President Donald Trump has “caved and run out of cards” in the war against Iran, according to an official who served under him during his first term.
“Officially, if you are in Tehran right now and you are part of the new government that has supplanted the people who were there before, you are reading this message right now and thinking you are in control of these negotiations,” explained Miles Taylor, who served as Homeland Security deputy chief of staff and senior advisor to former chief of staff John Kelly, in a podcast appearance with former CNN anchor Jim Acosta. “You are seeing what Donald Trump said and realizing the President of the United States has caved — that he has run out of cards and that he is terrified to do what he just said hours ago he was going to do, which was that he was so eager to begin bombing. He said if the deadline passes, he's going to resume bombing and that the military would.”
Noting that Iran did not do anything which could reasonably be construed as having prompted the ceasefire, Taylor added that “moments before this was posted, the reports were the same — the Iranians weren't sure they were going to go to negotiations.” Yet Trump ultimately did not bomb Iran because he knows “if another bomb drops, I can promise you this: moments after that bomb drops, the markets take a nosedive and oil goes further back up. Donald Trump's fear is that he is scared watching the stock market charts, and he's scared to see them go back down after they stabilized with the announcement of this ceasefire. It is evident that Donald Trump does not want to move forward with those threats.”
Taylor emphasized that he does not wish to egg Trump on, but rather explain that his claim that playing the madman role against Iran will not work because he has demonstrated an unwillingness to follow through.
“Here we have him doing exactly what you said — chickening out, stepping back from that rhetoric,” Taylor told Acosta. “And worse, I think, Jim, placing an indefinite timeline on the situation means Donald Trump is going to be compelled on any given day to say today could be the day that I resume bombing, which gives no clear deadline for negotiations to complete. This is going to lead to a period of uncertainty in this conflict unlike the other periods of uncertainty that led us into it.”
Taylor and Acosta are not the only ones to describe Trump’s arbitrary Tuesday ceasefire as a “TACO Tuesday,” with the acronym “TACO” standing for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” Earlier on Tuesday on Bluesky the account Mueller, She Wrote (owner of Muller, She Wrote media) argued Trump’s ceasefire merely delayed "ethnic cleansing and war crimes again." Journalist Nick Turse joked "It's TACO Tuesday, again" and added "that's a good thing." An account identifying its owner as an Army veteran also posted "Yep, Taco Tuesday!" while on X the popular account Republicans Against Trump posted a single word: "TACO." Finally Democratic strategist Christopher Webb sarcastically posted on X that "Don't you dare call Trump TACO!"
Earlier this month, conservative commentator Bill Kristol of The Bulwark — who spent decades working in right-wing politics — argued Trump’s TACO approach means “for the United States of America, Trump’s war has been a defeat and a warning” because “the Iranian regime remains in place,” and “the mullahs and the IRGC remain in control of Iran.”
He added, “We know that the Iranian regime still has its enriched uranium” and “still has functional missile and drone capabilities,” with Russia and China likely to rearm Iran. Even worse, there is no guarantee that the Strait of Hormuz will ever be reopened without pricey fees.
