What Motivates Trump?

March 7, 2026 At 8.50 yesterday morning, President Donald

J. Trump posted on social media, there will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender.

After that and the selection of a great and acceptable leader, we and many of our wonderful

and very brave allies and partners will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the

brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.

Iran will have a great future. Make Iran great again.

Miga, thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.

As Alex Leary and Vera Bergengrouin of the Wall Street Journal observed, the demand

for unconditional surrender was quite a shift from Trump's original promise to the people

of Iran that the future is yours to take, or even as early claim that he was hoping to

knock out Iran's nuclear facilities.

Trump's shift highlighted that there appears to have been very little planning for what would

happen after U.S. and Israeli bombs began to rain on Iran.

Leary and Bergengrouin noted that Trump was bouncing ideas for the next stage of the

assault off journalists, even as ships stopped passing through the Strait of Hormuz. American

citizens were stranded in the Middle East. The war spread to countries throughout the

region, and U.S. military personnel died.

When reporters asked about what Trump meant by unconditional surrender, White House

Press Secretary Carolyn Lebit seemed to say that unconditional surrender meant whatever

Trump decides it does whenever he decides what the goals of Operation Epic Fury are.

She said,

What the President means is that when he, as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces, determines

that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America, and the goals

of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place

of unconditional surrender, whether they say it themselves or not.

Like other administration figures, Lebit suggested that the violence itself was the point,

saying,

frankly, they don't have a lot of people to say that for them, because the United States

and the State of Israel have completely wiped out more than 50 leaders of the former terrorist

regime, including the Supreme Leader himself.

President of Iran, Masood Pzezhkin, said Iran's enemies must take their dream of the Iranian

people's unconditional surrender to their graves. But he did apologize to neighboring countries

for the strikes against U.S. military bases in their lands.

He said Iran would suspend those strikes unless those states themselves launched attacks

on Iran.

At 6.11 this morning, Trump posted on social media,

Iran, which is being beat to hell, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors,

and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because

of the relentless U.S. and Israeli attack.

They were looking to take over and rule the Middle East. It is the first time that Iran

has ever lost in thousands of years to surrounding Middle Eastern countries. They have said,

thank you, President Trump. I have said you're welcome.

Iran is no longer the bully of the Middle East. They are instead the loser of the Middle

East, and will be for many decades until they surrender, or more likely, completely

collapse. Today, Iran will be hit very hard under serious consideration for complete destruction

and certain death because of Iran's bad behavior, our areas and groups of people that were

not considered for targeting up until this moment in time. Thank you for your attention

to this matter. President Donald J. Trump

McEverson of Public Citizen recalled a quotation from William Scheer's The Rise and Fall

of the Third Reich, summing up Adolf Hitler's view.

We must always demand so much that we can never be satisfied. Today, on Air Force One, when

asked what unconditional surrender looks like to you, Trump answered where they cry uncle

or when they can't fight any longer and there's nobody around to cry uncle. That could

happen too. If they surrender or if there is nobody around to surrender, but they're rendered

useless in terms of military. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned representatives

from 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries that if they don't adopt more aggressive strategies

against drug cartels, the Trump administration will do it for them. Hegseth urged the countries

to remain Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders,

and not be led astray by radical narco communism, anarcho tyranny, and uncontrolled mass migration.

Djago Rogero of the Guardian reported that Latin American countries resisted the framing

of Hegseth speech. The title of his article used the word dismay.

In Miami today, Trump and his advisors convened a shield of the America's summit with 12

of Latin America's Trump-aligned leaders. At the meeting, Trump called for an anti-cartel

coalition that would use military might to crush drug cartels. Former Homeland Security

Secretary Kristi Nome told the group, now that America is secure and our borders are secure,

we want to focus on our neighbors and help our neighbors with their borders and the challenges

they have. Trump suggested that Cuba was next on his list of countries to topple. We're

looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba, Trump said. They

have no money, they have no oil, they have a bad philosophy, and a bad regime. Cuba is

in its last moments of life as it was, but it will have a great new life, he said.

