US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a press briefing at the Pentagon, Washington, DC, March 19, 2026 (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
US-Israel War on Iran, Day 22: Contradictory Signals from a Cornered Trump Administration
In a 42-minute special, I joined Times Radio’s Maddie Hale in studio on Friday for an analysis of the Trump camp’s struggles over the US-Israel War on Iran.
I begin with the media’s folly of headlining Donald Trump’s lies, diatribes, absurd thought bubbles, including his Pearl Harbor insult of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the White House on Thursday.
Then I get to the important issues as the US and Israel press on with their strikes and targeted assassination, but without an apparent Plan B for regime change or regime surrender.
Meanwhile, the Trumpists failed to plan for Iran’s response from retaliation on the Gulf States and closure of the Strait of Hormuz. So now, even as they try to level the Islamic Republic, they are lifting sanctions on Iran’s oil and conceding for now Iranian control of passage through the Strait.
They are worried because there are global economic consequences. There are domestic economic consequences.
They did not plan for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
So they are caught in a cul-de-sac and I am not sure how they get out.
