Democrats, former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and late-night hosts criticized President Trump on Thursday over his two-week deadline for deciding whether to strike nuclear facilities in Iran.
Trump has often given two-week timelines for major decisions during his first and second terms, as The New York Times pointed out Thursday.
Kinzinger said Thursday the delay on a potential Iran strike was the latest example of “TACO,” or “Trump Always Chickens Out,” a term that originated with his waffling on tariffs.
“Just a reminder that Trump was going to announce his sanctions on Russia for not negotiating ‘in two weeks’ about 3.5 weeks ago,” he wrote Thursday on social platform X.
“Taco,” he added.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), the youngest member of Congress, pointed to the apparent mixed messages after Trump earlier in the week called for Iranians to evacuate Tehran immediately.
“What a joke. We’re dealing w/ a reality show dictator who uses Truth Social to notify/terrify a city of 10M people to evacuate + then says the decision on war will be ‘made within two weeks,'” Ansari wrote in a Thursday post on X.
“I don’t know how the US ever recovers from this blow to our credibility in the world,” she added.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Trump’s timeline made the U.S. look “weak and silly.”
“I think going to war with Iran is a terrible idea, but no one believes this ‘two weeks’ bit. He’s used it a million times before to pretend he might be doing something he’s not,” he wrote on X.
Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian businessman who was embroiled in Trump’s first impeachment, said he’d start calling Trump “Donnie Two Weeks.”
Jimmy Kimmel strung together clips of the president touting two-week timelines on various issues while in the White House for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday night, while Stephen Colbert also cracked a joke about the timetable on his show.
“Two weeks’ notice is so important. Trump understands — Trump understands that starting a war in the Middle East is a lot like quitting your sales job at Best Buy. It’s just polite,” he joked.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt read a statement from Trump during a press briefing Thursday: “Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiation that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go in the next two weeks,” she said.
Leavitt said correspondence between the U.S. and Iran “has continued” as the two sides engage in negotiations, though she would not provide specifics about whether they were direct or through intermediaries.
