Trump’s 'TACO' strategy backfires as Iran war enters dangerous new phase: analysis

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 26, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

U.S. President Donald Trump's war against Iran continued to escalate on Friday, April 3, when an American fighter jet was shot down by Iranian forces and an intense rescue operation for the pilots was launched. The Washington Post described the operation as a "high-stakes mission" and a "dramatic and politically perilous moment in the war."

In a "Fast Politics" video posted on YouTube on Sunday night, April 5, Never Trump conservative Rick Wilson and liberal journalist Molly Jong-Fast stressed that the attack on the fighter jet shows that the "TACO" approach to the war isn't working for Trump.

On Wall Street, the TACO meme (Trump Always Chickens Out) describes a pattern in which Trump makes belligerent threats but doesn't follow through.

Jong-Fast told Wilson, "When you start shooting down planes, that's when you have ground troops."

Jong-Fast got no argument from Wilson. The former GOP strategist told her, "The inevitable has now happened. And the Iranians have now shot down an American F-15-E Strike Eagle. Two crew members on the plane. Very effective, very good strike bomber aircraft. But they shot it down a relatively cheap heat-seeking missile from the ground."

The United States, Wilson added, has "now entered a phase of the war where it's not all one-sided."

Wilson told Jong-Fast, "They've put a lot of search and rescue operations into Iran now…. This will accelerate. These things always do…. It just escalates. And the problem is right now, we see a line of C-17 cargo planes flying from the U.S. into the Middle East. We're ratcheting up and up and up. The fake semi-TACO speech on Thursday night did not make the markets feel better."

Jong-Fast interjected, "In fact, it made the markets feel worse."

Wilson commented, "Have we reached the point where the TACO trick only works if he actually TACOs, you know? And he hasn't. He's still going all in on this war."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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