This is an adapted excerpt from the May 7 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
If I asked you right now to state the status of Donald Trump’s war with Iran, what would you say? Frankly, we at “All In” are having a pretty hard time keeping track, and it is literally our jobs.
On Thursday, around 4 p.m. ET, The New York Times reported that the U.S. and Tehran are negotiating a one-page plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war for 30 days, citing three Iranian officials.
It is, as it has been from the beginning, an incoherent clown show of mismanagement and misinformation.
Then, about an hour later, U.S. officials said we were striking Iran. Apparently, in self-defense after Iran fired on U.S. Navy ships in the strait. Trump called the U.S. strikes a “love tap.” We also learned that Iran might be laying out new, stricter rules to impose on the strait.
It is, as it has been from the beginning, an incoherent clown show of mismanagement and misinformation by the man who made this whole ridiculous mess.
From Day 1, Trump has been making daily announcements, each contradicting the one before it, and each wackier than the last. If anyone ever had the time to put them all together, you would really get a sense of just how disjointed, chaotic and confused the commander in chief is.
Well, actually, at “All In,” we do have the time to put them all together, and so we thought it would be helpful to take a brief journey through the insane ups and downs of the war, as told through Trump’s Truth Social proclamations.
You’ll remember the tough talk from the early days of the war. On March 6, Trump posted that “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” adding that his goal is to “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).”
And, according to Trump, it was working. The very next day, March 7, he posted: “Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors.”
So the war was over? Well, not so fast.
On March 9, the president posted, “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far … Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them.”
Okay, so the war was back on. The next day, March 10, at 4:07 p.m., Trump told the world that “If Iran has put out any ‘mines’ in the Hormuz Strait, and we have no reports of them doing so, we want them removed, IMMEDIATELY!”
Then, 13 minutes later, he wrote, “I am pleased to report that within the last few hours, we have hit, and completely destroyed, 10 inactive mine laying boats and/or ships, with more to follow!”
On March 14, Trump announced NATO would join in on the effort. “Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe,” he said. “This should have always been a team effort, and now it will be!” he added later.
But then, three days later, Trump followed that message up with this one: “The United States has been informed by most of our NATO ‘Allies’ that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran … we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID!”
So, we didn’t need their help. But just a couple of days later, we did, again. On March 20, he wrote, “The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it.”
Three days after that, the president posted about an apparent breakthrough in negotiations, writing, “I AM PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS.”
But three days after that, things hit a snag. “The Iranian negotiators are very different and ‘strange,’” Trump wrote.
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Then, on April 1, he said, “Iran’s New Regime President … has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!” One day later, the president told Iran it was time to “MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY!”
On April 5, he posted “Open the F—– Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.” Two days later, on April 7, Trump shared a message I’m sure you’ll remember, telling the world that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
But later that day, he followed up that message with this: “I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE!” He added that the U.S. “received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.” Just after midnight, Trump declared it was “A big day for World Peace.”
Then, the next day, he posted: “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be!” On April 10, Trump said, “The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards.”
A week later, on April 17, he called it “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!” and said, “IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF IRAN IS FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE. THANK YOU!”
But on April 19, just two days later, Trump said,“Iran recently announced that they were closing the Strait.”
It went on like that until May 3, when Trump announced he had a new tactic for opening the strait, a coalition of the willing, if you will. He said a new operation, called “Project Freedom,” would “begin Monday morning.”
But by Tuesday, Trump had to reverse course, yet again. Project Freedom, the president wrote, “will be paused for a short period of time.”
Honestly, we could go on and on and on. There are hundreds of posts, and you can trust exactly none of them.
Case in point: On Thursday, The Washington Post reported on a confidential CIA report, which totally contradicts the administration’s claims that Iran is on the verge of collapse. It says Iran can survive our naval blockade for three or four more months. According to the report, Iran still has about 75% of its mobile launchers, 70% of its missiles and they are building more.
The fact of the matter is Trump has us losing a war to Iran that he never should have started in the first place, and no amount of increasingly frantic posting can change that fact.
Allison Detzel contributed.
Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MS NOW. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press).