Jonah Goldberg Tells CNN: It ‘Looks Like Trump Blinked’ On Iran

Conservative journalist Jonah Goldberg took Donald Trump’s Truth Social announcement that the U.S. is pausing its bombing campaign against Iran’s energy plants as proof that the war isn’t going quite as well as the president wants people to believe.

Trump released the following Truth Social Thursday afternoon, writing:

As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time. Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well.

Goldberg appeared with The New York Times’s David Sanger on CNN’s The Arena With Kasie Hunt.

“Well, sounds like he’s trying to buy himself some more time now. Initially he bought five days. Now he’s adding a little more than a week to that for April 6th,” Sanger said.

“And, you know, I think he recognizes that the minute that he begins those kind of destructive attacks on the energy facilities, first, it may be a Geneva Convention violation, but second, there’s no going back from that, right?” Sanger said. “It’s going to be open up to the broadening of the war. To similar facilities in the Gulf. So I think it’s good news. He needs some space to try to make diplomacy work here. And, you know, he, started off painting himself in a box last weekend. And now I think he recognizes he needs time to send JD Vance or whoever’s going to go and and do this negotiation.”

“That’s seems to underscore your point, Jonah, that things don’t seem to be going as well as he wants everyone to believe anyway,” Hunt said.

“Yeah. I mean, you could go back and look at all of his statements and the number of red lines and declarations of what the goals are. I mean, I still remember the we’re demanding unconditional surrender stuff, right?”

Goldberg continued, “The part of the problem is, is when you don’t prepare the public, and Congress, and your allies in advance about what your goals are. And then after you go to war, you keep coming up with new goals, new deadlines, new redlines, right? I mean, this idea that these negotiations or these talks caused him to move red line for 48 hours. Well, however true that statement is, the Iranians know exactly how true it is. And if it’s not completely true, it just looks like Trump blinked in the wake of a threat to the energy supply.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!