Trump's Psychotic Easter Sunday: Threats, War Crimes, and Media Cowardice — 4/5/26

The president spent the holiest day of the year cursing at Iran, calling reporters from a golf course, and threatening to blow up an entire country

Hi all, Ben here. Happy Easter Sunday. It’s already been an interesting day, to say the least. While most people are with their families, the president of the United States is at his golf course in Virginia throwing a psychotic tantrum in real time, on social media, for the entire world to see.

Here are the top stories we’re following today:

• Trump posts a psychotic, profanity-laden Easter Sunday threat against Iran on Truth Social, and the corporate media promptly sanitizes it. The New York Times deletes Trump’s “open the fuckin’ strait” line from their coverage, then quietly adds it back after backlash

• Trump’s “48-hour deadline” for Iran keeps shifting, with the latest post suggesting a new Tuesday 8:00 PM ET deadline

• Trump calls reporters from his Virginia golf course all day, telling multiple outlets he’s ready to “blow up the whole country” with “very little” off the table

• Navy SEAL Team 6 extracts downed F-15E pilot from Iran in a massive operation, but two $100M MC-130J aircraft, a helicopter, and multiple drones were destroyed in the process

• Iran dismisses Trump’s threats as “delusional,” says Strait of Hormuz stays closed until war damages are compensated

• Iranian missile strikes hit a residential building in Haifa; Iran also strikes Israel’s main chemical hub near Beersheba

• A Bahraini interceptor missile misses its target and strikes the BAPCO oil storage facility it was meant to protect

• Israel carries out its fifth airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, hitting near Rafiq al-Hariri Hospital with reports of civilian injuries

• Trump calls NATO a “paper tiger” and claims his invitation to join the Iran conflict was just a test all along

Let’s get into it.

I want to start here, and I’m not going to sanitize this for you the way the corporate media has. This is the actual message Donald Trump posted on Easter Sunday morning. Read every word:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

That is real. That is not satire. That is not a parody account. That is the sitting president of the United States, on Easter morning, telling a sovereign nation to open the Strait of Hormuz or he will blow up their power plants and bridges, peppering it with religious invocations and profanity. This follows his post from the day before, which read:

“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

So Saturday it’s “Glory be to GOD,” Sunday it’s “Praise be to Allah.” He’s threatening to bomb a country and signing off with the religious greetings of both faiths. This is psychotic behavior. Full stop.

Now let me tell you what bothers me almost as much as Trump’s behavior, and that’s how the mainstream media keeps covering for him. The Associated Press described Trump’s post this way: “Trump promises strikes on Iran’s power plants and bridges on Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz isn’t reopened.” Our editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski replied simply: “You left out a few things from that post.” You think?

The New York Times was even worse. David Sanger went on CNN and described Trump’s unhinged, profane, impeachable Easter morning threat as, wait for it, “unusually vivid.” Unusually vivid! The man told a nation of 90 million people to “open the fuckin’ strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell” and David Sanger of the New York Times gave it a literary critique. “Unusually vivid.” I’d call it something else. Deranged. Dangerous. Disqualifying. Take your pick.

And it got worse. The New York Times, in their initial write-up, actually deleted the “open the fuckin’ strait” line entirely from their quotation of his post, making it sound like a relatively normal (if alarming) threat about power plants. They got called out. After backlash, they went back and added the full quote. The paper of record laundering Donald Trump’s instability into something palatable for their readers, and then only fixing it when the internet got loud enough. This is what sane-washing looks like. Stop doing it. That’s why people are flocking to platforms like MeidasTouch is droves. By the way, consider joining as a subscriber now if you haven’t yet.

After posting his Easter morning screeds, Trump headed to his golf club in Potomac Falls, Virginia. He has been calling reporters and fielding calls from them all day. On the holiest day of the Christian calendar, the man MAGA pastors claim was literally sent by God skipped church entirely. No services, no chapel, no nothing.

He spoke with Axios and told them the U.S. is in “deep negotiations” with Iran, warning that if a deal doesn’t happen, “I am blowing up everything over there.” He explained his logic for attacking a bridge by saying the Iranians wanted to meet in five days and he didn’t like that: “So I said, ‘Why five days?’ I felt they were not being serious. So I attacked the bridge.”

He spoke with Fox’s Trey Yingst and said he thinks he’ll get a deal by Monday. He also said: “If Iran doesn’t make a deal fast, I am considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil.”

He spoke with ABC’s Rachel Scott, who reported that Trump told her the conflict should be over “in days, not weeks,” and warned that if no deal is reached, “we’re blowing up the whole country.” She asked if anything is off limits. “Very little,” he said.

He also mused about NATO, calling it a “paper tiger” and claiming he tested the alliance by inviting them into the Iran conflict: “I was doing that as a test. I didn’t need that, right? They have no ships. They have no nothing, and Putin has zero fear of them.”

Here’s the thing about all these deadlines. They’re fake. Trump set a ten-day deadline. Then a 48-hour deadline. The 48-hour deadline expired Monday morning at 10:05 AM ET, which happens to be 35 minutes after the US stock market reopens following the three-day Easter weekend. Just a coincidence, I’m sure. Then, just as we were about to publish, Trump posted yet again: “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” This appears to push the whole deadline back again.

Iran, meanwhile, is not playing along. Iranian officials told state media that Trump is in “despair and anger” and is repeating “delusional claims.” They’ve made their position clear: the Strait of Hormuz stays closed until war damages are compensated under a new transit-fee framework. Their terms have been consistent and more extensive than prior to the war: no nuclear program concessions, no surrendering of ballistic missiles or drones, security guarantees for Iran and its regional allies, full reparations for the war, and a US military withdrawal from Middle East bases.

Last night the US carried out what a massive operation involving hundreds of special operations troops — Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos — to extract a downed F-15E pilot from Iran. The operation successfully recovered the pilot, which is genuinely good news.

But here’s what else happened: two MC-130J aircraft were intentionally destroyed on the ground. These are $100 million specialized covert infiltration aircraft. At least one MH-6 Little Bird helicopter was also destroyed and left behind. The forward base was set up just outside Isfahan, one of Iran’s most strategically significant cities, home to missile bases, nuclear facilities, and Iran’s F-14 fleet. Add it all up across recent operations and you’re looking at somewhere between six and ten major aircraft destroyed.

Iran’s parliament speaker Ghalibaf posted a photo of the destroyed aircraft with the caption: “If the United States gets three more victories like this, it will be utterly ruined.” He’s mocking us.

There are serious questions about what was really happening at that base near Isfahan. Was this purely a rescue mission? The scale of it, hundreds of special forces, multiple massive aircraft, a forward operating base inside enemy territory, raises questions nobody in the Trump administration is answering.

On CNN, former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien shrugged at Trump’s Easter post and said this is just “the first war fought in this age of social media with this president.” He does things differently! MAGA propagandist Scott Jennings jumped in to mock Iran.

House Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford told people not to “toy” with Trump, saying he has “backbone” and isn’t “above surprising people.” Rep. Mike Turner went on ABC and could barely speak straight when George Stephanopoulos asked the straightforward question of whether ground troops would be needed to open the Strait of Hormuz.

Senator Tim Kaine had a more grounded take: “I hope the White House — I doubt the president will — but please dial back the rhetoric. It’s juvenile.”

We’ll keep following every development. Spread the word, like this post, and re-stack. Thanks for subscribing!