Trumpiana: Battle of bluff, bluster and blunder!

Trump is back at his game as an Iran peace deal eludes him
Donald Trump was enraged. Here he was working tirelessly to make America great again and prevent Iran from making a nuclear bomb. And there all these judges and other busybodies were putting spokes in the wheel.

Yet amid tortuous peace talks with Iran, POTUS claimed a major victory, not against Tehran, but in a Republican civil war of his making with a Trump-backed Republican beating a four-term senator in a primary runoff in Texas.

Besides Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who defeated Sen. John Cornyn, at least eight other Trump backed challengers have ousted longtime Republican lawmakers who had crossed him.

The results indicating that he was still the boss of the Republican party even as his poll numbers with the broader electorate continued to sag, left Trump crowing. Calling opposition Democrats “Dumocrats,” he declared, “I will do some nice, big, beautiful rallies for Ken. Texas, this will be FUN!”

As for the peace deal, with Iran’s hardliners acting tough, Trump put off a ‘final determination’ after a two hour meeting with top aides in the Situation Room. The proposed deal would extend the ceasefire for another 60 days while the U.S. and Iran seek to negotiate a plan to remove Iran’s enriched uranium.

Earlier, Trump drew his red lines demanding, “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb. The Hormuz Strait must be immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions.”

And all along professing indifference to the fallout from the Iran war, rising gas prices or political pressures ahead of the November midterms, Trump remained laser focused on things that matter — to him like the big beautiful ballroom.

He railed against Congress and judges for impeding his ballroom after a judge stopped aboveground construction on the project until Congress authorizes it and Senate Republicans rejected a plan to fund its security.

In a legal filing posted on Truth Social, he argued that “the President cannot safely conduct the business of the United States” without the ballroom.

Meanwhile, House Democrats announced a bill to block Trump’s proposed 250-foot triumphal arch nicknamed ‘Arc de Trump’ near Arlington National Cemetery.

A federal judge in Virginia also temporarily blocked Justice Department’s $1.776 billion ‘anti- weaponization’ fund to compensate his supporters supposedly targeted by previous administrations.

Trump’s decision to repaint the Reflecting Pool “American Flag Blue” too has run into a legal challenge. But there is no challenge as yet to construction under way on the White House lawn for an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) arena that will host a cage match on June 14 to mark Uncle Sam’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 80th birthday.

And a flattering cabinet is ever ready to cater to his whims and fancy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that his department has prepared the design for a $250 bill featuring Trump, anticipating the passage of stalled legislation in Congress.

If passed and signed into law by Trump, it would mark an extraordinary recognition for a sitting U.S. leader as such honor is usually reserved for the dead and departed.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the writer who won a $5 million civil judgment after accusing Trump of sexual abuse and defamation.

Trump himself refiled his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over its reporting on his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein, after a judge threw out an earlier version over legal deficiencies.

But Bruce Springsteen, an American singer, songwriter, and musician nicknamed “the Boss,” used a concert in Washington to speak out against Trump. At one point, he led the crowd in a chant of “ICE out,” encouraging the audience to make their voices heard all the way to the White House.

Springsteen, whom Trump has labeled a “total loser who spews hate” and called for a boycott of his shows, also announced a star-studded protest festival set for the Washington, D.C. area a month before the midterm elections.

Trump, however, reacted with fury as a federal judge ordered his name to be removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Railing against the judge’s ruling, an angry Trump threatened to withdraw his leadership of the institution he took over after becoming President.

Unless he was “free to do what I do better than anyone else,” he had “no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’” he posted.

In a 580-word tirade, Trump blasted the ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ appointed judge as reckless. He also painted the performing arts centre as a dilapidated structure only he could restore.

“Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of,” Trump wrote, referring to himself in third person.

“Therefore, based on the fact that the Radical Left Democrats care more about opposing your favorite President, ME, than saving a dying Performing Arts Center, …we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them.”

“There has never been a President of the United States who has been treated so unfairly by the Courts as I, but that’s OK, I will continue to do, what is considered to be, a great job for the wonderful people of our Country,” he complained.

Earlier, after his third scheduled medical checkup in 13 months ahead of his 80th birthday where “Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” he posted a picture of himself examining a White House pillar and proclaiming “The Only President Who Knows How to Fix The White House.”

If only, he had also threatened to just walk away from it all. That, critics said would have worked truly ‘PERFECTLY!’

(By arrangement with The American Bazaar)
Catch all LIVE updates on the US-Iran conflict here.