Nearly one month after the U.S. began strikes on Iran, President Trump is sending thousands of troops to the Middle East to potentially fight in a war he said he has “already won.”
That contradiction has frustrated some senior White House aides and outside allies, three of whom spoke to MS NOW about the president’s public messaging. They described it as confusing, internally inconsistent and increasingly detached from battlefield reality.
Trump calling the war already won is “mostly hyperbole,” said a senior White House official granted anonymity to speak candidly about the administration’s thinking. “It’s part [of Trump] just wanting to declare victory and move on.”
That impulse, the official said, has become more pronounced in recent days.
“[Trump] is getting a little bored with Iran,” the official said. “Not that he regrets it or something — he’s just bored and wants to move on.”
A second White House official who was granted anonymity for the same reason told MS NOW that Trump has begun to “move on” from the conflict and has started shifting conversations and personal focus towards the economy, domestic issues and the upcoming midterm elections.
The White House’s public communications have suggested a similar detachment — presenting the conflict less as an ongoing war with human lives at stake and more as a cultural moment that generates online content.
That has emerged as a major, if mostly quiet, point of dissension among White House staffers and Trump allies.
Over the past few weeks, official White House social media accounts have leaned on internet memes to flippantly promote the conflict, using clips from movies like “Iron Man” and “Top Gun,” characters from cartoons like “SpongeBob Squarepants” and rap music overlaid on footage of unclassified videos of bombs striking Iranian targets.
“The war videos are cringe and disrespectful and gross,” the senior White House official told MS NOW. “It makes me feel embarrassed.”
In response to a request for comment, White House communications director Steven Cheung said that the “memes will continue and there isn’t a damn thing this person can do about it because they have no influence. This person clearly isn’t in the room and is a low-level staffer.”
Others who spoke with MS NOW questioned the communications strategy.
“The social media post of bombs being dropped, okay cool, but what do we get out of this?” added a former official in the Trump White House, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
The second White House official offered a defense of the approach, drawing a distinction between the administration’s two communications channels: official accounts, which in Trump’s second term have prioritized viral content over public information, and the president’s Truth Social feed, which the official characterized as the more substantive policy and communications forum. That official also said there is clear “divide” among White House officials on how to approach messaging as the war drags on. Trump prematurely claiming victory despite the evidence is not new. He employed a version of it after the 2020 election, making unsubstantiated claims about massive voter fraud to explain his loss to Joe Biden. But allies say it lands differently in a wartime context. “He has learned he can tell the American people his feeling, and — with enough time — the American people will accept his lie,” said the former Trump White House official. “Just telling us the war is won isn’t good enough. We need to see it; we need to feel it.” But for Americans to feel the war has ended, it very likely has to actually end — something that has proven difficult, as some top administration officials push for the military campaign to escalate, and as Iranian officials have publicly rejected any suggestion that they are ready to negotiate. On Thursday, Trump posted on Truth Social that the “Iranian negotiators are very different and ‘strange.’” Trump continued that “they are ‘begging’ us to make a deal.” Iranian regime officials have repeatedly denied that claim. All current and former Trump White House officials who spoke with MS NOW under anonymity voiced that they do not share these same opinions within White House walls for fear of negative repercussions. “So many people are afraid of being on the outs that they are just drinking the Kool-Aid and going along with it,” said the former White House official.
Jake Traylor is a White House correspondent for MS NOW. Recommended
