A Wednesday report from NBC News is raising concerns that President Donald Trump may be getting a rose-colored view of the war he started with Iran.
According to NBC News, US military officials show Trump a daily two-minute video montage of operations conducted in the Iran war, featuring “the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets,” with one official telling NBC that the video essentially consists of “stuff blowing up.”
Two sources in the administration told NBC that “the video briefing is fueling concerns among some of Trump’s allies that he may not be receiving – or absorbing – the complete picture of the war,” and one official told the network that “the information Trump gets about the war tends to emphasize US successes, with comparatively little detail about Iranian actions.”
The video montages are also leaving the president confused about why the media are covering negative ramifications of the war, which he believes to be an unqualified success, NBC reported.
‘Every day the Pentagon makes a video of cool explosions from Iran for the president of the United States to watch, so he can bounce up and down in his high chair, clap his little hands, and cry “Yay! Make it go boom again!”‘
MS NOW columnist Paul Waldman
Critics of the president were quick to slam him and his administration over the reported war highlights montage.
“Sounds like Trump is getting a CENTCOM propaganda video briefing of things blowing up every day,” commented foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen, “but not being briefed when things go wrong.”
Anthony Zurcher, North America correspondent for BBC, wrote that it appears Trump is “getting an overly rosy picture from his generals of how an unpopular war is going.”
MS NOW columnist Paul Waldman contended that the president’s behavior as depicted in the NBC report was positively childlike.
“Every day the Pentagon makes a video of cool explosions from Iran for the president of the United States to watch,” wrote Waldman, “so he can bounce up and down in his high chair, clap his little hands, and cry ‘Yay! Make it go boom again!’”
National security attorney Bradley Moss summarized the NBC report with a single five-word sentence: “The emperor has no brains.”
Originally published by Common Dreams, this article is republished under a Creative Commons license.
