{"id":63654,"date":"2026-04-12T12:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T12:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/63654\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T12:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T12:44:09","slug":"analysis-trump-says-he-always-wins-and-the-iran-war-is-the-latest-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/63654\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Trump says he always wins, and the Iran war is the latest example"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 In the January 2004 pilot of \u201cThe Apprentice,\u201d Donald Trump<\/a> said something he would never admit today. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t always so easy,\u201d he intones via voice-over, noting that by the late 1980s, \u201cI was seriously in trouble\u201d and \u201cbillions of dollars in debt.\u201d <\/p>\n

It is one of the few times Trump has ever publicly acknowledged failure. Even then, he was reading a script meant to promote against-the-odds credentials for viewers, previewing the combative charisma<\/a> that propelled his political career a decade later. <\/p>\n

\u201cI fought back,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd I won. Big league.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump never loses. At least in his telling. <\/p>\n

He declared victory within days of the Iran war<\/a> starting, and repeated it constantly, even as Tehran struck U.S. and allied targets and choked off the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, spreading economic pain around the globe.<\/p>\n

With a ceasefire now in place<\/a>, Trump says the United States has accomplished its goals<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The president is extolling a change in rule after Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed. But he was replaced by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who is seen as more hard-line. Trump says Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, but Tehran has stockpiles of enriched uranium. The strait is reopening \u2014 under Iranian military control.<\/p>\n

When The Wall Street Journal\u2019s editorial board wrote that Trump had claimed a premature win in Iran, the president responded in a social media post Thursday, \u201cActually, it is a Victory.\u201d <\/p>\n

On Saturday he posted that news outlets \u201clove saying that Iran is \u2018winning\u2019 when, in fact, everyone knows that they are LOSING, and LOSING BIG!\u201d Asked later in the day about the state of negotiations with Iran<\/a>, Trump responded, \u201cRegardless what happens, we win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Claiming the winner\u2019s mantle has been part of Trump\u2019s psyche since he was a young man and a New York real estate developer. It has persisted on matters great and small. <\/p>\n

The golf tournaments at his clubs, where he is the perennial champion. The adverse court rulings where he insists things went his way. The deals he announces that are never consummated. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe has this fictional narrative in his head\u201d and is \u201clike a screenwriter,\u201d said David Cay Johnston, author of \u201cThe Making of Donald Trump.\u201d \u201cWhen you need to change the narrative, you just change it. \u201d<\/p>\n

No example is as stark as Trump\u2019s rejection of his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election<\/a>, an outcome affirmed in 60-plus court cases and by his own attorney general. Yet Trump has declared victory so often<\/a> that his supporters believe him. He knows the power of repetition and volume. <\/p>\n

This is the world of Trump \u2014 pitchman and president, shaper of his story and others\u2019, sloganeering his way through his second term. One baseball cap he wears and hawks encapsulates the approach in five words: \u201cTRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s much easier to lead when you\u2019re successful and you\u2019re winning,\u201d Trump told a recent Saudi investment conference in Florida, where he also noted, \u201cI always like to hang around losers, actually, because it makes me feel better.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople follow you if you win,\u201d Trump added. <\/p>\n

White Houses for decades have tried to cast bad news as good in hopes of softening unfavorable assessments of politics, policy and even war. But Trump has made always winning a core of his presidency. <\/p>\n

The Supreme Court strikes down his signature tariffs<\/a>? Trump vows to work around the ruling<\/a> so his import taxes can be \u201cused in a much more powerful and obnoxious way, with legal certainty.\u201d If promised investments in the U.S. that he\u2019s promoted don\u2019t actually materialize<\/a>, he just says they did while sometimes inflating their fictitious value. <\/p>\n

His Department of Justice stops appealing court rulings blocking executive orders meant to punish big law firms, then it reverses course<\/a> because non-appeals might look like admitting defeat.<\/p>\n

