Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
Last week’s Pen in Hand Blog column dealt with President Trump’s use—and abuse—of the English language, how he has dumbed down presidential rhetoric to a fourth-grade level, weaponized our political discourse, and created the most divisive atmosphere since the Civil War.
We have fallen incredibly far incredibly quickly. From the soaring eloquence of a Barack Obama, the whip-smart intelligence of Hillary Clinton, and the plain-spoken sincerity of a George W. Bush or the directness of a Joe Biden, we have been sucked into a swamp of ignorance and hate with an anchor named Donald J. Trump hanging around our necks.
Trump has used his peculiar brand of language, a mix of sales rhetoric and playground bullying, to sell us a bill of goods—a technique which he (using the Republican Party’s dark money resources) is very good at. And a majority of voters swallowed his schtick hook, line, and sinker. Twice. Shame on them and all of us—especially those of us who didn’t bother to vote.
His speeches, tweets, and comments have not only fueled, division, hate, racism, antisemitism, and misogyny, they have implemented the complete and utter destruction of truth. He has turned lying into an art—not the art of making a deal—a rotten deal—but has morphed it from simple deception into forays of personal fantasy, delusion, denials, and half-truths. He has become a master of prevarication, executing screeching reversals and the half to three-quarters-truth. He—especially lately—has been speaking (and behaving) like a child, a spoiled one. When asked about the war in Iran, he hedges, changes his lies, changes them again, and then says something new that is just as completely crazy.
He has said the war is over when it’s obviously not, that the Strait of Hormuz is open when it’s obviously not, that the Iranians are eager to make a deal when they are not, and on and on. He lies so often that listening to him is like hearing a four-year-old prattle on about how cool his new Lego Star Wars playset (now complete with golden ballroom?).
Stretching, bending, and torturing the truth is nothing new in politics. Historically, to name just a few examples, the U.S. government fudged numbers during the Vietnam War, covered up crimes during Watergate, and lied about covert CIA operations in Chile, Cuba, and many other countries, but most of those lies were at least well-thought-out. Donald Trump lies without thinking, out of habit, and he’s gotten so sloppy at it, he doesn’t even bother to try to cover it up anymore.
There was a time when one man’s political proclamations accidentally reached a level of the existential sublime—in the manner of a politicized Yogi Berra. I’m speaking of course of Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush. Mr. Rumsfeld is famous for this famous proclamation:
“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns- the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
― Donald Rumsfeld (Goodreads)
While this is not a lie (although fascinating reading), it is an example of the degree to which political creatures will engage in linguistic acrobatics to make—or to avoid—the point. This particular quote begs the question of what Rumsfeld’s purpose behind this convoluted but almost nearly beautiful quote. Was he trying to obfuscate? To clarify? To elucidate? Messing with us? Or was he simply musing? At any rate, this utterance is sophisticated enough—like Yogi Berra—to pique our interest. Donald Trump’s quotes, no matter their degree of truth, are not. They sound like the musings of a drunken dullard—a lying drunken dullard.
As bad as Trump’s aversion to the truth is, his flip-flopping, waffling, and denials have become infinitely worse since the beginning of the Iran War. After the first week or so of bombing, when it became apparent the Iranians weren’t going to roll over and play dead (as Trump probably expected after the Venezuela raid), or rise up in the streets against their government, he started floundering.
The war became an excursion, then a foray, a military operation, then a skirmish. There was a ceasefire, peace talks, a blockade, and then more talks. He declared victory on April 7th, then suspended bombings for negotiations. At that point, he said “Total and complete victory. 100%. No question about it” (PBS).
Trump had originally said the war was to prevent Iran from developing their nuclear weapons after an June 2025 raid, in which the White House website proclaimed, “Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated—and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News” (TheWhiteHouse) which of course begs the question, if these facilities were destroyed last August, why launch an attack eight months later?
Unexpectedly—to Trump and no one else—Iran retaliated to the American air attack by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which twenty percent of the world’s oil is shipped. Trump has fumed and blustered, threatened (with some of the most ridiculous and juvenile AI memes) to no avail. Iran will not be bullied.
Caught in a corner where he will not admit defeat or acknowledge he screwed up, Trump’s lying has become monumentally epic—and, to paraphrase our commander-in-chief—sad. He literally changes stories one day, even hours to the next.
With his main henchman, the equally incompetent Secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, he has said he will escort tankers through the Strait (didn’t work), blockade Iran (hasn’t worked), negotiate a ceasefire (nope), and now is saying he may have to send an invasion force into Iran. It’s gotten to the point where this man is so desperate he’ll say anything to save face.
According to The Middle East Monitor, Trump told reporters last Tuesday he will have to send troops to seize the uranium in Iran, saying “Now we’re going to take a hit, because we have to make a journey down to Iran to take the nuclear weapon.”
Whether this is bluster designed to intimidate the Iranians—who don’t get intimidated—or an actual strategy, or something that occurred to him at the spur of the moment is difficult to say. It has become impossible to distinguish between Trump’s deliberate lies, his fantasies, his delusions, or simple babbling.
This makes him all the more dangerous. If his lies were part of a deliberate scheme or coverup, there would at least be a logic behind them, corrupt though they might be. There is no logic and no reason here, only the mindless ramblings of an old man obsessed with himself and his riches and the stink of money.
At this point, he is in trouble and is saying anything to save himself. We’re used to his chronic and insidious lying. We can handle that. It’s the mad ramblings of a man holding the nuclear codes that is truly frightening.
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