'Thanks for vindicating us': WSJ editors keep poking Trump after rage-filled screed
The Wall Street Journal's editorial board poked a seething Donald Trump on Friday after he raged at the editors, essentially telling the president, "We told you so."
After Trump melted down at the Journal on Thursday night for saying he declared "premature victory" in Iran, calling the board "one of the worst and most inaccurate editorial boards in the world" and promising they'd "eat their words," the board responded Friday with barely concealed delight, pointing to Trump's own Truth Social posts.
Hours after threatening the Journal, Trump fired off another post complaining that Iran was doing "a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!"
"Thanks for vindicating our editorial," the board wrote dryly.
The situation, they noted, was actually worse than Trump let on.
Before the ceasefire, roughly 135 ships transited the strait daily. On Wednesday, only a handful were allowed through, and none of them were oil tankers. Friday saw just one oil tanker cross. A bottleneck of more than 400 tankers persists.
Iran, the board reported, has told mediators it will limit total crossings to about a dozen a day and is now requiring ships to pay tolls in Chinese yuan or cryptocurrency, routed through Iranian territorial waters.
"So what exactly is the U.S. getting for the cease-fire?" the board asked pointedly.
Iran's answer came Friday, when its chief negotiator announced that frozen Iranian assets must be unfrozen before talks can even begin.