Trump pushes shaky deal with Iran as Hormuz is shut again, but opponents give him no credit for progress

President Trump struck a ceasefire with Iran that didn’t seem possible.

Doesn’t matter.

Trump pressured Israel into halting its attacks on Lebanon.

So what.

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The stock market reached record highs as investors concluded the war is about to end.

Big deal.

No matter what the guy does, his opponents won’t give him credit.

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And when the murderous mullahs again shut down the Strait of Hormuz–in retaliation, they say, for the U.S. enforcing its own blockade of Iranian ports–you could practically hear the sighs of relief that the peace deal might be crumbling.   

Trump told ABC’s Jonathan Karl yesterday that Iran has committed a "serious violation" of the ceasefire, but he was still confident about a deal: 

"It will happen. One way or another, The nice way or the hard way. It’s going to happen. You can quote me."

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On X, Karl got hammered for–get this–calling the president for comment on a significant setback in the war.  

"Why compromise yourself as a journalist & post BS from a pathological liar?" one woman said.

"Jon, just stop," said another female poster. "You know he doesn’t have a clue so he just feeds you guys lies."

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After the Karl exchange, Trump tweeted: "NO MORE MR. NICE GUY1"

A banner headline on Drudge read "LEAK: TRUMP GRIPPED WITH FEAR." This was tied to a Wall Street Journal piece about Trump’s frustrations with the war, sometimes losing focus, and musing about awarding himself the Medal of Honor.

When Tehran fired on two Indian-flagged ships in the strait, it was a troubling sign. The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Ghalibaf, says the two sides are far apart on a final agreement. Maybe that’s a negotiating tactic.

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The larger point is that most Democrats and many in the media won’t acknowledge it when the president does something that turns out right. Because it’s Trump.   

Now some of this is rooted in Trump’s decision, under pressure from Israel, to launch his war of choice, conduct airstrikes against Iran without so much as a nod to Congress or our supposed European allies.

Maybe that was a bad decision. It certainly wasn’t a popular one.

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Seven weeks later, a new Politico poll finds 38% of those surveyed support the strikes–and almost half say Trump spends too much time on global affairs rather than domestic issues.

The president’s inflammatory rhetoric hasn’t helped, from "Close the F—in’ Strait" on Easter Sunday to vowing two days later that "a whole civilization will die tonight."

So I understand those who have principled objections to the war, especially Trump’s former acolytes in the conservative media.

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But whether he was lucky or just stumbled into the right situation, he certainly deserves a belated bit of recognition.

Trump says his tough and sometimes erratic talk kept the Iranian leaders who survived the bombing off balance. And, of course, his latest delay in the bombing pause created the space for a tentative agreement (which theoretically expires Tuesday).

Come on: If President Biden had achieved a double ceasefire–with Iran and Lebanon–Democrats would be hailing him as a great commander-in-chief and powerful peacemaker. (And most Republicans would be critical.)

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Trump, never one to deflect credit, posted Friday: "The Failing New York Times, FAKE NEWS CNN, and others, just don’t know what to do. They are desperately looking for a reason to criticize President Donald J. Trump on the Iran situation, but just can’t find it."

Meanwhile, Trump hasn’t lost his talent for stepping on his own story.

By posting that fake AI picture of himself as Jesus, and a followup of Christ comforting him, the president angered many Catholic followers who viewed the images as blasphemous. Trump had to delete the first one within 12 hours, which he almost never does.

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I know why he did it. Trump wanted to draw attention to his war of words with Pope Leo, and this guaranteed the topic would dominate the news for days. He even had JD Vance, a converted Catholic, warn the American-born Pope to be careful about discussing theology.

By the way, I don’t agree with Pete Hegseth (who delivered a biblical verse actually lifted from "Pulp Fiction") unloading on the "Trump-hating" legacy media. I don’t believe they’ve portrayed the war as a failure.

But in watching show after show after Trump’s announcement, I saw a bit of straight reporting on the president’s update quickly fade into the Jesus uproar, dissing NATO, the Epstein files, RFK’s ostensible shift on vaccines, Victor Orban’s defeat–all the same stuff they would have been talking about had there been no progress on the war.

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Despite the president’s repeated pronouncements of victory, we do have to ask where this would leave his main rationale for the airstrikes–to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons.

Whether such an outcome was imminent or not, I haven’t seen the Iranians, who lie for a living, agree to forfeit their longtime ambitions.

What I’ve watched instead is Trump saying he would strongly consider unfreezing $20 billion in Iranian assets if the U.S. can remove the enriched uranium–and underground nuclear "dust" – from the country. Maybe with that supposed price tag, it’s worthwhile for the world’s biggest terror state.

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But as we’ve just learned again, the devil is always in the details.

Let’s say the ceasefire holds, Hormuz is reopened, and a deal is made–putting aside, for the sake of argument, all the caveats about how this train could be derailed.

Will the Democrats and the mainstream media even grudgingly concede that Donald Trump pulled off something quite historic? 

I’m not so sure about that.