Democrats and scattered Republicans are criticizing President Trump’s blistering and obscene threats to Iran. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, said in a statement that the president was “ranting like an unhinged madman.” Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and former Trump ally, wrote on X that the president’s approach was “insane.” And Representative Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, said in a text message that “Americans don’t want their President to be profane and vulgar.” He added, “Part of leadership is self-control.”
After celebrating the remarkable rescue of an injured American weapons officer from his mountain hide-out in Iran, President Trump might have taken the hair-raising episode as a warning about the risks of expanding the war, especially as he considers possible ground operations inside Iranian territory.
After all, had Iranian forces found the officer, an Air Force colonel, before the C.I.A. and American special operators located and extracted him, the president could have easily found himself in the kind of hostage situation that, he often notes, ended Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
