President Trump revealed to the New York Post that his civilization threat against Iran was not just a tactic and wasn’t a joke. He was serious about doing it if Iran didn’t come to the table.
Here’s what he said:
President Trump dismissed the notion that he employed the “Madman Theory” to negotiate a cease-fire with Iran, claiming that he was poised to order civilization-destroying strikes.
Asked about the “madman” concept by The Post, Trump offered a counter-assessment that the US military is strong and he was willing to use it.
“I think that we have a phenomenal military that I rebuilt during my first term and I used in my second term, and I was willing to use it. I was willing to do it,” Trump said in a phone interview Wednesday.
“I think we have just a phenomenal group of people, just phenomenal. And we have a phenomenal, unparalleled in history military. And you see that, you know, we only use 8% of our military to do this.”
The president sparked widespread panic Tuesday with his jaw-dropping ultimatum to Iran that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran failed to cut a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8 o’clock ET that evening.
Prior to his fiery threat, Trump voiced concerns that Iran was “not being serious.”
Shortly before the deadline, Iran agreed to a conditional reopening of the strait in exchange for a two-week cease-fire, during which time in-person talks are expected in Pakistan to work on a final deal.
The terrifying threat prompted Democrats to clamor for Trump’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to boot him out of office or for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings. But allies of the president saw the seemingly maniacal negotiating style as critical to his success.
“President Trump’s unpredictability has led to wins with the Abraham Accords, North Korea, Venezuela, and eventually Iran — not to mention the countless wars he’s deterred altogether,” the president’s former senior adviser, Jason Miller, told The Post.
“[It] will prove him to be the greatest negotiator we’ve ever had in the Oval Office.”
Ahead of the cease-fire, even some supporters of the president worried he might overplay his hand; one second-term former official expressed concern that the gambit might appear too “desperate.”
Bone-chilling war rhetoric is nothing new from Trump, who threatened North Korea with “fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen” in 2017 — before he and nuclear-armed dictator Kim Jong Un later struck up a friendly relationship, including three in-person meetings and what Trump called love letters.
Trump was caught on audio in 2024 musing about threatening to “bomb the s–t out of Moscow” to prevent the war in Ukraine.
“The fact is, we need unpredictability,” Trump told Bloomberg in March 2016. “The enemy is watching, and I have a very good chance of winning, and I frankly don’t want the enemy to know how I’m thinking.”
“With that being said, I don’t rule out anything.”