Trump the master salesman will soon have nothing left to sell

President finds himself backed into a corner over Iran-Israel conundrum, his base hopelessly divided as we head into the 2026 election season

President Trump has painted himself into a corner that leaves him with only two options: lose or lose.

As a larger-than-life political figure who lives for the opportunity to brag about “wins”, he should have seen this coming. Being boxed into a no-win situation like Trump now finds himself in is a product of one highly overlooked truth. The man ran for a second term under false pretenses. He sold us a bill of goods that were not valid.

He ran as the “peace president.” He ran as the anti-globalist and anti-neocon who would take on the establishment – those entrenched Washington and Wall Street-based insiders who profit off of endless foreign wars, coups, revolutions and rebuilding efforts – while the rest of us get handed the bill in the form of America’s $40 trillion debt. This billionaire-funded club of pro-war politicians is made up equally of Democrats and Republicans, but the voting public gets thrown off by clever marketing campaigns and slanted news reports meant to keep hope alive in the system. If we can just “throw the bums” of one party out, the other party will somehow right the ship.

It’s one thing to run openly on an Israel-first foreign policy. If that’s the case, then claim it. Own it. Be up front about it. But they know such a platform would be roundly rejected by the vast majority of American voters so they keep it hidden.

Instead, Trump dishonestly promised he would be different. He said he would end this financially rigged system and return our country to its taxpaying citizens by putting America’s interests above those of any foreign country.

Trump, since retaking office for a second term, has shown us that he was never serious about “America first.” If so, he would not even entertain ideas of making war against Iran. I can’t think of one benefit to America by invading Iran, but I can think of many detriments, things that will make us weaker, poorer, and less respected in the world.

Trump’s statements about putting America first were bogus, designed to win votes from a war-weary American public. He had no intention of actually affecting real policy changes. His policy manual would be written by his biggest donors, and they are all Israel firsters.

Just look at who funded his campaign and who he chose to serve in his inner circle once he took office.

People like the billionaire casino heiress Miriam Adelson, who Trump himself said could not make up her mind whether she was more loyal to America or Israel, while hinting that he suspected it was Israel.

People like New York billionaire hedge-fund managers Bill Ackman, Paul Singer and John Paulson.

People on the political level like Lindsey Graham, and on the corporate-business level like Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, Howard Lutnick, Marc Andreesen, and Peter Thiel. All of these men have extensive political and/or business interests in Israel.

These are the donors and advisors Trump is beholden to, the people who own him and who inform him.

He either risks disappointing those of us who make up the America-first anti-war wing of his party, or he risks disappointing the powerful foreign interests who make up the neocon wing. Which do you think he will choose?

Trump told us on July 16, 2025, what he thinks of us. He said he doesn’t need or want our support, that we are “stupid” and “weaklings” because we wanted the Epstein files released and pedophiles brought to justice. He said we were “foolish” to fall for what he called a “Democrat hoax.” Remember that? I think he made his decision back then who he would bow to if push came to shove, and it wasn’t us.

It will be the same with his soon-to-be-started war with Iran. His donors and top advisers want it, and he will deliver Iran to them on a silver platter.

But it will come with a cost.

Because he ran under the false pretense of “America first,” he now has to face the music with the voters when they are asked to go back to the polls and support his list of preferred candidates in the upcoming November election. He will be forced to dance to a bitter song, because he has no good choices set before him on the situation with Iran and whether he should start a war with that country. Even his own chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Daniel Caine, is reportedly urging him not to attack Iran or to make it a “limited strike” if he does. That’s because Caine knows what Trump should know, that Iran, unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, actually has a real military force ready and willing to defend the country. Either way, Trump and his MAGA movement come up losers.

Trump, in a lengthy post to his Truth Social account on Monday, stated that the story about General Caine was fake news, that “nobody wants war but…” Caine is ready to fight it if given the order by his commander-in-chief.

Trump’s statement that “nobody wants war” is a blatant lie. Those in the neocon wing of the Republican Party absolutely want a war with Iran. They’ve made no attempt to hide how much they want it. And they will be beside themselves with anger if Trump doesn’t launch this war and take it to its bitter end, which for them is regime change, not a negotiated settlement of any kind.

