Welcome to Thursday’s edition of Washington Secrets. Today, we analyze Donald Trump’s Iran speech and what it says about his ability to manipulate the media. Plus, will the Supreme Court become the model for the White House ballroom ceiling? And why are Republicans boosting a Democratic candidate in Nebraska?
The pundits had assembled in panels of journalists (all newly minted experts on Iran) and generals and ambassadors.
The pre-show was running from noon. White House correspondents breathlessly anticipated a new, more kinetic phase in the war … or an end to hostilities … or something else entirely. They all agreed he would use the speech to beat up on NATO.
And then President Donald Trump walked down the cross hall of the White House to deliver his first address to the nation since launching his war on Iran 33 days earlier.
“My fellow Americans,” he began.
This is what we learned:
The war is “nearing completion” — yet the President also promised to hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” including electricity plants if no deal is reached. (For those keeping score at home, we are about to enter Week 6 of the war, despite Trump initially saying the conflict would take four to five weeks and proclaiming in early March that the U.S. was “very far” ahead of that initial timeline.)
The regime is changed — “We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders’ death — they’re all dead.”
This is a short war — Trump reflected on the First and Second World Wars, pointing out that U.S. involvement amounted to one year, seven months, and five days in the former, and three years, eight months, and 25 days in the latter.
Venezuela was the model — Trump used the speech to trumpet previous successes, underscoring American military might.
The Strait of Hormuz is not America’s problem — “The countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage. They must cherish it.”
Notice anything? These are (with the exception of the world war timings) a restatement of previous statements.
It was like sitting down to watch the Seinfeld finale. After all the fuss and hullabaloo, it was a rehash of old episodes.
The pundit classes were unimpressed. “From a news-making perspective, the speech was underwhelming,” wrote Niall Stanage for The Hill.
Yet the chyrons blared and hooted throughout the 19-minute speech. “Historic address,” they trumpeted. “Trump speaks to nation.”
Once again, the president had demonstrated his status as editor-in-chief. No one has a greater sense of how to use the “bully pulpit” than a man brought up in the intense news market of New York. And no president has ever bent the White House press corps to his will so deftly.
He is covered now, not like a wartime president, whose motives and planning must be scrutinized through the lens of national security and global relationships, and more like a celebrity on the red carpet.
That is not the place for a detailed policy briefing. So reporters are left covering tone, contradiction, and implication rather than policy.
Instead, Trump is creating a moment that reporters can luxuriate in. It’s the big set piece or the special one-to-one moment.
He can say anything he likes in those snatched phone interviews with reporters, musing on the future of NATO, adding that nothing is off the table, or rephrasing his two-to-three-week timeline, knowing that no journalist will underwrite their special time with the most powerful man in the world. It will be dressed up in 72-point headlines and splashed across news websites.
When he announces an address to the nation, the whole media effort goes into overdrive. The cry goes up. Pundits assemble.
When it came, the speech was essentially a repeat of goals first articulated a month ago, recycled through Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s press briefings and Pentagon news conferences.
Yet, even that was by design.
Trump knows better than anyone that when it comes to messaging, repetition is king. In his 90-minute campaign speeches or those scattergun interviews, he hammers the same point again and again and again until it sticks.
And that is the point.
READ MORE: Trump needs strikes and diplomatic realism, not ground troops, in Iran
Trump soaks up Supreme view
The Supreme Court’s 40-foot-high ceiling is made of ivory-colored plaster, decorated with a repeating pattern of rosettes marked with gold leaf.
Secrets suspects that Trump must have rather approved of its neoclassical styling as he listened to arguments in the birthright citizenship case on Wednesday. Secrets sources tell us the president leaned back in his seat with his eyes turned towards the ceiling at frequent moments during his visit to the Supreme Court.
It is no secret that Trump likes to check out building materials and designs on his visits around the country. Secrets caught him admiring the paving slabs at Westminster Abbey during his visit to London in 2019, for example.
Perhaps the Supreme Court ceiling will provide inspiration for the new White House ballroom.
Why are Republicans running ads backing a Democrat in Nebraska?
The advert running in Nebraska spells out the tax cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill before talking up one of the candidates running for Congress.
“Call John Cavanaugh and thank him for sponsoring Trump’s MAGA agenda in Nebraska,” it concludes.
And therein lies the rub. The ad is paid for by American Action Network, a nonprofit tied to House Republican leaders.
Cavanaugh is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, going up against Denise Powell and Crystal Rhoades.
It will be a closely watched district. It was one of the few districts last time around to vote for Kamala Harris as president while returning a Republican to Congress.
The eventual Democratic nominee will go up against Brinker Harding, an Omaha City councilman.
So why are Republicans talking up a Democrat?
“Denise Powell and Crystal Rhoades oppose President Trump’s policies — an agenda that is good for Nebraska,” said American Action Network President Chris Winkelman. “The American Action Network stands with the president and the results he’s delivering for Nebraskans.”
It all suggests they see Cavanaugh as the strongest candidate and will do anything they can to spoil his pitch.
Yet, as Secrets revealed in January, Cavanaugh appears on a secret Republican list as a beatable candidate because of his progressive views.
So is he the strongest or weakest candidate?
Lunchtime reading
Why Catholicism is drawing in Gen Z men: “The joke is that St. Joe’s is the ultimate place to date Catholic in New York because it’s all the young, beautiful people that go there,” said Thomas L., 24, a parishioner who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name and last initial because his work involves sensitive government contracts.
The anti-MAGA talkshow: After 70 years, PBS’s The Open Mind still has it: “The Open Mind tries to bridge the partisan divide and revive what residual consensus and mutual respect remains. It is as calm as Trump is shrill, and as contemplative as the president is impulsive.”
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