Dealmaking called for disparagement from a former congressman after President Donald Trump announced what he considered a “damaging” stand down from a planned attack on Iran.
(Video Credit: CNN)
Never Trump naysaying has oft-demonstrated that there is nothing the president can do that won’t be spun as negative. Now, weeks after taking heat for threatening “A whole civilization will die” in regard to the Islamist regime, the commander-in-chief’s announcement about setting a planned attack on standby found former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R) griping about Trump allegedly being “eager to back down.”
Monday on “CNN News Central,” CNN anchors Brianna Keilar and Boris Sanches welcomed the RINO’s reaction to Trump’s statement that he was holding off an attack on Iran per the request of leaders in the Middle East on the pretense of an impending deal.
Keilar began, “The president has this habit of making these threats about essentially — not even essentially — about destroying Iran and then not following through on them. There’s obviously questions about whether he should have made the threats in the first place, but I wonder what your reaction is to him again finding an off-ramp from his threat.”
“Yeah, that’s the whole thing. This is so damaging, you know,” argued Kinzinger. “Regardless of — let’s just be, you know, agnostic on whether he should attack again or not for the moment. When you make threats and then you’re eager to back down from those threats, which he has been ever single time — I mean, he’s gone from ‘we will destroy an entire civilization’ to ‘we have a deal,’ which we never actually had, by the way, claiming the strait’s open, claiming it’s closed, claiming he was gonna pull the trigger on May 19, and now everybody wants him to deal- … like, you lose all of your strategic, like, strength.”
Seemingly without regard for how negotiations were playing out behind the scenes, the former congressman continued, “One of the greatest things the United States has is our ability to say we will do something, the enemy knows that, and then hopefully we won’t have to do that. This has just been like: threat, back off, threat, back off. And I haven’t seen the Iranians move in any way here. And we find ourselves in the worst-case scenario, which is a closed strait; this nebulous future. And gas is now having to price in, and futures are pricing in the uncertainty.”
Kinzinger presented doubts about the outcome in the Middle East, saying, “Are they going to actually denuclearize them or whatever? I don’t know,” which remained the key stated objective from the administration.
As Trump said on Truth Social, “This Deal will include, importantly, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!”
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 18, 2026
While the president expressed his respect for Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, he noted that the “full, large-scale assault of Iran” would be ready to launch “on a moment’s notice” should a deal not be reached. In other words, Trump hasn’t backed off his threat.
Still, Kinzinger insisted, “I think Donald Trump needs to figure out: if we resume hostilities with Iran, you need to have a plan in place to reopen that strait and stick to the use of the military until it’s done, or quit these threats because it’s just making it worse.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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