President Donald Trump has made his plans for Iran more confusing in recent days with sensational comments on The Truth Society and a series of phone conversations with individual reporters.
The US president commented on the conflict in almost real-time impromptu exchanges with reporters, including an AFP correspondent who called his mobile phone.
The White House has twice had to correct the 79-year-old billionaire’s comments on the phone in recent days.
Trump told ABC on Sunday that Vice President Vance would not lead the U.S. delegation in Pakistan for a second round of talks with Iran, but official sources quickly walked back that statement.
On Monday, Trump told the New York Post that negotiators were en route to Islamabad. They are not. The vice president was still in Washington for a “meeting” at noon Tuesday.
Robert Rowland, a communications professor at the University of Kansas, said multiple conversations with reporters undermined established norms that the president’s “time is valuable” and that he “must always use secure means of communication.”
-“Quite the opposite”-
Rowland recalled that back in 2009, newly inaugurated President Barack Obama had a standoff with the Secret Service over handing over his beloved BlackBerry, which his superiors believed would make him too accessible and a security risk.
The scholar added that previous presidents have tried to strike a unifying tone in times of conflict, but “Trump has done the opposite. He has made everything extremely partisan.”
The Republican again lashed out at his political opponents this week, calling Democrats “traitors” for trying to derail a military offensive against Iran and attacking media coverage of the conflict.
The Wall Street Journal revealed on Monday that Trump neither consulted nor notified anyone before posting his message to The Truth Society, filling his posts with capital letters and exclamation points, a mix of apocalyptic threats and casual and sometimes vulgar language.
The newspaper also reported that Trump’s inner circle was partially in the dark about the recent rescue of a U.S. Air Force officer in Iran, fearing that his “impatience” could derail the high-stakes operation.
Rowland said this impulse also manifested itself in “violations” of diplomatic protocol and solemn military ceremonies.
– Vietnam –
In March this year, Trump put on an “American” hat when repatriating fallen soldiers in the Middle East, sparking bipartisan outrage. At the time, a similar white hat with gold lettering embroidered on it was for sale on the Trump Organization’s website for $55.
He also angered many American Christians by sharing an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus alongside a uniformed soldier and a fighter jet. The post was quickly deleted, a rare retraction of communications from the Trump administration.
The Republican president, who was exempted from fighting in the Vietnam War on health grounds, even claimed on CNBC on Tuesday that he would have won the war “very quickly” if he had been in power.
His erratic message on Iran has been further watered down by increasingly frequent deviations from his favorite topics: the construction and renovation of buildings.
In an interview with CNBC, he gave a detailed and passionate critique of the ongoing renovations at the Fed headquarters, where he hates current Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
Then he returned to the construction project he cared about most: a massive new White House ballroom. “My construction was completed on budget and ahead of schedule,” the former real estate mogul boasted.
According to the Washington Post, the US president has mentioned his famous ballroom on average once every three days since the beginning of the year.
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This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