As long as the government is overthrown, these rabid neocons haven’t given a second thought to what comes next. What is the exit strategy? What happens, for instance, if the government falls within a few days or weeks, but Iran devolves into chaos and civil war for years to come? What happens when the refugees begin to pour out of Iran and into Europe and America? These are questions they don’t like to address because they have no good answers.

Trump can decide to invade Iran and lose the half of his base that voted for him largely for his promise of “no more endless wars.” Or, he can decide to pull back the massive armada he has assembled within striking distance of Iran and call off the invasion, opting instead to rely on diplomacy to settle whatever score still needs to be settled with that country. If he chooses the latter, he will infuriate the donor class along with the portion of his voting base that count themselves as ardent Zionists, whether Jewish or Christian.

Peter Thiel is another big Trump backer whose interests are tied to Israel. Thiel co-founded Palantir Technologies, which creates the digital-surveillance kill chain for the IDF’s war in Gaza and has multiple government contracts with the military-industrial-intelligence complex that runs through Washington and Tel Aviv.

Either way Trump decides, the political movement Trump founded known as MAGA is utterly dead. It’s finished. As a result of that movement being hopelessly splintered over the Israel-Iran issue, the Republicans will get slaughtered in the midterm elections this November. The Democrats will win sizeable majorities in both houses of Congress. That’s a given, because people who thought he was going to be the peace president got the war president instead and they are not going to the polls to vote for a bunch of Trump-supported neocons.

It’s mostly the same people in Washington, by the way, who are itching for war with Iran that have been advocating for continuing the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. The latest, on that front, is that Britain and France are actually talking about giving nuclear weapons to Ukraine to use against Russia. Pure insanity.

In short, the neocons were able to hide in 2024. Large numbers of low-information voters didn’t know who they were or what they stood for, so they voted for them en masse. But in 2026, they have been outed. Their masks are off. They are for getting the U.S. involved in any war that the Israeli government says it needs to fight.

Having allies is one thing, and there’s nothing wrong with Israel as an ally in the Middle East. But when the interests of the ally supercede those of America, we’ve got a problem. This is not the action of your typical ally. They own our politicians and they’re calling in all favors over Iran.

Polls show anywhere from 70 to 80 percent of Americans do not want to go to war with Iran. Why would they? Iran has not attacked us. But because our foreign policy is shaped by an Israel-first mentality, and that should have been obvious when Trump took millions from the likes of Miriam Adelson and then named arch-neocons like Marco Rubio as his secretary of state and John Radcliffe as his CIA director, Trump will not and cannot back down from the many threats he’s made against Iran. He has to attack and I believe he will attack. Otherwise, he will be seen as weak and no one will ever listen to another word when he starts his signature saber rattling and gunboat diplomacy.

Interestingly, the globalists, who I believe will win in this grand theatrical production, seem to be hedging their bets by positioning JD Vance as their plan B.

Vance is being positioned as the adult in the room who is advising the president against war with Iran.

This makes sense from the globalist neocon perspective to court Vance and insulate him from the blowback should Trump decide to launch the war and it ends up going badly, dragging on for months or years and resulting in thousands of American deaths.

Even though Vance is every bit the globalist neocon as Trump, the globalists can throw their 2028 money behind Vance, who will then be able to tell voters that he urged the president not to invade Iran because he knew it would be a disaster. Then, once in office, Vance will continue the exact same policy of Trump, putting Israel first in every foreign policy decision.

The moral of this story is that Trump may have been dealt a lousy hand in this manufactured crisis regarding Iran. But he has no one to blame but himself.

If he had told the truth in 2024 and explained exactly what he meant by “America first”, maybe he wouldn’t be boxed into a place where he has only lose-lose options.

The master of spin has run out of spin. He will have nothing left to claim as a “win” if he attacks Iran and we are still at war with Iran come August and September.

But if he opts to back off from his numerous and haughty threats and not pull the trigger on the Iranian regime-change operation, then he gets mocked as a paper tiger who has lost his mojo.

Both of those options spell disaster for November 2026.