Damian Paletta

Great question, and you'll get a different answer based on who you ask.

So in the White House's view and in the view of President Trump's supporters, you have to speak the Iranians' language, right?

You have to threaten to destroy their civilization because that's the language they speak.

They're always threatening to destroy Israel or death to the United States.

So if you want to get their attention, you have to speak their language.

So that's what he did on Tuesday morning.

He said he would destroy their civilization.

It caused panic, you know, through Washington and New York and global capitals and even got people in the Republican Party to say he's gone too far.

But in their view, it finally got Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, we haven't seen them reopen it yet, but that's what allegedly has been agreed to.

So, on the other hand—

He's done this so many times where he's threatened incredibly painful things, unilateral things, whether it's this wiping out a civilization of 93 million people or, you know, unilaterally imposing tariffs and this and that, where he'll back out at the last minute.

And there's a risk for him...

that people become so desensitized and accustomed to him backing out at the last minute that they stop taking these threats seriously.

And that takes away his leverage.

President Trump, he was in a situation where he has major domestic political problems that this war caused.

The gas prices were going up.

There's a view that gas prices might still keep going up.

That's politically disastrous, and not to mention what it means for the economy.

And then we have a sense within the Republican Party that they're very split over this.