Trump got shirty with even the friendliest of reporters wanting to ask about his illegal war in Iran, because he was too busy intervening in a financial dispute between college athletes and universities
Donald Trump is distracted.
Last night he got shirty with even the friendliest of reporters wanting to ask about his illegal war in Iran, because he was too busy intervening in a financial dispute between college athletes and universities.
He also refused to take questions on why he sacked Kristi Noem, the former Homeland Security director who he’d put in charge of the mass deportation programme – a huge part of the wave he rode back into power last year. Because he was too busy with the sport thing.
Today he’s in Miami, launching the “Shield of the Americas”, a weird roundtable of allied leaders of Latin American countries, including Argentina’s mad chainsaw guy Javier Milei and El Salvador’s torture prison mogul Nayib Bukele. You know, Trump’s kind of people.
But, sigh, he’ll have to leave that party early to fly to Dover, Delaware so he can watch six coffins be unloaded from a plane, containing the bodies of US service personnel who were killed this week in Trump’s war in Iran. A war that’s killing Americans, sending petrol prices through the roof, and solidifying alliances between America’s enemies – but the purpose of which Trump and his top team can’t seem to agree.
At some point, though we’re unsure when or if it’s still happening, he’s having a sit-down with Nigel Farage to discuss the future of the Chagos Islands, because apparently patriotism means undermining your country’s government by colluding with the leader of a foreign power.
And none of this – the war, the Latin America meet-up, the Farage chat…even the sport thing – is what Trump is really supposed to be doing, which is convincing American voters that he can make their groceries cheaper. That’s supposed to be the laser focus of the Trump administration from now until the Midterms. But like an expert procrastinator, he’s made up loads of new jobs to do so he doesn’t have to do the one thing he’s supposed to be doing.
Meanwhile, in Trumpworld
- Trump floats the idea of genocide
- He lashes out at a reporter, and this time it was a man
- Wait, Russia are helping Iran do what now?
- Trump suddenly very relaxed about Iran not being a democracy
Here’s what you need to know
1. Trump floats the idea of genocide in Iran. You know, just casually
Trump branded Iran a ‘loser’ and floated the idea of genocide in a Truth Social post this morning.
The US President claimed Iran had “apologised and surrendered” to the Middle East neighbours it had been firing missiles into since Trump launched the first strikes last Saturday.
“It is the first time that Iran has ever lost, in thousands of years, to surrounding Middle Eastern Countries,” Trump wrote. “Iran is no longer the “Bully of the Middle East,” they are, instead, “THE LOSER OF THE MIDDLE EAST,” and will be for many decades until they surrender or, more likely, completely collapse!”
Then came the genocidal bit: “Today Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behaviour, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time.”
2. Trump got very upset with a Fox News reporter who asked about Russia helping Iran
Trump, as we know, frequently lashes out at the media. But he usually saves his most furious outbursts for CNN reporters, or women. Both, if at all possible.
But last night jaws dropped when he turned his fire on Peter Doocy, a Fox News correspondent – and one of the President’s favourites in the White House press corps.
What was Doocy’s crime? Well, the outburst happened while Trump was hosting a roundtable aimed at saving…college sports.
See, since a law change in 2021, college athletes are allowed to be paid for the use of their name, image and likeness. Now from this side of the pond, that sounds mad. Nobody cares about the star athletes of the University of Sheffield cricket team (no offence). But in the states, college sports are a multi-billion dollar industry, with College Football and Basketball the main sources of revenue for many colleges. And a lawsuit last year found that as well as being allowed to do third party sponsorship deals, and because they are bringing in millions in revenue for the schools players should get a cut that cash – up to $20.5 million a year per school. That decision has ramped up the competition between schools to attract top talent – with an arms race leading to football quarterbacks being paid $2m a year.
The premise of Trump’s roundtable was that this was all a terrible idea and that it was going to put colleges out of business.
Anyway, interesting stuff. But still, it was about college sports. So…Doocy gets up at the end to ask a question, and fair play to him, it sounded like it was going to be a good one.
“It sounds like the Russians are helping Iran target and attack Americans now…” he began, before Trump cut him off.
Trump said: “That’s an easy problem compared to what we’re doing here.”
The attendees of the roundtable laughed, but Trump’s face suggested he was genuinely annoyed at the question.
He went on: “Can I be honest? It’s just…I have a lot of respect for you. You’ve always been very nice to me…that is such a stupid question to be asking at this time.”
He gestured to the room, as if to say ‘can’t you see this is the most important thing in the world? Why would you think a global conflict that we started for no reason would be more important than this?’
“We’re talking about something else,” Trump growled. “Can we keep this, maybe, a little bit…”
3. Doocy wasn’t the only reporter to get the sharp end
A second reporter got up to ask a question – about sports this time…but made the mistake of opening with: “As you know, my son Joe…is a high level third year pitcher at the University of Maryland…”
Trump interrupted to bark: “How would I know that? He said ‘as you know’, I didn’t even know who the guy is.”
Trump gave a pretty vague answer to his quite technical question about college sports eligibility, which, in fairness, seemed to specifically relate to his son.
But after that, a third reporter got up and asked about…Kristi Noem.
“Hi Mr President, could you tell us what went into your decision to replace Secretary Noem with Senator Markwayne Mullin?”
“Ugh,” Trump sighed, exasperated. “Is it possible to stay on this subject, just for once? Just for once, boy oh boy.”
4. “People are walking around without legs…”
Trump then returned to Doocy, who tried to reason with Trump, saying “We’ve already got a lot of soundbites about the sports…”
Trump offered him another question, but said he had to stay “on topic”.
