U.S. President Donald Trump gestures after delivering an address to the nation about the Iran war at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. April 1, 2026. Alex Brandon/Pool via REUTERS
CNN anchor Pamela Brown noted President Donald Trump’s Wednesday night prime time address about his war with Iran failed to calm the markets. Instead, oil is now over $110 a barrel, with gas prices still rising.
Market investors appear to be reacting to deeds over words, however, and Trump is delivering nothing but words regarding both the war’s timeline and his claims of victory.
“We've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough,” Trump claimed at his Wednesday address.
“You know, you never like to say too early You won. We won,” Trump declared on March 11.
“Most people say it's already been won,” he repeasted at a different Match 11 interview.
“I don't think it's going to be long,” he said on March 13.
“It'll be wrapped up soon,” on March 16
“It won't be much longer. It's moving along fast,” on March 17
“Oh, I think we've won,” on March 20.
“I don't like to say this. We've won this. This war has been won,” on March 24.
“We had to take a little detour. It won't be long going to end soon,” on March 26, a;ong with an additional: “We've already won the war militarily. We've won the war,” at a different interview.
And finally, “We'll be leaving very soon,” on the 31st.
It is perhaps no surprise, that the market isn’t buying it any longer, said Brown — and neither are voters.
“The problem isn't that Trump and the administration haven't offered an explanation for why we're at war. It's that they've offered every conceivable explanation for why we're at war,” said Dispatch co-founder and editor Jonah Goldberg. “…it's sort of like that scene in the Blues Brothers where John Belushi says, ‘I had a flat tire, my car broke down, the dry cleaners were closed,’ and he just runs through a thousand different excuses for what he's doing until you realize he's just groping for all these things to do that after you've already committed the country to war does not move people.”
“I supported that guy. I was in the beginning,” said one CNN-interviewed voter in North Carolina. “I was all up for him. What he's saying is right. Maybe that was my mistake there.”