President Donald Trump erupted at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board recently for having written about the president having “declared premature victory” with regards to the U.S. war against Iran.
But an hour later, he appeared to undercut his own argument, prompting the Journal's editorial board to thank him for “vindicating” its case.
“The Wall Street Journal, one of the worst and most inaccurate ‘Editorial Boards’ in the World, stated that I ‘declared premature victory in Iran,’” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social last Thursday. “Actually, it is a Victory, and there’s nothing ‘premature’ about it!”
Exactly 61 minutes later, however, Trump followed up his attack on the Journal’s editorial board with another social media post criticizing Iran for continuing to obstruct passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil trade flows.
“President Trump is unhappy with us again, this time for saying he declared ‘premature victory’ with the terms of the Iran cease-fire,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote Friday in an op-ed, noting that its writers were “pleased Mr. Trump is reading us.”
In response to Trump’s insistence that he had not declared a “premature victory” in his efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to U.S.-aligned vessels – only to be immediately followed by a complaint about the strait remaining closed to U.S.-aligned vessels – the Journal’s editorial board issued Trump a simple message: “Thanks for vindicating our editorial.”
As of Sunday, peace talks between the Trump administration and Tehran have shown no progress, and Trump escalated the U.S. war against Iran by announcing a full U.S. Navy blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, along with a directive targeting all ships complying with Tehran’s demand for toll payments to access the critical shipping waterway.