Roughly 48 hours later, U.S. military leaders announced a series of “self-defense” strikes in southern Iran. Despite an ostensible ceasefire that’s been in place for weeks, the violence is ongoing. The Associated Press reported:

The United States said Monday that it bombed radar and drone sites in Iran after Tehran shot down an American drone over the weekend. Iran then said it launched a strike of its own, and Kuwait reported incoming fire. […]

The U.S. military’s Central Command said it carried out the strikes in Iran on Saturday and Sunday around the city of Geruk and on Qeshm Island.

Around this time a week ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that a breakthrough might take “a few more days.” Evidently, the meaning of “few” remains flexible.

Indeed, the broader dynamic is a familiar one: We’re left with a ceasefire in which the fire hasn’t ceased, and a burgeoning peace deal that lacks both peace and a deal......

Similarly, in an interview with Fox News’ Lara Trump that aired over the weekend, the president raised a few eyebrows when he told his daughter-in-law, “We’ve actually left their military alone. People would be surprised to hear that. Because mistakes have been made in wars where you wipe out everybody and then you have a country that for 40 years can never rebuild.”

Trump claims his strikes haven't really hurt the Iranian military: "We've actually left their military alone. People would be surprised to hear that."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-31T01:18:34.737Z

The comments were completely at odds with weeks’ worth of rhetoric in which the president claimed that U.S. forces have destroyed Iran’s military.

As this week got underway, Trump also used his platform to publish another item, at 1:02 a.m. ET, complaining that “Dumocrats and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans” have made it “MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate” with Iran by saying things about the conflict that the White House doesn’t like.

In other words, as the president sees it, his failures are everyone’s fault but his own. If only everyone would say what he wants them to say, all would be well.