On Friday, in an attempt to address rumors that the United States is running out of missiles due to the war with Iran, President Donald Trump accidentally revealed an effort to remedy the situation that is decidedly not consistent with the "America First" ethos.
"The U.S. has massive amounts of 'munitions,' especially of certain types,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed. Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history. The 'leakers' of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long term jail sentences will be sought!"
In other words, the same president who has fervently asserted that anything and everything should be manufactured in the U.S. — who went so far as to level tariffs against most of the world in a supposed effort to force companies to reshore factories — is importing weapons manufactured abroad in order to fix the problem he himself created in the first place. This admission comes as new data from the Labor Department shows that 23,000 jobs were lost in July, while its May and June reports were revised down by over 100,000 jobs. Over the course of Trump’s second term, it’s estimated that the manufacturing sector alone has lost 100,000 jobs despite his claims that tariffs would result in a boom of factory employment.
Commentators noted other problems with the president’s post about munitions. As Jim Geraghty, senior political correspondent for the conservative magazine the National Review, reasoned, “Now, if the report that munitions are dangerously low is false . . . that’s not really a leak of classified information, is it? It’s not leaking; it’s lying. And if leaking that information is treasonous, as the president contends, then the underlying facts about depleted stockpiles would have to be accurate, wouldn’t they?”
Geraghty expanded on these thoughts in an article, writing, “We have an administration that lies. It lies habitually, and it lies reflexively. It refuses to level with the American people about the problems that it faces because it wants everyone to believe that everything is going fine and we’re in a ‘Golden Age.’ Since the start of the war, the president, his cabinet, and other officials have insisted that the U.S. stockpiles of air-defense missiles and other critical munitions had never been higher or better and were virtually unlimited. Every time a report came out contending the opposite — often with fairly specific ranges of remaining munitions — the administration insisted it was a damnable lie.”