Donald Trump is furious. The president took to Truth Social on Tuesday with a nearly 300-word tirade targeting the Wall Street Journal after one of its editorial board writers published an op-ed arguing that Iran has been playing him for a fool.
The piece in question, written by WSJ columnist Elliot Kaufman, is titled “The Iranians Take Trump for a Sucker.” According to The Daily Beast, Kaufman argues that Iran has run the same bait-and-switch on Trump three times, each time dangling the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz as a carrot before walking it back to squeeze more concessions out of Washington.
Trump was not having it. “An IDIOT on The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, named Elliot Kaufman, just wrote an Op Ed entitled, ‘The Iranians Take Trump for a Sucker,'” the president wrote, before defending his record in the Iran conflict. “Really? For 47 years, they have killed our people, and many others, and taken advantage of every President, except me — And what did I give to them, a Country in tatters!”
Trump drags Rupert Murdoch into it
The Truth Social post did not stop at Kaufman. Trump escalated the attack by going after the Journal’s owner, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, suggesting the whole thing was editorially directed from the top.
“I have a MORON on the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal writing about me being taken for a ‘sucker,'” Trump continued. “Iran certainly doesn’t think so! Neither does anyone else. I guess Rupert Murdoch told him to write it this way, because The Wall Street Journal has lost its way, no longer required reading, just another failing political ‘RAG!'”
Trump has called out fake news outlets before when he disagrees with their coverage, and this latest salvo fits a familiar pattern of him attacking establishment media over Iran war reporting.
What Kaufman actually argued
Kaufman’s op-ed zeroed in on the Strait of Hormuz situation. His core argument is that Iran repeatedly promised to reopen the waterway, got concessions from the US each time, and then shut it back down again. Kaufman called this the “third swindle,” citing Iranian demands that the US lift its blockade entirely before the Strait would be reopened. Iran had already secured Israeli restraint in Lebanon as part of earlier rounds of the same deal-then-renege cycle.
Trump countered by rattling off a list of US military achievements under Operation Epic Fury: Iran’s navy sunk, its air force gutted, its air defense systems destroyed, and its nuclear infrastructure hit by B-2 bombers. He also pointed to the killing of Qasem Soleimani as evidence of his toughness.
As for the ceasefire that triggered all of this, The Hill reported that Trump extended it indefinitely just a day before it was set to expire, even after publicly saying US soldiers were “raring to go” for further strikes.
The WSJ writer’s response
Kaufman did not seem particularly rattled. After Trump’s post went viral, the columnist shared it on X with a short, dry comment from his wife: “you’re still going to do the dishes tonight, right?”
Trump’s outburst comes at a tense moment in the US-Iran standoff, with peace talks still stalled and the Strait of Hormuz remaining closed. He has also drawn attention recently for agreeing to read Scripture at a public event days after upsetting Christian communities online, suggesting the president is navigating pressure on multiple fronts at once.