This form of alternative programming has become a governing principle \u2014 and a Trump family value.<\/p>\n

One of the president\u2019s sons, Eric, said his father \u201chas never needed to project a \u2018winning image.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cHe IS the definition of a winner,\u201d the younger Trump said in a statement, \u201cbased on what he has built and accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018That was the messaging strategy\u2019<\/p>\n

Sarah Matthews, a former first-term Trump White House deputy press secretary who resigned when a mob of Trump supporters rioted at the Capitol<\/a> on Jan. 6, 2021, said the president\u2019s \u201cego won\u2019t allow him to acknowledge defeat\u201d and that \u201creality just kind of bends\u201d to it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the messaging strategy,\u201d Matthews said. \u201cIt was, \u2018How can we redefine this loss as a victory?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she regrets it now, but back then, there was \u201calways a way to find an excuse to justify that loss and defend his position.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, Trump\u2019s second-term White House marked his first year back in office by listing \u201c365 wins\u201d over the same number of days. Those included some repetitive and exaggerated claims and also touted rising<\/a> stock markets, falling gas prices<\/a> and strong job creation<\/a> that are mostly no longer true since the Iran war began. <\/p>\n

White House spokesman Davis Ingle said Trump \u201cproudly projects the unmatched greatness of our country consistently in his public comments.\u201d <\/p>\n

John Bolton was one of Trump\u2019s first-term national security advisers and an early supporter of the U.S. and Israel striking Iran. But he said that Trump\u2019s declaration of victory over Iran was always \u201cbaked in the cake\u201d regardless of the actual outcome. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe world for him is divided into winners and losers,\u201d Bolton said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s always a winner.\u201d <\/p>\n

Presenting setbacks as wins isn\u2019t new <\/p>\n

In 1973, federal authorities sued<\/a> Trump and his father, alleging racial discrimination in renting apartments their company built in Brooklyn and Queens, two New York City boroughs. Urging the Trumps to countersue was Roy Cohn<\/a>, the notorious lawyer who aggressively promoted Sen. Joseph McCarthy\u2019s anti-communist \u201cred scare\u201d hearings of the 1950s. <\/p>\n

The case was settled after both sides signed an agreement two years later prohibiting the Trumps from \u201cdiscriminating against any person.\u201d The future Republican president said it was a victory, noting there had been no admission of guilt \u2014 despite the Justice Department calling the settlement \u201cone of the most far-reaching ever negotiated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump first met Cohn in 1973 at Manhattan\u2019s exclusive Le Club, and Cohn is credited with imparting key rules, including never admitting you are wrong or admitting defeat and attacking anyone who attacks you. <\/p>\n

Cohn \u201ctaught Donald, you never concede as much as a comma,\u201d Johnston said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever position you\u2019ve taken, that\u2019s the position, and anybody who challenges you, they\u2019re wrong. They\u2019re disgusting. They\u2019re incompetent. They\u2019re idiotic,\u201d Johnston said. \u201cIf they\u2019re law enforcement, they\u2019re corrupt.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bankruptcies didn\u2019t dent Trump\u2019s image <\/p>\n

Through the years, Trump consistently lost money, launching failed lines of namesake products that included steaks, bottled water, vodka, a magazine, an airline, a home mortgage concern and online classes. His Trump Plaza Hotel filed for bankruptcy, his New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League folded and the Tour de Trump cycling race never became the U.S. answer to the Tour de France. <\/p>\n

Barbara Res, who worked for Trump at his company for nearly two decades, remembers him being fond of pitting top executives against one another to ensure he remained the most powerful voice, even as losses mounted. <\/p>\n

For today\u2019s Trump, she said, \u201cNothing is wrong to him, if it helps him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t always like that. He understood the difference before,\u201d said Res, author of \u201cTower of Lies: What My Eighteen Years of Working With Donald Trump Reveals About Him.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t say why he changed. It could be because he has so much power. Or because he never really believed it.\u201d <\/p>\n

