The perception that this war is being won by bombs is no doubt reinforced by Trump’s advisers, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former cable-news host who values the power of short-form video perhaps a little too much. “Never has a modern military been so rapidly and historically obliterated, defeated, from day one, with overwhelming firepower,” Hegseth said in the Oval Office on Tuesday as he stood beside Trump. “And that’s why we see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. We negotiate with bombs!”
“He sounds less like any actual tough guy that I knew in the military, and more like a 13-year-old who just finished watching Conan the Barbarian,” Klay says. “It fits with the seemingly hapless strategy and public messaging.”
The sizzle reels Trump is fed go a long way toward explaining why he’s so furious about media coverage of his war. “There’s most definitely a feedback loop,” says Eric Bolling, a conservative commentator and longtime ally of the president. “What President Trump responds to tends to get amplified to him. When you’re consuming a steady stream of short-form strike footage, it can create a perception of clean, decisive success that doesn’t always reflect the complexity on the ground.”
Indeed, the bombing campaign is only a sliver of the reality. If your understanding of basketball were based entirely on highlight reels of explosive Carmelo Anthony dunks, you might find yourself under the impression that the New York Knicks were a force to be reckoned with throughout the 2010s. (I was there; they were not.) What’s more, as experts like Robert Pape have warned, there’s little evidence that strikes alone can change the reality on the ground, let alone topple an entrenched regime and deliver freedom to the people it controls. “People don’t respond well to being bombed,” Klay points out. “It’s a fundamentally wicked way of looking at the world and understanding how to exercise power. But also, I think it’s practically wrong.”
In a statement to NBC News, press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against the idea that Trump was not getting a full picture of the situation in Iran: “Anyone who has been present for conversations with President Trump knows he actively seeks and solicits the opinions of everyone in the room and expects full-throated honesty from all of his top advisers.”
Trump doesn’t strictly consume information through these short-form videos, but it’s unclear whether the broader information ecosystem in which Trump stews gives him a better view of the facts on the ground. One source close to Trump tells me he’s an avid viewer of Mark Levin’s Fox News show, which airs weekly on Sunday nights. The talk radio veteran typically delivers an hour-long sermon on US successes in Iran and the existential threat posed by the country’s fundamentalist regime.
