The War Is Going 'Swimmingly' and He Scheduled a Phone Call Nobody Agreed To

Swimmingly.

That is the word the President of the United States used to describe a war he started, that he is still fighting, that his own House of Representatives tried to stop yesterday and failed by one vote. Two hundred and thirteen to two hundred and fourteen. One vote. That’s how close the U.S. Congress came to telling him he cannot keep doing this without asking them first.

He said the war is going swimmingly.

Now I had to look this word up because nobody in this town has said “swimmingly” since about 1962. Means things are going real well. Like, real real well. Like a cartoon duck on a cartoon pond. That’s the word he picked for a war that has closed the Strait of Hormuz, put gas prices up, got Italy mad at us, got the UK to step back, and is on day forty-eight.

Forty-eight days. Swimmingly.

But that’s not even the main event. The main event is this. He announced, on camera, that the Prime Minister of Israel and the President of Lebanon were going to have a phone call on Thursday. First call in thirty-four years between those two countries. Historic. Peace. Big deal. He said it, reporters wrote it down, the news ran it.

Then the Lebanese government said, and I am not making this up, a senior Lebanese official told reporters that no call between Aoun and Netanyahu is likely. Not happening. The Lebanese President is not getting on the phone.

So the President of the United States announced a phone call between two world leaders, and one of the two leaders said, with all due respect, I did not agree to that.

This is like me telling you the cook is making you an omelet and then the cook comes out and says he’s not making anybody an omelet. Except instead of an omelet it’s a ceasefire in the Middle East and instead of the cook it’s an entire sovereign nation.

The man just announces things. He announces them and then whether they happen or not is somebody else’s problem. The blockade. The tariffs. The twenty-year nuclear suspension. The phone call. He says it, it’s on television, and then the rest of the world scrambles around figuring out what’s true and what isn’t.

In Las Vegas today, he did a roundtable about not taxing tips. That’s the domestic agenda. In between starting a war and scheduling phone calls other countries didn’t agree to, he’s out there talking about tips. I take tips, sugar, and I would like to not pay tax on them. But I would also like the man who cuts my taxes to not be blockading the oil lane.

You pick one.

More coffee? It’s still a dollar. For now. I told you yesterday.