This is an adapted excerpt from the April 8 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes,” guest-hosted by Ali Velshi.
Donald Trump has always promised that he makes “the best deals.” But after he backed down from his threat to kill “a whole civilization,” everyone is now waking up to the fact that his “ceasefire” with Iran is all just smoke and mirrors.
The president of the United States crossed a dark line that cannot be uncrossed, threatening genocide against the Iranian people, all for a shaky promise of temporary peace that began falling apart less than 24 hours later.
It appears the White House saw that fire raging, and poured gasoline on it.
Clearly desperate for a way out of the war he launched almost six weeks ago, Trump simply wanted to wrap it up, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and declare “Mission Accomplished,” which is just what the White House tried to do Wednesday afternoon.
“The world has just witnessed a historically swift and successful military triumph,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during her daily briefing. “It was a very, very strong threat from the president of the United States that led the Iranian regime to cave to their knees and ask for a ceasefire and agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz.”
But by that time, Trump’s alleged “deal” with Iran — a two-week ceasefire to negotiate peace — was already falling apart.
According to the Pakistani officials who brokered the agreement between Trump and Iran, the deal also covers Lebanon, which has been under constant bombardment by Israel.
Multiple Iranian officials said the same thing and publicly warned that they would respond if Israel didn’t stop the bombing.
But on Wednesday, Israel didn’t just continue bombing Lebanon. It also launched the deadliest attacks there since the war began — a hundred airstrikes in just 10 minutes, according to The New York Times. The Associated Press reported that at least 182 people were killed and hundreds wounded on Wednesday alone.
It appears the White House saw that fire raging and poured gasoline on it. Leavitt told reporters that Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire.
So after the U.S. said their idea of a “peace deal” doesn’t extend to stopping the bombs in Lebanon, Iranian state media reported that the government there had resumed blocking traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, once again cutting off 20% of the world’s oil and gas supply.
As a reminder, that’s something they were not doing before Trump started the war. It’s also something Trump vowed had to stop before he would end the war.
But once again, the White House was caught flat-footed. Leavitt dismissed the reports and said what Iran was saying publicly was “different privately.” She also told reporters there was an “uptick of traffic in the strait today.”
Now, about that “uptick” in traffic. Before Iran closed the strait again, just three ships were observed leaving the region on Wednesday, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s three out of an estimated 800 tanker ships awaiting safe passage.
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He discussed destroying an entire population, on behalf of the American people, using taxpayer dollars to do it. That’s a line that cannot be uncrossed.
By the time Leavitt left the podium, Iranian officials said the U.S. had violated the ceasefire agreement and that peace negotiations could not continue.
For its part, the White House says peace talks are ongoing, and Vice President JD Vance is still slated to join negotiations in Pakistan this weekend.
This is where Trump’s threat of genocidal violence has led us. He discussed destroying an entire population, on behalf of the American people, using taxpayer dollars to do it. That’s a line that cannot be uncrossed.
Whether it was a negotiating tactic — it appears to be an unsuccessful one at that — this wasn’t just talk about defeating an opposing military. It wasn’t just talk about regime change.
Trump went even further, to a place beyond saneness and humanity. It is the stuff of horrible, megalomaniacal authoritarians throughout history.
The Geneva Conventions and the U.S. military’s law of war spell out how the president of the United States was talking about committing war crimes. In fact, they spell out that merely making the threat is itself a war crime.
But Trump is flouting those laws, making a mockery of American ideals and creating a permission structure for unbridled brutality.
If you thought Jan. 6 was a real problem, that the deadly Capitol insurrection was a serious attack on American values and on who we are as a people, Trump’s threat to kill “a whole civilization” is just as dangerous.
Allison Detzel contributed.
Ali Velshi is the host of “Velshi,” which airs Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award for Business & Consumer Reporting for “How the Wheels Came Off,” a special on the near collapse of the American auto industry. His work on disabled workers and Chicago’s red-light camera scandal in 2016 earned him two News and Documentary Emmy Award nominations, adding to a nomination in 2010 for his terrorism coverage.