Conservative says no 'bankruptcy option' for Trump this time

President Donald Trump built a reputation for filing multiple bankruptcies to get himself out of his expensive career scrapes, but there’s no bankruptcy option for Trump in Iran, said Dispatch columnist Nick Catoggio — and this must be driving him nuts.

“… [Y]ou might have reasonably assumed back in February that there was no scenario in which the United States would end up fighting on in Iran aimlessly. Either the regime would quickly be brought to its knees or Trump, finding himself stymied, would bug out. He’d take the bankruptcy option and leave others to clean up the mess, as he threatened to do when the agony in the Strait of Hormuz first began to confound him,” said Catoggio.

If it were 2028 instead of 2026, Catoggio said Trump still would have walked away from the war even with the strait closed.

“With his presidency winding down, the prospect of Republicans being annihilated at the polls due to the knock-on effects of soaring oil prices wouldn’t have bothered him,” said Catoggio. “As long as he faced no consequences personally from having Iran in control of Hormuz, Trump would be content to leave someone else — his party and its new presidential nominee — holding the bag. That’s the whole point of declaring bankruptcy, no?”

“But it’s 2026,” he added. “He will face personal consequences if the strait doesn’t open, starting with having to spend his last two years in office fending off corruption investigations by a new Democratic-controlled Congress. Whatever’s left of his economic legacy after 18 months of tariffs and inflation will also crumble: Unlike in 2028, when he could have pawned off a Hormuz-driven recession on his successor, that misery will land in his own lap. And he knows it.”

It already has to some extent, Catoggio reasons. Polls show Americans know good and well that Trump’s war is the reason gas is over the rainbow, which is in line with new data from Fox News that finds Trump’s approval on Iran down to 37-63 among members of his own party who don’t identify as MAGA.

“All of this is to say that the president would happily choose the bankruptcy option, I’m sure, if only the Iranians would offer it to him,” said Catoggio. “By signing last month’s humiliating peace agreement, he showed that he’s willing to accept the public embarrassment of admitting that a project he championed has failed, as bankruptcy requires. But bankruptcy is supposed to release him from the financial obligations created by that project, which in this case would mean oil commerce returning to prewar levels in the strait before November’s midterms. And the Iranians simply refuse to do that.

With no bankruptcy option available, all the bankruptcy king can do now is continue to plow money into the project and hope for the best. If his choice is between being ruined economically while looking weak and being ruined economically while looking somewhat tougher, why not keep bombing?

And because of this, Catoggio said America is now in a crisis in which our only options are a gigantic ground invasion, giving Iran a stranglehold on the global oil supply for eternity, or continued bombing to no obvious effect.

“Federal leadership has been completely bankrupted by hubris, stupidity, cowardice, and partisanship,” said Catoggio, referring also to Republicans who followed Trump into this colossal snarl. “Americans elected that bankruptcy, and this time they won’t be let off the hook.”