“President of Peace” Donald Trump has boasted that he’s prepared to wage an eternal war against Iran after struggling to work out quite why he started one.
“The United States Munitions stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better—As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons,” the president wrote on Truth Social late Monday night.
“Wars can be fought ‘forever’, and very successfully, using just these supplies (which are better than other countries finest arms!),” he added.
His comments come after he launched a war with Iran over the weekend that has now plunged the Middle East into chaos, and for which he has since offered four different justifications, ranging from regime change to ending the country’s nuclear program.
They also come despite his historic contempt for America’s “Forever Wars” in the region, his repeated promises on the 2024 campaign trail to end messy U.S. military entanglements abroad, and his pledge in his 2025 election night victory speech that “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to end wars.”
Trump spent much of his first year back at the White House frantically lobbying to secure himself a Nobel Peace Prize—perhaps the most coveted honor on the planet, which was previously awarded to his Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama—by dubiously claiming to have ended six, seven, sometimes even eight conflicts around the world.
He did not win, and, in his disappointment, has now said he no longer feels “obligated to think purely of peace.” Since the snub, he has pivoted to bombing Nigeria, invading Venezuela, sparking a new war in the Middle East, and threatening military action against historic allies like Mexico, Colombia, Panama and Denmark.
Campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, Trump at times appeared to have preemptively included on his list of solved conflicts Russia’s war with Ukraine, which he otherwise promised to solve on “Day One” of his second administration. It is now day 407, with no end to hostilities in sight.
In his late-night Monday post, the president enthusiastically dunked on support for Ukraine under President Joe Biden while railing against the country’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Sleepy Joe Biden spent all of his time, and our Country’s money, GIVING everything to P.T. Barnum (Zelenskyy!) of Ukraine,” he wrote, comparing the Ukrainian president to the 19th-Century American showman of that name, known for promoting a number of high-profile hoaxes.
Trump has repeatedly promoted hoaxes throughout his political career, from debunked claims of electoral interference and conspiracy theories about climate change to boasts about the size of crowds at his rallies and fearmongering about migrants supposedly eating cherished household pets.
He has meanwhile used the same term to deflect criticism from his opponents over allegations of Russian interference on his behalf in the 2016 presidential election, and over widespread concern over rising unaffordability across the United States.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
