Trump's Unending Lies: Reality Catches Up to a President Who Doesn't Know What's Happening

The S&P 500 closed out its fifth consecutive losing week on Friday, down 1.7% to 6,368.85, marking the worst weekly performance since the Iran war began on February 27th and the longest losing streak in nearly four years, while the Dow Jones fell 793 points to 45,166.64 and officially entered correction territory, down more than 10% from its January record, and the Nasdaq dropped 2.1% to close at 20,948.36, now 12.5% below its October high. Brent crude settled at $105.32 per barrel on Friday, its highest close since July 2022, with WTI at $99.64, up 5.5% on the day alone. The national average price of gasoline has risen a full dollar per gallon since the eve of the war, from $2.98 to $3.98, with California already at $5.84 and AAA projecting the national average will cross $4 in the coming days for the first time since August 2022.

Doug Beath at Wells Fargo told Bloomberg the "diplomatic dissonance this week between the U.S. and Iran dismayed investors" and that "by end of week, risk appetite could not withstand the fog of war." Jim Bianco at Bianco Research was more specific: "Any further statements by Trump about a deal are white noise to the markets. Only if the IRANIANS say talks are going well will it impact markets." The financial markets of the United States no longer assign any informational value to statements made by the President of the United States.

The traders have priced in the war itself since March. What's driving this week's crash is something else entirely: the growing, mathematically unavoidable reality that Donald Trump has been lying about this war since the day it began, that his lies are becoming more extravagant as the situation deteriorates, and that the physical facts of a closed strait, a collapsing LNG supply chain, a global energy crisis sweeping from the Philippines to Pakistan, and an enemy that is very much still shooting back cannot be papered over by unhinged late-night "Truth" Social posts.

The cliff

The LNG numbers are the ones that should be keeping energy ministers awake at night, because unlike oil prices, which fluctuate with every Trump post and every Iranian denial, the natural gas supply chain is hitting a wall that no amount of market manipulation can move. Approximately 112 billion cubic meters of LNG, roughly 20% of global trade, normally flows through the Strait of Hormuz from Qatar, and all of it has been cut off since March 4th. The last shipments that left before the blockade are now reaching their final destinations around the world.

Pakistan, which sourced 99% of its LNG from Qatar, is scaling down its two import terminals and expects them to halt entirely by month's end. Iqbal Ahmed, chair of Pakistan GasPort, put it plainly: "After that we'll run dry." Bangladesh has implemented gas rationing and closed universities. Taiwan is scrambling for replacement cargoes. Japan and China are preparing to burn more coal. Asian LNG benchmark prices have doubled since the war began, reaching roughly $23 per million BTU, and QatarEnergy has declared force majeure on long-term contracts with Italy, Belgium, South Korea, and China because the Iranian strike on the Ras Laffan facility on March 18th destroyed 17% of global LNG supply capacity, with repairs expected to take three to five years and an estimated $20 billion in annual revenue lost. Al Jazeera's energy analysis noted what the raw numbers make obvious: "The global LNG market is even tighter than oil, and there is no spare production capacity to satisfy global demand."

This is the backdrop against which Trump has spent the past week claiming the war is won, that Iran is sending him gifts of oil tankers, and that "very productive" negotiations are underway. Every one of those claims is a lie, and the markets know it.

"We've already won"

Trump has declared victory in this war at least four separate times, and the war has escalated after each one.

On March 9th, one day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that "this is only just the beginning," Trump told reporters the war was "very complete, pretty much." Asked whether a war can be both complete and just beginning, he said "Well, I think you could say both." He reframed the largest American military operation since Iraq as "a little excursion." By March 10th, he was telling Republicans it "may end pretty quickly."

Two days later, Trump told Axios the war would end "soon" because there was "practically nothing left to target." Hegseth then announced that strikes were "ramping up" to "the highest volume yet."

On March 19th, Trump posted on Truth Social about "winding down our great Military efforts" on the same day he refused a ceasefire, deployed 4,000 additional troops to the region, and claimed "we're flying wherever we want" and "have nobody even shooting at us," which was worth noting given that a US F-35 had taken fire and made an emergency landing the previous day. Six days after claiming Iran's military was "destroyed," Hegseth requested $200 billion in supplemental war spending while insisting the war was "not becoming a quagmire or forever war."

And on March 24th, from the Oval Office: "We've won this, because this war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news." Two days later, he postponed strikes again to April 6th while deploying an additional 2,500 Marines and ordering the 82nd Airborne to prepare for deployment, potentially bringing ground troop numbers to 8,000.

