Name: In a War of Words, Trump Always Defeats Himself
Uploaded: 2026-03-10T22:16:00Z
Duration: 5 min 41 s
Description: An Editor at Large: Columnist Gerard Baker explains how the public started out opposing the conflict in Iran, in part because of the Trump administration's lack of rhetorical prowess, and how that will be a problem if things go south.

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An Editor at Large: Columnist Gerard Baker explains how the public started out opposing the conflict in Iran, in part because of the Trump administration's lack of rhetorical prowess, and how that will be a problem if things go south. Photo: Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images/AFP/U.S. Navy

https://m.wsj.net/video/20260310/1f01c401-3a49-4cc1-b51b-df32f358e434/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

An Editor at Large: Columnist Gerard Baker explains how the public started out opposing the conflict in Iran, in part because of the Trump administration's lack of rhetorical prowess, and how that will be a problem if things go south.

In a War of Words, Trump Always Defeats Himself

Our distinguished guests here today-

Gerard: It was said of Winston Churchill that he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

If we are conquered, all will be enslaved, and the United States will be left single-handed to guard the rights of men.

Donald Trump's trick with the mother tongue seems to be to douse it in gasoline, set light to it, and then drop it in a dumpster in the middle of his own parade ground.

Nobody's seen anything like it.

Whatever you think of the wisdom or efficacy of the president's policies, their effectiveness is almost always vitiated by an inability to articulate and communicate goals in a way that helps to make them achievable. The US war on Iran is a near-perfect microcosm of this style of presidential mismanagement.

The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war.

Words matter. They don't merely persuade and inspire, they give meaning to abstract ideas and values. They are the unction by which mere deeds become noble.

It may well be be that the final extinction of a baleful domination would've paved the way to a broader solidarity.

Gerard: A little more than a week into the war, the appropriateness of the policy and the boldness of its execution are clear. And contrary to the caviling critics at home and abroad, it's a just war.

As I've said many times, the nuclear deal was never intended to resolve all of our differences with Iran.

Successive presidents have quibbled and vacillated as a vicious regime has waged war on us for almost half a century. Given an opportunity to inflict massive damage on that enemy, Donald Trump has seized it. But good statecraft consists not only of bold decision-making and efficient execution, it also requires an ability to explain and convince at home and overseas. The administration is losing that war.

Operation Epic Fury, one of the largest, most complex, most overwhelming military offensives the world has ever seen.

First, there was the lack of a coherent argument for the conflict right from the start, and it comes as no surprise that for the first time at the start of any recent war, large numbers of Americans are against it. Republicans then compounded the problem by voting against the War Powers Resolution that would've at least provided a full accounting of the reasons for going to war.

The motion to discharge is not approved.

Gerard: Beforehand were the conflicting justifications for Epic Fury, which floated between regime change and imminent nuclear threat. And that whole strange cul-de-sac of whether we were merely doing Israel's bidding.

Brian: Israel is the reason for this war. America does not wanna fight this war-

Stand up, stand up.

For Israel.

Let's go. Come on. Let's go.

One man was even dragged out of a Senate Armed Services hearing after interrupting the proceedings to make his point.

The war for Israel. Your inability to name that soldier that witnessed-

We asked for calm in these hearings.

We can add to that the cringe-making puerility of some of the wartime oratory, especially from our PT instructor in chief, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Death and destruction from the sky all day long.

Effective diplomacy is about good communication too. But here again, the president's style is to inflict lasting, needless harm. Spain, we are told, is terrible.

So we're gonna cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain.

The UK is no longer a special friend. This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with.

Now, to be sure, Europeans have, not for the first time, failed to show up for this fight. But the president, of course, forgets that these are the same people whose costly contribution to the Afghan war he derided in January.

You know they'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that, and they did. They stayed a little back, little off the front lines.

Verbal assaults on allies matter, because we are unnecessarily harming relationships we may rely on one day. Yet it is typical of the Trump governing style. We've seen it elsewhere. Immigration, most obviously. The sound policy undermined by curious insistence on conveying it to the public in a way that makes enemies for no obvious reason.

We had a meeting, and I say, "Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few?

Taking this cavalier approach to the way we speak matters most in war. The failure to articulate a persuasive and inspiring case not only weaken support at home, our diplomatic efforts overseas, and even our war-fighting capabilities. The unseemly representation of necessary lethal war, for example, as some kind of video game, corrupts our national culture.

If we had not marched together to the fire-

We can't be expected to raise our eyes to the shining beacon of noble ideals if we can't see through the acrid smoke of our leaders intemperant, incoherent, and infantilizing verbiage.

WSJ Opinion: In a War of Words, Trump Always Defeats Himself

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