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Has Trump Lost It—Or Have His Critics?

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by Portfolio Armor
Monday, Apr 06, 2026 - 7:15

Trump's Easter Truth

Has Trump Lost It—Or Have His Critics?

Trump’s Truth Social post on Sunday morning generated a wave of responses on X accusing him of having lost his mind, or of committing war crimes, or both.

Steven Beschloss, for example, said it was the post of a “deeply unwell man” who should be removed from power.

E. Michael Jones wrote that the language of the post was itself grounds for impeachment and said that “no head of state in his right mind” would talk that way.

Charles Haywood said it was starting to give off “strong Caligula vibes”.

Others pushed the criticism further, arguing that Trump’s threat to hit Iranian power plants and bridges was not just rash but criminal. Marjorie Taylor Greene said this was not what Trump promised voters in 2024, called the war unprovoked, and said Christians in the administration should be trying to stop him.

What Trump’s Critics Get Wrong

The criticism that this is some shocking deviation from what Trump campaigned on is weak.

Michael Tracey made that point in response to Greene, arguing that she was in fact getting precisely what she voted for in 2024.

He linked back to a September 2024 speech in which Trump threatened to blow Iran to “smithereens”.

We may disagree with Tracey’s use of “deranged,” but he is right on the more important point: Trump has been consistent for a long time on the central issue of not allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. The White House lists 74 examples of Trump hammering this point, from 2011 to 2026, including multiple times during the 2024 campaign, e.g.,

  • “Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons are the greatest single threat to our country, but to the entire world.” (11/3/24)

  • “I would have been very good to Iran. They — I had to have one thing, no nuclear weapons. You can’t have nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons are the greatest danger to our country going forward, to the world going forward.” (10/29/24)

  • “And all I wanted was Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon … That’s all I wanted. Very simple. You can’t have a nuclear weapon.” (10/28/24)

  • “We don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” (10/23/24)

  • “I didn’t want much. I wanted Iran to be very successful. I just don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon.” (10/16/24)

  • “You can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.” (10/14/24)

  • “I just don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple.” (10/10/24)

  • “I only wanted one thing. You can’t have a nuclear weapon. You cannot let them have a nuclear weapon.” (10/7/24)

  • “No, they can’t have nukes. No, they can’t have nukes.” (10/7/24)

  • “They can’t have a nuclear weapon — and now they’re very close to having one and it’s very dangerous for the world, very dangerous for the world … The biggest problem today, in my opinion, the biggest risk is the nuclear weapons.” (10/1/24)

  • “All I want them to do is not have a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon.” (9/30/24)

  • “The only thing is [Iran] cannot have nuclear weapons.” (9/26/24)

  • “I wanted one thing from Iran — no nuclear weapon. I didn’t want much — no nuclear weapon. And now they’re very close to getting it, and you can’t let that happen.” (9/19/24)

That does not mean every voter processed the implications. It does mean that some of the people now acting as though Trump has suddenly betrayed a pristine antiwar promise are ignoring what he actually said. He campaigned both on not starting the kinds of wars his predecessors started and on preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Those two commitments were always in tension.

The “War Crimes” Charge And Selective Memory

The other way Trump’s critics are losing the plot is their characterization of his threat to destroy Iran’s power plants and bridges as “war crimes”. Even the New York Times went with that framing.

Unless these critics said the same about President George H.W. Bush’s bombing of Iraq’s bridges and power plants, or President Clinton’s bombing of Serbia’s, they are being dishonest.

Human Rights Watch’s account of the 1991 Gulf War says the U.S.-led coalition “virtually destroyed Iraq’s electrical system,” including four of the country’s five hydroelectric facilities. Human Rights Watch’s Kosovo chronology notes that in 1999 NATO attacked transformer substations in the Yugoslav electrical grid. And a recent Yale Law Journal article traces the modern rise of U.S. targeting of “dual-use” objects back to the Gulf War, specifically including infrastructure such as bridges and electrical systems.

Reasonable people can disagree about the morality of this approach, but it does make the current outrage look highly selective.

How This Ends

The most thoughtful post on this subject on Sunday may have been from The Long View on X, particular this part:

So now the decision set narrows: either force the issue and reopen Hormuz, escalate kinetically on the way out. Both paths carry the same underlying risk: short-term disruptions morph into a structurally longer outages if strikes extend to Iranian supply or spill over into broader Gulf infrastructure via retaliation.

I hoped deeply (maybe even to the point of delusion) we could avoid that path. There is still time for a deal but I don’t think Trump will just walk away at this point. TACO is a funny little phrase designed to irritate Trump but any serious observer should recognize there has been very little sign of cowardice in his second administration. He is focused on bringing his vision of the world to life.

If Iran’s leadership is still putting all of its chips on “TACO,” then Tuesday may mark the start of the infrastructure campaign Trump threatened, and perhaps later more ambitious operations aimed at reopening the Strait and taking physical control of the enriched uranium stockpile. The successful rescue over the weekend of the second F-15 crew member deep in Iranian territory probably makes that kind of operation seem more likely.

How We’re Trading This

Iran has warned that if Trump follows through with his threat, it will hit Gulf infrastructure and other targets in retaliation. Iranian strikes have already hit petrochemical facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE, and in Kuwait, drones also targeted water desalination plants, in addition to hitting oil infrastructure there.

Last month, we placed a bullish trade on companies positioned to benefit from repairing that oil infrastructure.

Later today, we’re placing one on a company that will be called on when it’s time to rebuild the Gulf’s desalination plants. It looks like they already have work to do from the damage done so far. If this war escalates before it ends, they’ll have more.

If you'd like a heads up in real time when we place that trade later today, you can sign up for our trading Substack/occasional email list below.

And if you think we're wrong about the war winding down, and you want to hedge against it dragging on, you can use our website or iPhone app to scan for the optimal hedges for that. 

Late Monday Morning Update

Our trade alert is out: 

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