First Draft: 🇺🇸 🇮🇷 US Supreme Leader Threatens Death to Iran
‘We're blowing up the whole country,’ Trump says, if Iran doesn’t roll over and stop choking off the flow of oil, and Graham Platner's Dem rival Janet Mills is busy during Maine’s first Senate debate.
On this day in 1917, the US officially entered World War I when Congress granted President Woodrow Wilson’s request for a declaration of war on Germany. The first US troops would reach France at the end of June. Ultimately, more than 2 million would be deployed to Europe, with 53,000 killed in battle.
Happy Monday, all. It’s Swin and Andrew again. Our president celebrated Easter by threatening some “fuckin’” war crimes on Sunday morning, and then seemingly trolled Muslims in the Middle East by praising “Allah” while issuing a threat to kill a ton of Iranian civilians. We sincerely hope you found a better, more humane way to mark the holiday, if you observe it. But with each passing week of this war, Donald Trump reveals himself to be a real-life President Greg Stillson, but with less dignity, somehow. Now, speaking of those potential cataclysmic war crimes…
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ Trump is history’s dumbest madman, Governor Janet Mills is skipping the first Maine Democratic Senate debate against Graham Platner, and NBC is the latest news organization to ask a Democrat if they will dare go on… Hasan Piker’s show.
‘I Am Blowing Up Everything’
The nominal leader of the free world – already a month into an illegal war of aggression that he started – keeps making terrorist threats against the Iranian people. This isn’t empty, lefty rhetoric hyperbole about an out-of-control madman.
Even a brief analysis of Donald Trump’s intimidation tactics these past few days would show that what he’s threatening is not the kind of war that vaguely adheres to any rules or laws. He’s making openly terroristic threats: I will do whatever it takes, however lawless, to achieve my mission; do as I say, or the moms and dads and kids who have nothing to do with this will die horribly.
If this weren’t the American commander-in-chief, almost everyone would be able to see this for what it is. For decades, US politicians and media lost their collective minds over somebody in Iran saying, “Death to America.” What President Trump is doing and propagandizing now makes that three-word catchphrase sound like a schoolyard taunt.
Trump is threatening to commit heinous war crimes if Iran doesn’t open up the Strait of Hormuz – the crucial waterway that Iran has closed since the start of the war, blocking the flow of oil and throttling the global economy. In his primetime address to the nation last Wednesday, Trump argued that other countries should go deal with it, telling them: “Go to the strait and just take it.” By Sunday, he was back to begging Iran to reopen it by threatening to bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” Trump posted Sunday on Truth Social. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” After that, Trump spoke with a bunch of reporters to expand his threats.
“If they don’t make a deal and fast, I’m considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil,” Trump told Fox. He told Axios, “If they don’t make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there.” Speaking with ABC, Trump said, “If it happens, it happens. And if it doesn’t, we’re blowing up the whole country. We’re blowing up, as I said, it’s going to be bridge day, and it’s going to be power plant day in the country of Iran.”
Over the weekend, several administration officials and close Trump advisers told us that it may not matter if Trump actually is doing his apocalyptic saber-rattling as a negotiating or pressure tactic. Several of these advisers said their fear is that no matter what his intentions are, he could easily end up pushing himself into a bigger, longer war and ground invasion of Iran.
“Escalating to deescalate only works as a strategy if you stop escalating,” one senior Trump appointee bemoans.
If anything, legacy media in this country have dramatically undersold the titanic depravity of what President Trump is doing. The media is covering his social media threats as if he is simply moving a perfunctory deadline back 24 hours, from Monday to Tuesday, but what Trump is discussing is his own pledge to pointlessly commit war crimes against Iran’s civilians – who knows how many? Millions? Tens of millions? – by a certain time. That the American commander-in-chief is doing this in broad daylight is a scandal of monumental proportions.