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Behind Trump's Public Bravado on the War, He Grapples With His Own Fears [View all]
WOW: A stunning new report in the WSJ reveals that military advisers intentionally excluded Donald Trump from the command room during the recent high-stakes operation to extract a downed U.S. airman in Iran, because they feared his erratic behavior could jeopardize the mission. 1/
— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) 2026-04-19T15:07:53.365Z
It seemed like Donald Trump’s appetite for risk had run out, and his fears were ramping up.
It was Good Friday afternoon in a nearly empty West Wing soon after the president learned that an American jet had been shot down in Iran, with two airmen missing. Trump screamed at aides for hours. The Europeans aren’t helping, he said repeatedly. Gas prices averaged $4.09. Images of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis—one of the biggest international policy failures of a presidency in recent times—had been looming large in his mind, people who have spoken to him said.
“If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump had said in March. “What a mess.”
Trump demanded that the military go get them immediately. But the U.S. hadn’t been on the ground in Iran since the government overthrow that led to the hostage crisis, and they needed to figure out how to get into treacherous Iranian terrain and avoid Tehran’s own military. Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful, instead updating him at meaningful moments, a senior administration official said.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-public-bravado-private-fear-59814dca
It was Good Friday afternoon in a nearly empty West Wing soon after the president learned that an American jet had been shot down in Iran, with two airmen missing. Trump screamed at aides for hours. The Europeans aren’t helping, he said repeatedly. Gas prices averaged $4.09. Images of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis—one of the biggest international policy failures of a presidency in recent times—had been looming large in his mind, people who have spoken to him said.
“If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump had said in March. “What a mess.”
Trump demanded that the military go get them immediately. But the U.S. hadn’t been on the ground in Iran since the government overthrow that led to the hostage crisis, and they needed to figure out how to get into treacherous Iranian terrain and avoid Tehran’s own military. Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful, instead updating him at meaningful moments, a senior administration official said.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-public-bravado-private-fear-59814dca
https://archive.ph/84fto
Quite the read.
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