Doocy asked: “Uh what is motivating you to do this right now because there is a lot of other stuff going on in the world?”
Rolling his eyes slightly, Trump reluctantly went into a bit about the Iran war, saying the US is doing “very well” in the self-inflicted conflict, and noting that Iran is down to its third set of leaders, after the first and second sets were killed.
He made a fist of justifying the war, saying Iran had a “very bad and very sick group of leaders who were killing a lot of people. A lot of our people were being killed.
“They were being maimed. They were being destroyed with their, er, er, bombs all over the planted in roads. And we call them the roadside bombs. Walking around without legs, without arms, face blasted, er, killed many, many people.”
Let’s pause there for a moment for a moment of reflection for the people walking around without legs. He could mean prosthetics, maybe.
He went on: “And we had a choice. We could take it and go on like that for years or do something about it. And we did something about it.”
5. Wait, can we circle back to the bit where Russia are helping out Iran?
Russia has been sharing intelligence including satellite data showing the location of warships and military personnel, US officials told the New York Times.
Pete Hegseth was asked about this by CBS’ 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast last night. And his words did not match his expression.
“Well, we’re tracking everything. Our commanders are aware of everything. We have the best intelligence in the world. We’re aware of who’s talking to who, why they’re talking to them, how accurate that information might be, how we factor that into our battle plans, our CENTCOM commander…so we know what’s going on. Our president has an incredible, uh, knack of knowing how to mitigate those risks.”
Hold up. Trump has a “knack” for mitigating the risk of Russia sharing satellite intelligence with Iran, telling them exactly where to drop bombs? Going to need a bit more on that at some point, Pete.
“So the American people can rest assured,” he said. “Their Commander in Chief is well-aware of who’s talking to who, and anything that should not be happening, whether it’s in public or back channeled is being confronted and confronted strongly.”
Asked if Putin would be confronted about this, Hegseth said Trump has a “unique relationship” with a lot of world leaders, and could “get things done” that no other president could have.
6. ‘The only ones who need to be worried right now are Iranians who think they’re going to live’
Hegseth was asked if Russia sharing intel with Iran was going to put troops in danger.
“No-one’s putting us in danger. We’re putting the other guys in danger. That’s our job. We’re not concerned about that, we mitigate it as we need to.
“Our commanders factor all of this, but the only ones who need to be worried right now are Iranians who think they’re going to live.”
It’s worth remembering that just a few months ago was slapped down in a Pentagon report for putting American troops in danger by sharing secret information on planned airstrikes in Yemen on Signal.
7. Liberating the Iranian people is not the goal (any more)
In the weeks before he launched strikes on Iran, Trump appeared very concerned for the wellbeing of the people of Iran. He would often make statements and post on Truth Social welcoming the protests of a few weeks ago, and warning the regime there would be stiff consequences if they were to continue to harm the protesters.
Well, seems like that was a passing fad. He spoke to CNN’s Dana Bash on the phone last night – the latest of his direct phone calls with random Washington reporters – and gave the distinct impression he doesn’t give two hoots about the people of Iran.
She asked him if the new regime in Iran had to be democratic, or whether he’d be happy with a religious leader replacing the Ayatollah.
Trump said: “No, I’m saying there has to be a leader that’s going be fair and just. Do a great job.
“Treat the United States and Israel well, and treat the other countries in the Middle East — they’re all our partners.”
8. Petrol prices will only be high for ‘a short time’, Trump insists
Trump also told Bash he reckons the rising price in what American’s call ‘gas’ will be a brief hiccup.
“That’s all right. It’ll be short term time. It’ll go way down very quickly,” he said.
The national average cost of gas rose by 27 cents last week – reaching $3.25 a gallon, which is 15 cents higher than it was a year ago, when Trump had just returned to office.
“I don’t have any concern about it,” Trump said in a separate interview with Reuters yesterday.
“They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit.”
Trump, it’s worth remembering, has been on a halfhearted mission to convince voters that he’s fixing America’s cost of living crisis – and one of his regular boasts is that petrol prices are super low because of his leadership. Most recently, he wanged on about it at length during last week’s State of the Union speech.
Well, he can’t use that line any more. And Susie Wiles, his Chief of Staff is, according to Politico, somewhat perturbed at the skyrocketing cost of gas. Advisors have been tasked with bringing ideas to the Oval Office on how to lower prices – with one source saying Energy Secretary Chris Wright and a council led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum “are getting screamed at to find some good news”.
The White House, responding to the above claims, said: “As usual, POLITICO wrote sensationalist, unverified gossip for clicks.”
Karoline Leavitt said: “Nobody is panicking. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership in his first term and current term, the United States remains the largest crude oil and natural gas producer in the world. President Trump’s entire energy team, from the White House to the National Energy Dominance Council to Secretaries Wright and Bessent, have a game plan to keep oil prices stable throughout Operation Epic Fury.”
9. White House ‘blocking’ intelligence report on domestic Iran threat
According to the Mail, the White House is ‘blocking’ a report from top intelligence agencies warning about rising threats due to the Iran war.
The FBI, Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Centre were planning to put out a joint statement on Friday to state and local authorities, noting the heightened threat to “US military and government personnel and facilities, Jewish and Israeli institutions and their perceived supporters, and Iranian dissidents and other anti-regime activists in the United States.”
“Radicalised individuals with a variety of ideological backgrounds also may see this conflict or other geopolitical events as a justification for violence,” the five-page document reads.
The White House have not denied blocking the bulletin. A spokeswoman said: “The White House is coordinating closely with all government agencies to ensure information being disseminated is accurate, up to date, and has been properly vetted — even if that means taking additional time to review to ensure nothing is done in a vacuum.”
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