In need to know, David Rothkoff today called out the madness of the fact world trade

and global security is being shattered by a single man. Not since Adolf Hitler blew

his brains out in a bunker beneath the Garden of the German Reich Chancellery on April

30, 1945, have the lives of so many people around the world been so buffeted by the psychosis

of a single man. Why is Trump launched a war against Iran on a whim, attacked other

countries, an upended world trade? Rothkoff asked, because he's insane, because he's

venal, because he's a malignant narcissist, because he's a sociopath, because he has

a fragile ego, because those around him exacerbate and play to those traits to advance their

own interests, because CEOs and investors do likewise to fill their coffers. Because

to some people, whether he is insane or malevolent or repugnant or not, matters less than

whether his actions will feather their nests, increase their power. Because they and the

billionaires play their games and the consequences for the little people down below, the consequences

for us hardly matter a whit. On Thursday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse,

a Democrat of Rhode Island, called attention to another factor in play. In a speech to

the Senate, White House noted that throughout his second term, Trump has advanced policies

that help Russia, pausing weapons shipments to Ukraine, using sanctions on Russia and

pushing a peace deal favorable to Russia. Last summer, he welcomed Putin to American

soil and administration officials have paraded Russian propaganda. Russian state media

gloated when Trump installed Russia-apologist Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national

intelligence. An attorney general, Pam Bondy, upon taking office, stopped the anti-cliptocracy

work that had targeted Russian oligarchs. Trump's new national security policy through traditional

US allies overboard and favored policies that Russian government officials praised as

largely consistent with their own. If Trump were purposefully doing Russia's bidding, White House

said, it's hard to see what he would be doing differently. The United States is the most powerful

nation in the world. Russia is a weak corrupt regime. My old friend Senator John McCain used to say

that Russia is a gas station run by gangsters with an army. It doesn't make sense that the

president of the United States who insists on being dominant in essentially every relationship

is so submissive to one person and that one person is Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin.

White House suggested that the answer could have something to do with Epstein's close friendship

with the deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. He noted that the Epstein files riddled as they are

with references to Trump are also riddled with references to Russian girls and women, Russian

operatives, and Russian president Vladimir Putin. White House spoke about how many of Epstein's

victims believed he was recording them and how they were hidden cameras installed throughout his homes.

He quoted Epstein victim Virginia Jufrey who wrote, he explicitly talked about using me and what

I'd been forced to do with certain men as a form of blackmail so these men would owe him favors.

White House suggested the possibility that Epstein might have been working with Russian operatives,

but emphasize that we don't know. Epstein was an inveterate liar and a criminal who often sought

to exaggerate his power and influence and the Epstein files need to be viewed through that lens,

he said. What we do know is that a significant number of powerful men, our current president,

some of his cabinet secretaries, tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others, were very

mixed up with Epstein at different times and Epstein seems to have been very mixed up with Russia.

We also know that there is a cover-up of foot at the Department of Justice he continued,

where officials are trying to shield Trump from something in the Epstein files.

One of the great forces that Washington runs on is normalcy bias, he said, but he suggested

looking past that bias to note that we have links with Russia, girls from Russia, money from Russia,

people from Russia, deals in transactions with Russia, contacts with people with Russian

intelligence, news reports exploring contacts with Russia, and an official investigation

from the government of Poland into an Epstein-Russia connection.

Yesterday, Noah Robertson, Ellen Nakashima, and Warren P. Strobel of the Washington Post reported

that Russia is providing Iran with the information it needs to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East,

including aircraft and ships. During a roundtable on college sports,

Peter Ducey of the Fox News Channel asked Trump about that report, saying,

it sounds like the Russians are helping Iran target and attack Americans now.

Trump responded, I have a lot of respect for you. You've always been very nice to me.

What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time. We're talking about something else.

Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at

SoundScape Productions, dead of Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.