The President Spent Sunday Slowing Down the Iran Deal He Sped Up on Saturday.

There is a particular kind of conversation in West Texas where a man tells you something on Saturday, and then on Sunday tells you the opposite of that something, and expects you to nod at both. He is not lying, in his mind. He is adjusting. The Sunday version is the one that counts now. The Saturday version was a draft.

On Saturday morning the President posted on Truth Social that an Iran agreement had been “largely negotiated, subject to finalization.” He posted a list of friendly phone calls with seven Arab leaders. He posted a map of the Middle East with the American flag painted over the country of Iran. Yesterday’s paper called it a peace post.

On Sunday morning, on the same Truth Social account, the President posted this. I have informed my representatives not to rush into a deal. He said time was on our side. He said both sides must take their time and get it right. He said there can be no mistakes. He said the naval blockade would remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed.

Read those two posts back to back. Saturday: largely negotiated. Sunday: not rushing.

Time is on our side.

This is a curious sentence to write twenty-four hours after announcing a framework. If a thing is largely negotiated, the only rushing left to do is the printing of the document. Time has done its work. The rushing portion of the program is over.

If time is on our side, on the other hand, then nothing is largely negotiated. Time is on the side of the party that does not need a deal yet. That is the language of a man who has not, in fact, finished a deal. It is the language of a man buying himself room.

Both of these things cannot be true at the same time. We have a word for that down here, and the word is bullshit.

The blockade.

Look at the part about the blockade. In full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed. The thing you might have thought, on Saturday, looking at a flag laid over Iran, was that the deal was the deal and the blockade was the leverage and the leverage had served its purpose. The Sunday post resets the clock. The leverage is still leverage. The deal is still a draft.

What changed.

Nothing changed. That is the whole content of the Sunday post. The Saturday post was a feeling. The Sunday post is the bill.

The map is still up.