“I don’t know that. I don’t know that.”
As we reported last week, the Pentagon is still investigating the bombing of an elementary school in Minab. The New York Times has reported that preliminary findings indicate that the school was indeed struck by an American bomb.
There is fear among Trump’s allies that the president is overly fixated on issues of less importance than war and the economy. Aboard Air Force One this week, reporters peppered Trump with questions about Iran—but first, he pulled out various printed mock-ups of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom he plans to build in the large ditch to the side of the White House that once served as the foundation of the East Wing.
“A lot of people are talking about how beautiful the ballroom is,” Trump said. “I don’t have time to do this. I’m fighting wars and other things. But this is very important, because this is gonna be with us for a long time.”
The fixation on the ballroom, whose construction was halted by a judge this week in a scathing ruling that ordered Trump to obtain congressional approval for the project, has in particular frustrated allies who see the venture as out of touch with the anxieties of Americans.
“This isn’t even a ‘let them eat cake’ situation. This is a ‘watch us eat cake’ situation,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump State Department official. “I’ve just never seen such a tone-deaf approach to both the international and domestic concerns and priorities of the American people.”
During our call, at least, Trump was focused on the war. There was no talk of Corinthian columns or gold leaf accents. Then, about 15 minutes after we got off the phone, he posted on Truth Social.
“Bad, and very boring singer, Bruce Springsteen, who looks like a dried up prune who has suffered greatly from the work of a really bad plastic surgeon, has long had a horrible and incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, sometimes referred to as TDS,” Trump wrote. “The guy is a total loser…MAGA SHOULD BOYCOTT HIS OVERPRICED CONCERTS, WHICH SUCK. SAVE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY. AMERICA IS BACK!!! President DJT.”
One close Trump ally texted: “I mean.. Today? Really?? Like.. last night you literally said you were bombing a country back to the stone ages… and Bruce Springsteen is front of mind today?”
As Trump declares victory and vows to decimate Iran, a country of about 93 million people, there are concerns that his campaign threatens more than just the stability of the Middle East. Robert Kagan, a historian and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, fears that the damage to America’s standing in the world has already been done.
“We’re living with the worst-case scenario,” Kagan told me over the phone this week. “The question is, what does that unfold into? And I think it’s going to happen much quicker than people realize these things really do change.”
He argued that the war, and Trump’s treatment of the system of alliances that the United States established in the wake of World War II, have emboldened Russia and China while creating a multipolar world in which America is seen, for the first time, as a rogue actor.
“It’s going to be a very lonely and very dangerous world for Americans, much more than they realize,” Kagan said. “When people say, ‘Well, wait till Trump is gone’—he can do catastrophic damage, and is already doing catastrophic damage. But with another three years, the world may be unrecognizable.”
