When Donald Trump announced the United States’ latest military operation in Iran, he did so in a prerecorded video released to social media on Saturday. The vast majority of Americans did not hear the president’s message, however (at least not at first), because the population was largely asleep: The message was published online at 2:30 a.m. ET.
Hours later, the Republican capped the day by making an appearance at a super PAC’s fundraising event at Mar-a-Lago (where he spent the weekend instead of being in the White House). On Sunday, Trump remained out of public view, though he did release a second video statement via social media and chatted privately with a variety of reporters, who heard a series of competing and contradictory statements about the rationale for his decision.
On Monday, however, Americans finally had an opportunity to see their president deliver live, public comments at a White House event. Those hoping to see Trump finally offer some clarity about the war — its rationale, its scope, its timeline and its goals — were left wanting. The New York Times summarized:
‘Let me provide a brief update on Operation Epic Fury,’ he began. He spent the next five minutes offering vague projections of a timeline (‘whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes’) and condemnations of the Iranian regime (‘sick’ and ‘sinister’) before abruptly switching to an entirely different but all too familiar topic: White House décor.
That summary might seem like an attempt at humor, but it is an accurate description of what happened. At a White House event ostensibly focused on awarding Medals of Honor, when much of the world hoped to get some clarity from the American president about an ongoing military operation, Trump told a few odd jokes and appeared to slur his words, all of which set the stage for an extended riff on White House drapes and the ballroom vanity project he’s so excited about.
It would be an overstatement to suggest that the president had literally nothing to say about Iran — at one point he said that the U.S. was “nearly under threat” from the Middle Eastern country, whatever that means — but he appeared far more animated by White House renovations than the military operation he’d launched roughly two days earlier.
Indeed, in the hours that followed the Medal of Honor ceremony, Trump used his social media platform not to provide updates on the military operation or the reasoning behind it, but to focus on other subjects that were apparently on his mind, including first lady Melania Trump’s clothes, the U.S. trade deficit with China, an upcoming appearance at a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner and state legislative primaries in Indiana.
Monday was an opportunity for Trump to explain why six American service members were killed in action, why public opposition to his war is mistaken, and even why his policy is pushing gas prices up and the stock market down.
But the incumbent president, with his notoriously limited attention span, showed no interest in taking advantage of that opportunity, as he ignored reporters’ questions and failed once again to meet the moment.
