Damian Paletta

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.

He ran on, you know, focusing on the domestic issues, not getting caught in forever wars abroad.

And then here he is in this mission in Iran that didn't have an easy end date.

And so his party was sort of cracking apart.

A lot of conservative talk show hosts were splintering.

And so he still has to repair that.