Four victory declarations. Each one followed by an escalation. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Iran fired its 66th wave of missiles on March 20th, using warheads the IRGC says are from 2010-era stockpiles, with modern systems held in reserve. The IDF's own chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said on March 21st that the campaign is only "approximately halfway done." Iran's Health Ministry reports 1,937 killed and nearly 25,000 injured. Trump understands that the war is not won, his narcissistic nature does not allow him to admit that he has made a mistake.

The 8 to 10 ships that don't exist

At a Cabinet meeting on March 26th, Trump told reporters that Iran had "gifted" the United States passage for eight large oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, claiming Iran then apologized for an unspecified offense and added two more ships for a total of ten. He said the vessels were Pakistani-flagged. He cited a Fox News broadcast as validation.

Argus Media verified only two tankers transiting the strait with active transponders during the window Trump specified, March 24th and 25th. Bloomberg's tanker tracking data found "no sign" of the eight-vessel fleet Trump described at any point since March 23rd, and noted: "If this was some great 'present' you'd think both sides would want it known." Bloomberg also identified "zombie ships," vessels transmitting false AIS signals from scrapped tankers, suggesting some apparent transits may be ghost signals rather than actual ships. The Times of Israel confirmed that none of the verified transiting vessels were Pakistani-flagged, directly contradicting two of Trump's central details.

Iran denied characterizing any passage as a concession.

The President of the United States stood in front of his Cabinet, in front of cameras, and fabricated a story about Iranian oil tankers that do not exist, carrying flags they weren't flying, as evidence of diplomatic progress that isn't happening. The corruption and derangement are unending at this point and it's clear that the 25th amendment needs to be invoked as soon as possible.

$580 million in sixty seconds

On March 23rd, at 6:49 AM Eastern time, someone purchased $580 million in oil futures in a single minute. Fifteen minutes later, Trump posted on Truth Social that the US and Iran were having "very good and productive conversations." Five minutes before the post went live, $1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures were purchased. When the post hit, it added $1.7 trillion to US stock values and pushed oil down $17, roughly 15%, in minutes.

Iran immediately denied any talks were occurring. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf called Trump's claims "fake news used to manipulate financial and oil markets." Iran's Armed Forces spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaqari asked: "Has the level of your inner struggle reached the stage of you negotiating with yourself?"

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman wrote in his newsletter: "We have another word for situations in which people with access to confidential information regarding national security, such as plans to bomb or not to bomb another country, exploit that information for profit. That word is treason." His deeper concern was whether "decisions about war and peace" were now "in part serving the cause of market manipulation rather than the national interest." Senator Chris Murphy asked the obvious question: "Who was it? This is corruption. Mind-blowing corruption."

What made the March 23rd trades so telling was who noticed. Ben Shapiro suggested Trump's post was designed to "signal to the markets" and drop oil prices. Nick Fuentes called it "some kind of financial manipulation." Steve Bannon acknowledged that "clearly there's somebody that had some information" and referenced the $580 million figure by name. Joe Rogan asked: "Didn't someone make like $1,800,000,000 in like five minutes?" When the likes of Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, Steve Bannon, and Joe Rogan all independently conclude that the president's war communications are being used for insider trading, you have to work very hard to find an innocent explanation.

Trump has never been ideological, which is what makes the corruption so predicible. A neoconservative would at least have a theory about why the war serves American interests. A hawk would at least believe Iran poses a genuine threat, but Trump's own press secretary admitted it doesn't. Once you strip away the doctrine that was never there and the threat assessment that his own administration contradicted, what's left is a man whose primary concern has always been the aggrandizement of himself and the enrichment of the people around him, and the pattern of "Truth" Social posts timed to move markets, followed by Iranian denials that confirm the posts contained no actual information, followed by massive pre-positioned trades that extracted billions in profit from the volatility, fits that profile so precisely that even his own supporters can see it.

"Talking to people" who don't exist either

Trump has claimed repeatedly since March 23rd that he is in direct communication with "the right people" in Iran, that Tehran wants a deal "so badly," and that he can't name his contact because the person would "get killed."

Iran has denied this from every possible angle. Ghalibaf called it fake news. Iran's Ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, stated flatly: "No direct or indirect negotiations have taken place between the two countries so far." Iran's Foreign Ministry acknowledged only that "friendly countries" had relayed messages indicating "a US request for negotiations," which is a fundamentally different thing from the "very good and productive conversations" Trump described. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar confirmed "indirect talks" through relayed messages, with Turkey and Egypt also involved, but the word "indirect" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and it does not mean what Trump says it means.

