Two cable news anchors dissolved into laughter after President Donald Trump offered a ludicrous explanation for his hoarse voice.
Asked by Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo on her Wednesday show, Mornings With Maria, whether his voice was hoarse from negotiating, Trump replied: “I’ve been screaming at Iranians all day, yes. A little bit of laryngitis because of my scream—I’ve been screaming at the Iranians.”
MS NOW’s Jen Psaki, who was Joe Biden’s press secretary from January 2021 to May 2022, relayed the exchange to host Chris Hayes during their evening handoff, and neither could quite keep it together.
“When Trump was asked today why he has a hoarse voice, he said because he’s been screaming at Iranians all day,” Psaki told Hayes. “I don’t know what that means. I mean, if he were talking to Iranians on the phone all day, that would be big news. But yeah. I just had to call that one out.”
Hayes, once he stopped laughing, laid out what he called three possibilities. “One is there’s direct, top-level, president-level diplomacy happening over the phone,” he said. “Huge news if true!” Psaki interjected.
“Number two is he’s lying, which would be par for the course,” Hayes continued. “And number three—perhaps the most intriguing—is that he’s so deluded and out of touch with reality, he thinks he’s been talking to Iranians when he hasn’t.”
Psaki, offering her verdict, said: “It’s happening in his mind. We don’t know. We may never know.”
The White House has not clarified what, if any, direct communication with Iranian officials took place, but White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that Trump was personally “involved” in negotiations alongside his assembled negotiating team.
“President Trump is a man of peace. President Trump wants peace,” Miller said.
Miller also offered a timeline for how the war could progress. “This embargo is squeezing the economic life out of the Iranian regime, and the United States has the capacity to continue this indefinitely, if Iran chooses the wrong path,” he said.
Trump himself was no more concise when pressed by Bartiromo on Tuesday. “If they’re smart, it will end soon,” he said.
