Trump FLUNKS wartime president test with disturbing, flippant attitude

There is a lot of breaking news tonight, and specifically there is breaking news that Donald Trump has privately expressed serious interest in deploying U.S. troops on the ground inside of Iran. And that's brand-new reporting from NBC News, according to two U.S. officials, a former U.S. official and another person with knowledge of the conversation. So that is a lot of people providing this information to NBC.

Trump has apparently discussed the idea of troops on the ground with both aides and Republican officials outside of the White House. And I just want you to think about that incredibly sobering news in the context of what we are seeing and hearing from this president publicly right now. Because today the president who just launched the United States into a war with Iran just seven days ago, and who is now apparently

expressing interest in sending US ground troops into that war, which is of course the fear that millions of Americans, people with children, people with grandchildren, have around the country. Even as that's going on, he hosted a roundtable for college sports officials today where he seemed, well, laser-focused on how to fix what he called the mess of how college athletes are paid.

And even to Fox News reporter Peter Doocy, my old buddy Peter Doocy, the issue of how college athletes are paid did seem, well, kind of secondary to the all-out regional war Donald Trump started. And so, Doocy asked Trump a question about reports

that Russia is helping Iran target Americans, something that was in the newspapers this morning. Donald Trump started. And so, Ducey asked Trump a question about reports that Russia is helping Iran target Americans, something that was in the newspapers this morning. And here's how that went.

It sounds like the Russians are helping Iran target and attack Americans.

That's an easy problem compared to what we're doing here. But can I be honest? It's just, I have a lot of respect for you. You've always been very nice to me. What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time.

Is it? I mean, what a stupid question to be asking at this time. An easy problem compared to what we are doing here. Again, you all just heard that, but Peter Doocy was asking him about a war in Iran that Trump started a week ago. And what they were doing there was meeting with college sports officials. So Trump gets a big laugh in the room, maybe he wanted that,

and then starts lashing out at his own favorite network for asking a very legitimate question about, again, the war he just started just seven days ago. And that moment is so emblematic of the deranged flippancy with which Donald Trump has treated this war. I mean, we've heard phrases like, forget about next.

If they rise, they rise. And that's the way it is. Those could easily, if you just listen to those phrases, pass for lyrics in a Bruce Hornsby song, or in the mantra for one of those bad meditation tapes you may listen to to go to bed. But those are all actual verbatim quotes from the president of the United States in response

to some very serious questions about the very real consequences of his very unpopular war with

Iran.

Like the question that Jonathan Karl asked Trump yesterday, the question every president is asked after starting a war. What happens next? And Trump's reply was, forget about next, suggesting he doesn't want to answer because he doesn't have an answer and just wants everybody to move on. Then in an interview with Reuters, the president was asked about the spike in gas prices due

to his war. And his answer, quote, if they rise, they rise. Again, Bruce Hornsby lyrics right there, as if he hadn't spent the last year trying to convince us all that low gas prices are the number one indicator of economic success, including in his State of the Union address less than two weeks ago. And of course, this is the same guy whose first response to the death of U.S. service

members was to say in a prerecorded video, quote, that's the way it is. Again, that was a prerecorded video over which, which basically means there was a script written. He likely read it off of a teleprompter. He had full editorial control. And that's what he chose to say about the deaths of American service members. Trump's glib approach to communicating about a war he started was on display,

of course, again late yesterday when he was asked by Time magazine if Americans should be worried about the possibility of an attack right here at home on American soil. And his response was, I guess. Like it was the first time he had even considered that possibility, which is really what weighs on every president or should when they make a decision like this. Trump went on to tell Time, I think they're worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time.

We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die. Now to be clear, he's talking about people dying here at home on American soil as a result of his war,

and that was his answer. Any former president will tell you, or anyone who's worked for them will tell you that there is no decision more serious than committing American forces to fight and possibly die in an armed conflict to putting the men and women who serve in harm's way. And yet Trump's flippant attitude on matters of life and death shows how unbothered he is by the suffering and sacrifice that war inevitably brings.

