making about the war on a near-daily basis.”

Scarry then reviewed how Trump has flip-flopped about the state of the war in Iran since he first took office.

"Literally since the start of the war, the president has said it’s over; that it’s still going; that we’re close to a deal with Iran; that Iran isn’t really trying to make a deal; that Iran really wants a deal; that Iran needs to open the Hormuz Strait; that the Hormuz Strait would be open in short order; that we control the strait; that the U.S. wants help from other allies; that the U.S. doesn’t need help from any allies; that Iran must unconditionally surrender; that a deal might not include unconditional surrender; that regime change is a requirement to end the war; that the war might very well end with the existing regime,” Scarry wrote, before listing 11 examples of Trump’s untrue statements about the war between March and June. He then argued that if Trump believed the war in Iran was a good idea, he should have been upfront about his goals.

“If that was the route Trump wanted to take, with Israel nudging him along, he owed it to Americans to honestly set our expectations and manage them as events evolved,” Scarry explained. “He’s not doing that. To the contrary, the president has used his public appearances to say opposite things at once, apparently for the purpose of keeping oil prices lower than they otherwise might be and disorienting Iran’s leadership, whoever that may be at any given moment.”

He added, “It may have been useful in buying Trump more time to figure out a way to bring the war to an end, but it has also flummoxed and irritated American voters, who are gearing up to render their judgement on this operation in just a few short months in the midterm elections.

“It’s too late to pretend that this can still be a splendid little war that ends cleanly,” Scarry concluded. “Iran has proven resilient and that it’s far more creative than the American administration appears to have anticipated. Trump can start leveling with the public now, and maybe this unpopular war will be less of a liability for his party in November.”

Scarry is not alone in arguing that Trump is attempting to effectively gaslight the public about the state of the war against Iran.

“I’d say it's a lot harder to TACO about a war than it is to TACO about tariffs,” economist Ed Elson, the co-host of Prof G Markets, told MS NOW on Thursday. “Let me break down what's happened: back in April of last year, before the tariffs, we had 2.3 percent inflation. Then the tariffs came — we all said they would be inflationary — and inflation rose to 3 percent within the year, roughly a four percentage point added to inflation because of the tariffs. Then Trump decided to bomb Iran without clear objectives and without any contingency plans if this thing doesn’t work out. We do that, oil prices skyrocketed, and now we're at 4.2 percent.”

Elson added that, although the president could alleviate inflation by both ending the Iran war and eliminating his tariffs, “it's never going to happen, because that would mean admitting defeat, which is something he will never do. This is one of the greatest self-inflicted economic injuries in American history, and because of his pride and ego, I think it's only going to get worse.”

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