President Donald Trump is now melting down so hard that he is recycling old rants.
Trump, who turns 80 in less than two weeks, reheated a previous complaint at around 9.30 p.m. on Monday, as he urged Iran to “surrender” and tore into his critics.
The president has posted the exact same rant, verbatim, twice before, on May 26 and May 18.
The familiar message sees Trump say that if “Iran surrenders” and admits defeat to the “great power and force of the magnificent U.S.A.,” the media will claim “Iran had a Masterful and Brilliant Victory over The United States of America.” After finally using a period in his meandering message, Trump wrote, “They have gone absolutely CRAZY!!!”
On May 26, Trump posted the same plea just three hours after he finished a physical at Walter Reed Hospital in Maryland. He self-reported “perfect” results.
What is not going perfectly, however, are negotiations with Iran—hence the recycled meltdown. Toward the end of May, the Trump administration reported progress in the talks, insisting that a pact was imminent. However, just hours after Trump said that talks were “proceeding nicely” last week, the U.S. targeted Iranian missile sites and mine-laying vessels with strikes.
Again, on Monday, the U.S. military said it had conducted another round of “self-defense” strikes against Iranian sites. Iran responded by hitting U.S. ally Kuwait with a wave of drone strikes.
The U.S. also conducted strikes on May 7, even though a ceasefire was announced in April. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei said on Monday that the United States was “violating the ceasefire” with the strikes.
He added that Tehran will “take whatever measures we deem necessary to defend Iran’s national security.”
Baqaei said communications with the United States were continuing “under extreme skepticism and pessimism” as the “other party is constantly changing its views and putting forward new or contradictory demands.”
Just after 1 am ET, the president boasted in a Truth Social post: “Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us.”
Nine hours after Trump promised a deal was near, Iran suspended peace talks over Israel’s attacks on Lebanon.
“Given the continuation of the Israeli regime’s attacks in Lebanon, and considering that Lebanon had been one of the preconditions for a ceasefire—which has now been violated on all fronts, including Lebanon—the Iranian negotiating team is suspending ‘talks and exchanges of texts through mediators,’” reported Tehran’s Tasnim news agency.
Tehran has also reportedly decided to seek the “complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz.”
With that in mind, Trump reportedly lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call on Monday after demanding Israel agree to a ceasefire with Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah.
“You’re f---ing crazy,” Trump reportedly told Netanyahu. “You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your a--. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”
A second source who had been briefed on the contents of the extreme call also claimed Trump was “p---ed,” and yelled at Netanyahu, “What the f--- are you doing?”
The U.S. official told Axios that Trump believed Netanyahu had escalated the attacks on Hezbollah in a “disproportionate” way, which in turn had jeopardized American efforts to lock in a ceasefire extension with Iran.