He's incapable of the solemnity and sober-mindedness that this moment requires. He's incapable of acknowledging that anything that happens on his watch could possibly be a tragedy or a hardship borne by the American people, which is part of why he's uniquely unfit to lead the country during a time of war. But it's not even the only reason. I mean, Donald Trump is also incapable of formulating

a coherent strategy, because for him, it's not really about that. That's not what he seems to be demanding, because what he loves more than anything is just issuing big, maximalist demands, which I guess is why he's now decided to raise the bar

and vastly expand the goal, the publicly stated goal, which continues to evolve, of this operation. I mean, for days this administration has offered shifting definitions of what success would actually look like in Iran. Everything from regime change, to stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions, to decimating its navy.

But today Trump posted to his Truth Social account, there will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender. Now, the last US war to end in an unconditional surrender was, of course, World War II. And that was followed by decades of US state building in Germany and Japan. But that is how high Trump has set the bar

for ending this conflict. And Trump's own White House was so panicked by his new demand that they spent the entire day running around desperately trying to change the definition of the word surrender.

And when the president determines that Iran no longer poses that threat, that's when that unconditional surrender will take place. What the president means is that when he, as commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender, whether they say it themselves or not.

That made my brain hurt. I mean, to be clear, them saying it themselves is pretty key to the whole concept of surrender, just in general. But that is where we are right now. And it's extremely telling that after what is probably the most serious and consequential action that Trump has taken as president, no one in his administration seems to be capable of acting like an adult.

I mean, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has now given multiple press conferences where he has told the American people that this will all be different than past military engagements because it's not a, quote, politically correct war. As though the problem with Iraq and Afghanistan was that everyone kept just laying down their weapons to say their pronouns and do land acknowledgements. That was not the problem.

And as the Washington Post reports that the military relied on AI to strike over a thousand targets in Iran, the Pentagon just gave its top AI job to a 20-something-year-old former Doge staffer with a history of boosting white supremacist content online. And despite the life and death stakes of this dangerous intervention, the White House and its staffers are putting out meme-style hype videos to promote their war. These are official videos put out by the Trump administration, splicing together footage

of their missile strikes with clips of sports, video games and movies. It's all in such disgusting taste that you kind of have to see it to believe it.

Absolutely crushed! Oh, s***. Here we go again. I'm thinking I'm back!

I'm here to fight for truth and justice in the American way.

I am the danger.

Time to find out.

Fireball.

You wanna see me do it again?

You wanna see me do it again? You want to see me do it again?

Those are all videos, different ones spliced together, that were put out by the White House, by official accounts, by officials at the White House. I mean, obviously, trivializing lethal airstrikes with SpongeBob memes is not how a responsible administration behaves when putting America's armed forces in harm's way. And to that point, actor and director Ben Stiller called out the Trump administration for using a clip from his 2008 comedy, Tropic Thunder, in one of those videos.

And today he asked the White House to please remove the clip, saying, we never gave you permission and have no interest in being a part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie. It's an incredibly sad day for our country when a comedian has to tell the President of the United States

to take war seriously. But that is where we are, even as the consequences of this war become clear every day. Because as much as Trump and his allies would like to think of this as a game, as something to brush off with glib answers,

and as fodder for memes on social media, it is obviously deadly serious. Today, Reuters cited two U.S. officials who say that military investigators believe the U.S. was likely responsible for a missile strike that hit a girls' school in Iran,

killing scores of innocent civilians. According to Reuters, that investigation has not yet reached its final conclusion, but another investigation by the Associated Press, citing expert analysis of satellite imagery and other publicly available information,

also determined that the strike likely came from the US. Iranian officials say that more than 150 students were killed as a result of that strike. And in addition to the civilian death toll in Iran, at least six U.S. service members have been killed in the conflict. Tomorrow their bodies will return to U.S. soil as part of a dignified transfer ceremony

at Dover Air Base. And the potential for even greater sacrifice continues to grow. Again, NBC News is now reporting that Trump is privately showing serious interest in sending U.S. ground troops into Iran. And the statement in response to that story from White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt notably did not deny that Trump was considering putting boots on the ground in

Iran. She wrote, this story is based on assumptions from anonymous sources who are not part of the president's national security team and are clearly not read into these discussions. President Trump always wisely keeps all options open, but anyone trying to insinuate he is in favor of one option or another proves they have no real seat at the table. Now all of this comes as a brand new NPR Marist poll finds

that voters disapprove of Trump's handling of the war by 18 points, and we're still less than a week into this conflict. The American people clearly have stronger feelings about this war into this conflict. The American people clearly have stronger feelings about this war than the president of the United States has been able to muster.