Trump biographer dissects the US President's F-word outburst: 'They ruined his perfect war'

Journalist Michael Wolff, author of the best-selling work 'Fire and Fury', has attempted to analyse the mindset behind US President Donald Trump's outburst on the Iran-Israel ceasefire where he dropped the F-word. 

 

Wolff, who authored the famous book on Donald Trump during the first nine months of his presidency, believes Trump's meltdown was a reaction to Iran and Israel "ruining" his "perfect war" by violating a ceasefire deal within hours of him announcing it. 

 

Trump's reaction came as he was to leave for Hague to attend the NATO Summit. On reports of Israel and Iran violating the ceasefire, immediately after his announcement, Trump said: "You basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f--- they’re doing! Do you understand that?" he said. 

 

This, Wolff believes, reflects Trump's decision to not "shepherd the conflict through to its end". Wolff took a dig at Trump, stating he does not have the attention span like other people who get sucked into these commitments to keep going. "So in a sense, that’s the weird silver lining. He’s not going to go forward with this," Wolff told the Daily Beast podcast. 

 

"And I don’t see him going down and becoming a wartime president and seeing this as something that he has to see to the end," Wolff explained, adding that Trump’s whole impulse is exactly the opposite of that.

 

The biographer believes while many wars are provoked by headlines, this was intended to create the headline: "We won".

 

But, the way both countries broke the ceasefire sabotaged Trump's plans, Wolff said. "[When] he announced the ceasefire, that was the perfect war,” Wolff said. “And so suddenly, with both Israel and Iran not cooperating in his staging of this in the headline, he gets annoyed, of course. And also I think he stepped into the role that this is his war," Wolff said. 

 

The reports that US intelligence's early assessment was that the military’s strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities did not destroy the core components of its nuclear program and likely only set it back by months aggravated the issue. 

 

"Iran’s enemies do not at this time know exactly where things stand. And Donald Trump doesn’t know where things stand. He just has to, but he doesn’t really care. That’s not his issue. His issue is it’s a perfect war,” Wolff told the podcast. "And the perfect war means we have destroyed everything, and it’s over, and we go on from there."

Middle East