The identity question is where it gets genuinely disturbing. An Israeli official told Axios that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had been in contact with Ghalibaf, the very person Trump was supposedly protecting. The Intercept's Hooman Majd offered a reading that would be shocking under normal circumstances: Trump isn't protecting his own people from Iran. He's protecting his Iranian contact from Israel. The president of the United States cannot publicly name the person he's negotiating with because his own closest ally in the war, the country that provided the intelligence that started it, might assassinate that person, just as Israel has assassinated Khamenei, Larijani, Soleimani, Khatib, and Tangsiri over the past thirty days. That is the diplomatic situation the president has created: a war in which he can't even conduct basic negotiations because his co-belligerent kills everyone on the other side of the table.

Two minutes of stuff blowing up

NBC News reported this week, citing three current US officials and one former official, that the Pentagon prepares a daily video briefing for Trump consisting of approximately two minutes of footage showing the most visually impressive strikes from the previous 48 hours. One official described the content as a series of clips of "stuff blowing up."

Three officials expressed concern that Trump may not be receiving the complete picture of the war. The concern has specifics: Trump wasn't initially briefed about five US Air Force refueling planes hit at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia and learned of it through media reports. He then used the curated videos to privately question why media coverage didn't match the success he was seeing in his briefings, pointing to the explosions on screen as evidence that the war was going well.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded that Trump "actively seeks and solicits the opinions of everyone in the room" and "expects full throated honesty from all of his top advisors." This is the same Karoline Leavitt who admitted on the record that "no such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did," which makes her a questionable authority on who around the president is being honest about what. This pattern is also not new: during his first term, officials reportedly inserted Trump's name into briefing documents at regular intervals to keep his attention, and intelligence officials learned to present information in visual formats because he wouldn't read written briefings. The two-minute video montage is the logical endpoint of that trajectory: a president who won't read, won't listen, and won't sit still, getting a curated highlight reel of explosions and then mistaking it for an actual understanding of a war that has killed nearly 2,000 people, injured 25,000, displaced 3.2 million, crashed global markets, sent LNG prices to double their pre-war levels, and drawn in nine countries across a region of 400 million people.

He declared victory four times. He fabricated a fleet of tankers. He claimed to be negotiating with people who say they've never spoken to him. And the reason the lies keep getting bigger is that the gap between what he sees in his two-minute video and what is actually happening in the world gets wider every day, and the only tool he has ever had for bridging that kind of gap is to lie louder.

You can't TACO out of a war

You can see the TACO instinct in nearly everything Trump has done since the third week. He issued a 48-hour ultimatum on March 22nd to "obliterate" Iran's power plants if the Strait wasn't reopened. Iran responded by threatening to mine the entire Persian Gulf and destroy every desalination plant linked to the US and Israel. Trump backed down within 24 hours, postponed the strikes for five days, and posted about "productive talks" that Iran denied were happening. When the five days elapsed, he postponed again to April 6th while deploying more troops. Every instinct he has, the showmanship, the deal-making theater, the compulsive need to declare victory before the fight is over, the headlines-first-consequences-never approach to governance, tells him to declare victory and walk away. But there is no walking away from a regional war with the strait closed, LNG supply collapsing across Asia, oil at $105, American soldiers in harm's way, and an enemy that has demonstrated it can hit targets from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to Dimona in the Negev desert. TACO worked when the stakes were soybeans and steel. It doesn't work when the stakes are the global energy supply and becoming the harbinger of WWIII.

What the market is pricing in

Wall Street knows how to trade uncertainty. There are instruments for hedging it, and traders have been using them since the first week of the war. It's becoming clear that the traders are now acknowledging that Trump is a liar and nothing he says can truly be trusted. When even the president's own allies treat his announcements about negotiations as opportunities for front-running rather than as reflections of diplomatic reality, there's no longer any way for the markets to deny it. The presidential deference is gone.

Zeidon Alkinani of the Arab Perspectives Institute told Al Jazeera what the markets are now confirming: "Early days showed clearer targets and limited objectives, but now there's more chaotic reaction." Paolo von Schirach of the Global Policy Institute questioned whether the US could force Iranian submission without "half a million soldiers" and noted that Trump changes his mind "very quickly." The IEA's Fatih Birol warned the situation is "worse than the two energy crises of the 1970s and the fallout of the Ukraine war put together." The Philippines has declared a national energy emergency. Sri Lanka has turned off its streetlights. Pakistan is about to run dry.

And the man responsible for all of it watched a two-minute video of stuff blowing up this morning.

— dingo__dog