What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to whistle past the graveyard of his Iran war. 

Trump has spent weeks now trying to reach an agreement with Iran—not to end the war, but to create a preliminary framework to begin discussing the terms that would lead to an end to hostilities. He's been vocally anxious about the possibility that Iran can win more favorable terms simply by letting the current crisis erode his political base. 

The crux of Trump's dilemma is that while he is absolutely indifferent to the damage this is doing to the United States he cannot bear the possibility of having to acknowledge the reality of the shocking and humiliating way the war has unfolded for him. This means that Trump himself has blown up all of the potential avenues for a real settlement, because there is no face-saving way out of the war for him at this point. At the same time, he's announced that a resolution to the conflict is imminent so many times that it was already a punchline a month ago.

Today, even as he once again insisted that a deal (to agree to terms for actual negotiation) was imminent, he tried to act as though he didn't care about the outcome. He told CBNC reporter Eamon Javers that "if [negotiations with Iran] are over, they’re over. If they’re not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring." He insisted, "I don’t care if they’re over, honestly. I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less."

For good measure, Trump then told Javers that the Strait of Hormuz was, in fact open. It absolutely is not.

It's not actually that hard to believe that Trump really is bored. (He seemed to know that was a possibility in March when he preemptively promised he wouldn't get bored, which isn't something a president would normally have to reassure people about.) 

Trump has been absolutely blunt and outspoken about his lack of interest in the economic crisis this is causing for Americans, saying that when it came to the war, "I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation… not even a little bit." He's taken a similarly cavalier approach to the lives of American servicemembers, noting the initial deaths with a literal shrug and a smirk. And his public relations strategy today was to have the White House put out a graphic of him telling Americans to "sit back and relax" because "it will all work out well in the end."

But then again, he might care a little. He also posted, for the third time in as many weeks, a bitter rant about how if Iran did surrender and admit utter defeat, nobody would give him credit.

Iran has not surrendered or admitted defeat. 

Why does this matter?

• The fact that Trump is feeling humiliated at having botched the war should be Trump's problem, not Americans'. 

• If Donald Trump's interest isn't sufficiently piqued by the problems facing the United States, he should find a job that can hold his attention.
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