Democrats Are Nervous Trump Is Celebrating Israel’s Strike Against Iran. Republicans Are Cheering Him On.

“I hope and pray the ayatollah and his henchmen who are still alive will heed President Trump’s counsel,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said.

Donald Trump
President Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up as he arrives at the White House. John McDonnell/AP

When President Donald Trump celebrated Israel’s strike against Iran on social media Friday, it became the latest example of how lawmakers from the two parties can have wildly different interpretations of the president’s same words.

On Friday morning, hours after Israel struck Iran, Trump suggested in a social media post that the strike was a function of Iran failing to make a deal with the United States during recent nuclear talks.

“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done,” he wrote on his social media app Truth Social. “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.”