TEHRAN — President Donald Trump has turned to psychological warfare and media fabrications in a desperate attempt to distract from the failure of the US military and economic war against Iran. 

Such underhanded attempts became even more apparent after Trump reposted a link on Truth Social from the US conservative news outlet Newsmax, which grossly distorted comments made by Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf during his recent diplomatic trip to Iraq.  

Newsmax sensationalized the story under the title "Iran Parliament Speaker: 'We Are Hungry, We Cannot Survive,'" attempting to cook up a false narrative of Iranian vulnerability by deliberately twisting Qalibaf’s words. Misquoting the Iranian Parliament speaker, the outlet wrote that no matter how strong military power becomes, if people are hungry, they will not be able to endure. Western outlets immediately spun the story to suggest that Iran is on the verge of collapse and that the US war against Iran, coupled with Washington’s unrelenting economic pressure, could bring down the Islamic Republic.

Nonetheless, a look at Qalibaf’s actual speech delivered in Persian tells a completely different story and sheds light on what was truly said. In a high-level meeting with Iraqi and Iranian economic activists, Qalibaf spoke strategically about the vital need for sovereign nations to maintain both military and economic strength. In this section of his address, the Parliament speaker stressed that alongside formidable military power, economic growth, robust domestic production, and dynamic financial activity are essential pillars to maintaining a country’s overall strength and national resilience. He emphasized that military power alone cannot guarantee a country’s long-term survival if the domestic economy is neglected. In fact, Qalibaf firmly believes that alongside continuously strengthening its defense capabilities, Iran must also bolster its economic foundation and overcome its internal financial challenges precisely to withstand hostile foreign economic pressure.

The media deception occurs against the backdrop of the aggressive US-Israeli war launched on February 28, a joint assault intended to cripple the Islamic Republic that ultimately backfired on its aggressors. When launching the operation, Trump openly declared an intent to force regime change, directly telling the Iranian population to take over their government. Yet, far from achieving its maximalist objectives or collapsing the government, the conflict resulted in the rapid depletion of the US military arsenal, exposing the logistical limits and strategic overreach of American hegemony.  

Detailed technical assessments and reports from major American military outlets confirm that months of high-intensity operations have severely drained US weapons stocks—expending nearly two-thirds of its Patriot air defense interceptor inventory, roughly 40 percent of its THAAD interceptors, and a third of its Tomahawk cruise missile supply, while virtually exhausting its precision strike ballistic missiles like ATACMS and PrSM. American military analysts have been forced to admit that Washington simply lacks the industrial manufacturing pace to replenish these advanced systems, proving that claims of having completely wiped out Iranian military power are detached from reality. Iranian military officials have repeatedly dismissed these US proclamations, noting that Iran's defense apparatus remains fully operational, integrated, and capable of sustained deterrence.

Despite these clear tactical setbacks, Trump has continued to operate under extreme geopolitical delusions. Chief among them is his absurd, repeated assertion that the Strait of Hormuz—one of the world's most vital maritime choke points—is now sovereign American territory. Trump has publicly voiced this bizarre claim at least three times. He first floated the idea to a campaign crowd in Long Island, saying that after defeating Iran, he would declare the Strait a territory of the United States. He then doubled down during a press interaction at Joint Base Andrews, claiming the US possessed total control over the region and treated it as American ground. Shortly after, he amplified the delusion by sharing maps on Truth Social depicting the international waterway explicitly tagged as new US territory.  

Iranian officials and regional observers were quick to point out the unhinged nature of these statements. Officials in Tehran noted that the vast distance between Washington's military capability and its land-grab fantasies exposes the White House's complete detachment from realities on the ground. The Strait remains an international waterway bordered by sovereign nations, and no amount of Truth Social posts can grant Washington legal or physical ownership over foreign territorial waters.  

Trump's unfulfilled claims extend directly to his cycle of military threats, which have repeatedly collapsed into abrupt strategic retreats. This recurring pattern has become so glaring that analysts, financial markets, and international media outlets now widely refer to it as the TACO pattern, an acronym for "Trump Always Chickens Out". Time and again, Trump has issued dramatic ultimatums—threatening to bomb Iranian power plants, target critical energy infrastructure on Kharg Island, or send the country back to the Stone Age if his demands were not met within tight deadlines. Yet every single time the deadline expired and Tehran refused to submit, Trump backed away, offering unilateral extensions, claiming a deal was near, or citing requests from foreign leaders to pause military action.  

Having failed to secure a decisive victory on the battlefield, facing a depleted arsenal, and caught in a cycle of empty threats, Washington attempted to shift its focus back to financial strangulation. Trump orchestrated an "economic D-Day" plan against Iran—an aggressive economic warfare operation aimed at crushing the nation’s commercial lifelines and starving its people into submission.

Yet, as Iran’s steadfast endurance neutralizes these hostile measures, Trump’s declared "economic D-Day" has crumbled into another total failure, exposing the utter limits of American coercive leverage. Facing structural defeat on both the military and financial fronts, the White House has resorted to a classic plan to divide and rule—using media fabrications, psychological manipulations on Truth Social, and false narratives about figures like Qalibaf to sow division and disguise Washington's growing impotence on the global stage.