All is calm in Trump's mind. The real world is a different story.

Trump’s press conference focused on stabilizing global markets was filled with illusions and wish-fulfillment fantasies about a peaceful and docile planet.

President Donald Trump leaves the stage after speaking at the Republican Membership Issues Conference at Trump National Doral Miami March 9, 2026, in Doral, Florida.

(Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images) After declaring from his golf course in Doral, Florida, that the war he launched with Israel last week is “very complete”, President Donald Trump held a news conference focused on stabilizing global financial markets, which fell for much of Monday due to soaring oil prices. major donors to the Republican Party and a meeting of the party conference in Congress that began with a minute-and-a-half North Korean-style debate. standing ovation for the Maximum Leader. Trump’s frenzied statements on historically unpopular issues and ecologically catastrophic The war in Iran was no more compelling than the symbolism of an announcement that economic conditions would improve after Iran’s “excursion” into the already inflation-stricken, job-starved US economy from a private golf club.

Yet, as Trump told CBS News earlier today, ending the war in Iran “is on my mind, and no one else’s” — and the same glorified mental healing formula applies to his statements about ending the war. catastrophic economic fallout. It is, after all, the president who continues to hail the start of an economic golden age for the country as the cost of living spirals, new hiring linesand trade policy has turned into a long fall.

Trump’s press conference was basically an extension of the delusions and wish-fulfillment fantasies that littered his interminable State of the Union speech last month. He began with a litany of the war’s achievements: the neutralization of Iran’s navy and air force, the immobilization of 90 percent of its missile program, and ongoing U.S. and Israeli bombing. Then, without missing a beat, he declared that the political goal behind the war was to install a new “leader of the country who would be able to do something peacefully for a change” – since, as we all know, the way to ensure peaceful compliance of a country is to bomb it to the ground and kill it. more than 1,000 civiliansincluding some 160 students in a girls’ school.

He awkwardly distanced himself from last June’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, which he also claimed at the time was a devastating blow to the country’s nuclear ambitions. on par with the Hiroshima attack– to the specter of a mortally armed Iran, ready at any moment to “take control of the Middle East” and annihilate Israel. Trump’s performance was not so much a calm commander-in-chief explaining his goals, tactics and exit strategies as a nervous viewer clicking from Fox News to a History Channel segment on the Six-Day War.

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The same bold and contradictory vision shaped his comments on the economic disruption caused by the war. “We are also focused on maintaining the supply of energy and oil to the world,” Trump announced, before diving back into his daydreams of maximum military damage – which hardly seems like a formula for smooth transportation of oil from the Persian Gulf. “If Iran has anything to do with” disrupting the flow of oil, he threatened, “they will be hit on a much harder level,” without of course noting that the bombing campaign is what caused the oil price spike and investor panic. One way or another, he insisted, the end result of all the bombing, the deliberate targeting of oil reserves and desalination plants, and the massive civilian casualties of the war would be a more stable oil supply “in the long run.”

In describing efforts to keep ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, which is a vital choke point not only for oil but also other commodities such as fertilizer for American farmers at the start of the planting season, Trump deployed the same stereoscopic narrative of maximum security alternating with extreme carnage. “The Strait of Hormuz is going to be safe,” he began, citing the anti-mine operations taking place there. But before you knew it, he was back to admiring tales of America’s vastly superior military might: Iran couldn’t threaten the Strait’s commercial operations, after all, since “most of their ships are at the bottom of the sea.” While the United States leads the way in the region, he continued, “it will not be possible for [Iran] or anyone helping this part of the world recover. And again, the shocking transition to the ideal conclusion for American consumers: “The result will be lower oil and gas prices for American families.” » Because what about a minimal economic disruption like a massive regional attack on a major Gulf power with no clear justification or exit plan?

Indeed, what was missing from all the images of Trump conjuring up a more stable and docile Middle East in the wake of the US-Israeli war was an explanation of the action of Iran – a country of 90 million whose army is in fact far from being destroyed…or neighboring powers being quickly drawn into a widening conflict. Israel used the war in Iran as a pretext to resume its attacks against Lebanon, by force. moving more than half a million civilians because it claims to target Hezbollah’s financial network. Iran’s decision to replace the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in the conflict’s first bombing campaign, with his toughest son, Mojtaba Khameneiis just the most telling recent development indicating that Iran’s leaders have no intention of sticking to the hastily drafted and serially revised script that White House war planners are imposing on them. It is astonishing to note that in the wake of the forever wars unleashed during the years of George W. Bush, the notion of imperial blowback remains unthinkable in the sanctuaries of American diplomatic and military power.

But this is to be expected in a presidency that continues to operate as if it were immune to the forces of history, economic gravity, or even consensus reality. Answering questions from reporters after his remarks, Trump talked about U.S. designs on Cuba — a prospect that sent Trump’s dog, Lindsey Graham, into a frenzy. in unbecoming heat on a weekend cable hit – still in the slang of the bored viewer: “They’ll make a deal or we’ll make it – just as simple either way.” This is obviously what the world looks like when you think you have the power to dictate its destiny “in my mind, no one else’s.”

Support independent journalism that breaks the rules Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding popularity couldn’t have been clearer: rampant corruption and billions of dollars’ worth of personal enrichment during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided solely by his own abandoned sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets.

Today, an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire across the region and Europe. A new “forever war” – with an ever-increasing likelihood of US troops on the ground – could very well be upon us.

As we have seen time and time again, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory justifications for attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are threatened by non-citizens registered to vote. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war.

In these dark times, independent journalism is the only one that can uncover the lies that threaten our republic – and civilians around the world – and shine a light on the truth.

The nation’s experienced team of writers, editors and fact-checkers understand the scale of what we face and the urgency with which we must act. That’s why we publish critical reporting and analysis on the war with Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more.

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Chris Lehmann Chris Lehmann is the DC bureau chief for The nation and a contributing editor to The deflector. He was previously editor-in-chief of THE Deflector And The New Republicand is the author, more recently, of The Cult of Money: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Destruction of the American Dream (Melville House, 2016).