Letters from an American - The President’s Ultimatums

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

April 5, 2026In a rant on social media, Trump threatens Iran again,  Trump’s post threatens to commit war crimes, Post pushes back the deadline for extreme measures, possibly in an effort to affect the stock market, Trump claims talks are underway but Iran is not dealing with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner,  Kushner and Witkoff have deep financial ties to the Middle East, Saudi investments in the US are under review, Senators, journalists, former intelligence officers,, and predictions markets are expressing significant concerns about Trump’s cognitive state.Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

April 5th, 2026. At 803 this morning, Easter Sunday, President Donald J. Trump's social media account posted, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day, all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the fucking straight, you crazy b*** or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump. There are many things that could be going on with this ultimatum, which actually doesn't sound like Trump's usual style, in the same way the post of yesterday morning didn't. The post appears to be threatening to commit war crimes by attacking civilian infrastructure, and it appears to

suggest Trump is considering using tactical nuclear weapons. He emphasized the production of such weapons in his first administration. He seemed to encourage this interpretation in an interview with Rachel Scott of ABC News today. She said, Trump told me the conflict should be over in days, not weeks, but if no deal is made, he's blowing up the whole country with very little off the table. If it happens, it happens. And if it doesn't, we're blowing up the whole country, he said. I asked if there's anything off limits. Very little, he said. In 2023, a book by New York Times Washington correspondent Michael Schmidt, alleged that in 2017, when Trump was warning North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on social media that North Korea would be met with fire and fury and frankly

power, the likes of which this world has never seen before, behind closed doors, he was talking about launching a preemptive strike against North Korea and of using a nuclear weapon against the country and blaming someone else for the strike. Schmidt reports that Trump's White House chief of staff at the time, retired U.S. Marine Corps General John Kelly, brought military leaders to try to explain to Trump why that would be a bad idea, and finally got him to move away from the plan by telling him he could prove he was the greatest salesman in the world by finding a diplomatic solution to his fight with the North Korean leader. In his own book about that period, journalist Bob Woodward wrote,

the American people had little idea that July through September of 2017 had been so dangerous. But Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Woodward, we never knew whether it was real or whether it was a bluff. And that's another way to look at the post from Trump's social media account, that he is panicked, that he has not been able to bully other countries into fixing the mess he created by attacking Iran and precipitating the closure of the Strait of Hormor. and is now simply trying to bully Iran. In The Guardian last Monday, Sydney Blumenthal noted that Trump

has declared victory more than eight times, says he is won more than 10 times, and said Iranian forces have been obliterated or suffered obliteration more than six times. Blumenthal noted Trump is now threatening to obliterate Iran's power grid and has used the words decimate or decimation at least six times. Trump's crazy post does, after all, push back yet again the deadline for his threats to rain destruction on Iran, which he then extended again in another post at 1238 p.m. saying, Tuesday, 8 o'clock p.m. Eastern Time. This dynamic was not lost on Allison Gill of Mueller, she wrote, who noted,

it was March 23rd, then March 27th, then March 30th, then he gave that weird address on April 1st, new deadline April 4th, then April 6th at 7 a.m., then April 7th at 8 p.m., and now another address tomorrow at 1 p.m. The chaos is intentional. She also noted that his deadlines and his abandonment of them often seem tied to the rhythms of the stock market. In an interview with Barack Ravid of Axios today, shortly after this morning's post, Trump reiterated that, if they don't make a deal, I'm blowing up everything over there, but also said the U.S. is in deep negotiations with Iran and that he thinks a deal can be reached. Trump told Ravid that his envoy, Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner,

not Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are talking, with the Iranians. Sources told Ravid that mediators from Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey are facilitating the talks. But Iranian officials are refusing to deal with Whitkoff and Kushner after they apparently misunderstood earlier negotiations and instead told Trump the talks weren't going well before he launched strikes. Neither Whitkoff nor Kushner is a trained diplomat and both have deep financial ties to the Middle East. Notably, Saudi Arabia's crown prince Muhammad bin Salman, or MBS, who urged Trump to start the

Iran War, has invested at least $2 billion in Kushner's private equity firm. On March 13th, Rob Copeland and Maureen Farrell of the New York Times reported that Kushner is trying to raise $5 billion or more for his private equity firm from Middle East governments. At the same time, as he is supposed to be negotiating peace in the region. But Stephen Kalin, Elliot Brown, and Summer Saeed of the Wall Street Journal reported today that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has already cost the Saudis about $10 billion,

and the grand plans of MBS were already falling short of money. Some of those plans were U.S. investments. The reporters note that even before the war, the Saudi's sovereign wealth fund, the same one that invested in Kushner's private equity firm, had sold much of its U.S. stock portfolio. Last year, MBS promised to invest up to $1 trillion in the U.S. Those investments are now under review.

Regardless of the inspiration for Trump's Post, by itself, it tells a very clear story. The Federal Bureau of Investigations, former assistant director for counterintelligence, Frank Figuzy, posted, The American President has lost his mind. Journalist Stephen Beschloss wrote,

This is an actual post. This is not funny. This is beyond desperate. This is a deeply unwell man who doesn't belong anywhere near the levers of power. Every member of his cabinet and Congress is complicit in not demanding his removal now.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, posted, If I were in Trump's cabinet, I would spend Easter calling constitutional lawyers about the 25th Amendment. This is completely, utterly unhinged. He's already killed thousands. He's going to kill thousands more. The 25th Amendment establishes a process through which a majority of the cabinet and the vice president, or another body Congress designates, can remove a president deemed unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Murphy was not the only one thinking along those lines.

Holly Silverman of Newsweek reported that on the prediction market platform Kalshi, which allows traders to buy yes or no shares on the question, will the 25th Amendment be used during Trump's press, presidency. Yes, has moved in recent days from 28.6% to 35.1%. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.