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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Andrew Roth in Washington

Trump the unreliable narrator fails to force reality to match his story on Iran

A man in a tie speaks
Donald Trump speaks to the press before boarding Air Force One at the John F Kennedy international airport, in New York on 9 June 2026. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

As the story of the US-Iran war is written direct to social media, Donald Trump may be the genre’s premier unreliable narrator.

Since the war began, Trump has again and again threatened Iran with fearsome consequences if Tehran doesn’t come to the table and sign a peace deal that the US president said was imminent weeks ago. And he has also repeatedly claimed that an Iran deal is “close” – without any result. (A CNN tally put the number of times he’s claimed it at 38.)

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