If you look closely, behind the f-bomb and fury, you can see what Trump really wants

Washington: Donald Trump’s spinners like to say he is the most transparent president in US history. It depends on what you mean by transparent – he is certainly accessible, and talks non-stop. In the past 24 hours, he has posted or reposted on his Truth Social website more than 60 times.

It’s often assumed there’s little veneer about Trump: what you see is what you get. It’s why so many voters like him, even some who hate his policies. Unlike most politicians regurgitating talking points or trying hard to say nothing at all, he presents as the genuine article.

US President Donald Trump arrives for dinner ahead of the NATO summit in The Hague on Tuesday.Credit: AP

But on Tuesday we got a glimpse of another level of realness. Worked up and probably sleep-deprived – he said he’d been up all night watching cable news – Trump lashed out at Israel and Iran for violating the ceasefire he declared 12 or so hours earlier.

“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f--- they’re doing,” he said. “Do you understand that?”

It’s not that Trump is a churchy type who never swears. He would regularly tell campaign rallies something was “bullshit”, and in a closed-door meeting with Republicans last month about the budget, he instructed them: “Don’t f--- with Medicaid.”

But it was different to direct such a tirade in public at a special US ally, Israel, which he claims to support more than any of his predecessors – no mean feat.

Trump’s rage extended to the cable news networks CNN and MSNBC, which he accused of questioning or playing down the success of his bombing campaign on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The reality is that we don’t know the extent of the damage. CNN and The New York Times now report that a preliminary Defence assessment indicates Iran’s nuclear ambitions have only been set back months. Trump wants us to take his word for it that they’ve been “completely and totally obliterated”.

The president is always angry when he feels he is judged harshly compared with others, or is denied the credit he deserves for an achievement. But this was a new level of fury.

In Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported Trump raised his voice at Benjamin Netanyahu on a phone call, and told the Israeli prime minister in no uncertain terms: “Stop the attack.”

“Trump viewed this as a personal achievement, and made it clear that no one – absolutely no one – would undermine it,” according to the Post’s source.

Things calmed down on board Air Force One, after Israel apparently turned back warplanes at Trump’s behest and Netanyahu reined in a planned attack. Suddenly, the ceasefire was back on, and Trump declared again that he had ended the war and everyone was happy.

Underlying all this is a key motivation: Trump badly wants to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since returning to the presidency, he has made it a recurring theme: All these wars and conflicts – Ukraine, the Middle East, India and Pakistan – aren’t his fault, but he will try to solve them because he wants world peace.

Indeed, it was only a few days ago that he lamented on social media: “I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”

But Trump knows this is probably his best chance at the prize that has eluded him. If the shaky ceasefire holds, and if a weakened Iran with depleted stockpiles of uranium is forced into a diplomatic solution that curtails its nuclear ambitions, he has a pretty good case for it, too.

So of course he was rattled when it looked like his ceasefire was going up in smoke. And of course, he is furious that journalists are doing their jobs and trying to get to the truth about the state of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

They’re ruining his application.

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