MAGA Dolt Hegseth Accidentally Reveals Big Hole in Trump Victory Claim

So Iran came to the table because Trump threatened to blow up their civilization, eh? Sorry, that spin is in tatters.

Now that Donald Trump has backed off his threat to obliterate a nation of 93 million people, his propagandists are already retconning it into proof of his Solomon-like foresight and wisdom. The new spin is that the war with Iran temporarily ended in a ceasefire precisely because he made this threat, forcing Iran to renegotiate on more favorable terms.

“Iran ultimately understood—their ability to produce, to generate power, to fuel their terrorist regime—was in our hands,” Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday, in response to questions about Trump’s threat. Hegseth insisted Trump’s vow to eradicate “a whole civilization” persuaded Iran that he could crush their ability to “export energy” and thus end the entire basis for the regime’s existence.

“That type of threat is what brought them to the place where they effectively said, ‘We want to cut this deal,’” Hegseth continued. This talking point has gone out widely: GOP Representative Mike Lawler of New York, a top target of Democrats, suggested that due to Trump’s “extreme rhetoric,” the Iranians “understand for once that they need to actually negotiate.”

But there’s a small problem with this spin. It’s that the Iranians were already negotiating with Trump before the war started. Trump largely sabotaged those negotiations, because he was talked into believing the war would be easy and deliver a quick burst of glory. Trump’s approach to the talks made success impossible—deliberately.

As The New York Times’ magnum opus on this reveals, Trump had decided to take the plunge (all that remained uncertain was the timing) weeks before those talks with Iran hit their critical phase. This was partly because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked........

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