None of that tarnished Trump\u2019s self-projected image as rich and famous, which was supercharged by the TV hit \u201cThe Apprentice.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of television and popular culture, said that success was built on earlier factors, including the appealing hubris built into the title of Trump\u2019s 1987 book, \u201cThe Art of the Deal,\u201d his aggressive courting of media attention and his obsession with naming things after himself. <\/p>\n

That helped Trump become the \u201cstock character of billionaire,\u201d landed him on the likes of \u201cThe Jeffersons,\u201d \u201cThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,\u201d \u201cThe Nanny,\u201d and in \u201cHome Alone 2,\u201d Thompson said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you need someone to quickly and efficiently represent \u2018American Rich Guy,\u2019 Trump has kind of cast himself in that position,\u201d Thompson said, \u201cand everybody goes along with it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump did not acknowledge his staggering losses. After his three casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, filed for bankruptcy, he insisted to The Associated Press<\/a> in 2016 that Atlantic City had been \u201ca great period for me.\u201d <\/p>\n

Starting in 2007, meanwhile, he became a mainstay with WWE executive Vince McMahon<\/a>, whose wife, Linda, is now Trump\u2019s education secretary. The future president relished raucous, made-for-TV events where the wrestler he was backing always won. <\/p>\n

Trump also began addressing crowds, honing the \u201csketch and the rhythm\u201d that would later become his strength as a politician, Thompson said: \u201cThe rallies are born in wrestling,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWinning is an attitude, not a collection of facts,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cWinning is, in this case, always defined by the person doing the winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018You make your own reality\u2019<\/p>\n

Trump carried that can\u2019t-lose view into his political career.<\/p>\n

After he lost the 2016 Republican Iowa caucus, he posted that the winner, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, \u201cillegally stole it.\u201d Trump claimed to have won the popular vote against Democrat Hillary Clinton that November, \u201cif you deduct millions of people who voted illegally.\u201d In addition to his false claims that the 2020 race was stolen, he alleged widespread wrongdoing in the 2024 election, despite capturing all key swing states. <\/p>\n

Russell Muirhead, a Dartmouth College professor who has written about Trump\u2019s chaotic governing style, said the president has been at the practice long enough \u201cto live in a world where you make your own reality\u201d and there is no real world \u201coutside your own mind.\u201d <\/p>\n

Even the way Trump plays golf<\/a> means racking up wins \u2014 at least at his own properties<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Trump says he has won 38 times at golf clubs he owns. That includes a 2018 tournament in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he did not play but beat the winner in a subsequent match, one where he missed the first round and another during which he posted a final-round 67 \u2014 a score even some professional golfers would envy. <\/p>\n

Matthews said that when she worked for him at the White House, she could not recall Trump ever admitting being wrong, even in private. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u2019s obvious that it looks like a loss on paper, you have to kind of spin this somehow into a victory,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause that\u2019s what Trump would want.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: Will Weissert has covered politics for The Associated Press since 2011 and the White House since 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 In the January 2004 pilot of \u201cThe Apprentice,\u201d Donald Trump said something he would never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[327,24069,24073,38,197,1770,4314,34,61,196,802,12840,24067,2289,81,24066,24070,7236,1911,24068,24071,771,24072],"class_list":{"0":"post-63654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-ali-khamenei","9":"tag-barbara-res","10":"tag-david-cay-johnston","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-government-and-politics","14":"tag-hillary-clinton","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-iran-government","17":"tag-iran-war","18":"tag-joe-biden","19":"tag-john-bolton","20":"tag-joseph-mccarthy","21":"tag-mojtaba-khamenei","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-roy-cohn","24":"tag-sarah-matthews","25":"tag-ted-cruz","26":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","27":"tag-u-s-department-of-justice","28":"tag-vince-mcmahon","29":"tag-washington-news","30":"tag-will-weissert"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116391802465403368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}