{"id":22541,"date":"2026-05-12T04:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T04:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-u-n-ambassador-says-iran-ceasefire-is-whatever-trump-says-it-is\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T04:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T04:22:13","slug":"trumps-u-n-ambassador-says-iran-ceasefire-is-whatever-trump-says-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-u-n-ambassador-says-iran-ceasefire-is-whatever-trump-says-it-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s U.N. ambassador says Iran \u2018ceasefire\u2019 is whatever Trump says it is"},"content":{"rendered":"<section>\n<div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-05-11T16:52:44-04:00\">May. 11, 2026, 4:52 PM EDT<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Wars should not be vibes-based affairs.&nbsp;If they are to be fought at all, they should proceed based on demonstrable facts and not feelings or, say, the delusions of a mercurial madman. So, as President Donald Trump&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/liveblog\/iran-war-trump-israel-news-3-11\">deadly<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/news\/iran-war-gas-prices-trump-economy-blockade-hormuz\">economically devastating<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/americans-disapproval-iran-war-poll-hegseth\">deeply unpopular<\/a> war with Iran rages on with no end in sight, it&rsquo;s noteworthy and more than a little unnerving that his personal feelings (or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thedailyshow\/videos\/trump-cant-distort-reality-on-iran\/1579086873164476\/\">delusions<\/a>as <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/campaign\/5868360-iran-war-prices-trump\/\">some have called them<\/a>) continue to shape the political reality of the conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Trump&rsquo;s characterization of the so-called ceasefire with Iran is a prime example. Despite his suggestion Monday that it is &ldquo;on life support,&rdquo;&nbsp;it doesn&rsquo;t seem to exist in the first place except in the president&rsquo;s mind. Start with the fact that Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/trump-says-he-doesnt-want-to-call-iran-conflict-a-war-because-of-need-for-congressional-approval\/\">has resisted calling the Iran war a &ldquo;war&rdquo;<\/a> for what appear to be procedural reasons. The United States and Iran <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/china\/trump-sees-swift-end-war-iran-reviews-us-peace-proposal-2026-05-07\/\">exchanged<\/a> fire on Thursday, which apparently didn&rsquo;t count. And similarly, Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xw681r8TPqw\">called U.S. strikes on Iran on Friday a &ldquo;love tap,&rdquo;<\/a> suggesting he&rsquo;s both hopelessly puerile for a man in his 80s and wary of the repercussions that may come with admitting the ceasefire has not ceased any of the firing.<\/p>\n<p>That state of play came under discussion Sunday when ABC News&rsquo; Martha Raddatz confronted U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz on Trump&rsquo;s ceasefire, asking how that aligns with the fact that the U.S. and Iran have been firing on each other.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;How is exchanging live fire with Iran not a violation of a ceasefire?&rdquo; she asked. Waltz answered, &ldquo;Look, that&rsquo;s up to President Trump as commander-in-chief to determine what constitutes a violation.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Amb. Waltz: Trump &lsquo;giving diplomacy every chance &hellip; before going back to hostilities&rsquo;\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5GOQ86lusDE?start=278&amp;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>I&rsquo;m pretty sure that&rsquo;s not how ceasefires work.<\/p>\n<p>Former Adm. William McRaven literally laughed at Waltz&rsquo;s explanation in the following segment, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kUIvfFOOj0M\">saying &ldquo;of course&rdquo;<\/a> the exchange of fire means the ceasefire is effectively nonexistent.<\/p>\n<p>But when it comes to warfare, if the president says it, it&rsquo;s taken as gospel by Trump&rsquo;s administration and allies. My colleague Steve Benen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/white-house-continues-to-emphasize-trumps-feelings-on-u-s-policy-in-iran\">wrote in March<\/a> about how the White House has used Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;feelings&rdquo; as the justification for various military decisions, even when those feelings are at odds with reality. The extrajudicial missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/05\/us\/trump-venezuela-gang-ties-spy-memo.html\">in which Trump overruled his own intelligence agencies&rsquo; findings<\/a>are another example.<\/p>\n<p>The so-called ceasefire adds to that list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Ja&rsquo;han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut&nbsp;Blog.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/opinion\/trumps-u-n-ambassador-says-iran-ceasefire-is-whatever-trump-says-it-is\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>May. 11, 2026, 4:52 PM EDT Wars should not be vibes-based affairs.&nbsp;If they are to be fought at all, they should proceed based on demonstrable facts and not feelings or, say, the delusions of a mercurial madman. So, as President Donald Trump&rsquo;s deadlyeconomically devastating and deeply unpopular war with Iran rages on with no end [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}