Trump Has No Idea How to Clean Up His Own Mess

In a functioning American democracy, the president would deliver an Oval Office address at the start of a new military conflict. Donald Trump, however, decided to wait until a month into his war with Iran to give a speech about it to a skeptical public.

In the run-up to his address, experts speculated about what he was going to announce. A ground invasion? De-escalation? A petulant withdrawal from NATO because no one wants to help him open the Strait of Hormuz? It was none of these. Instead, a slurring Trump rehashed a bunch of his Truth Social posts, alternately boasting about America’s military progress while threatening war crimes. His speech told us very little, at least explicitly, but revealed quite a........

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