The New York Times can’t help but let its Trump Derangement Syndrome run wild.
President Trump knows it. And he had something to say about that.
What came next left the paper’s reporters scrambling for cover — because Trump just threatened to make them pay for it in court.
Trump Fires Back on Truth Social
The Times piece, written by reporter Neil MacFarquhar, carried the headline “What Changed After Almost Four Months of War? Analysts Say Not Much.” Trump was not impressed.
He went straight to Truth Social and unloaded.
“The headline in the Corrupt and Failing New York Times: ‘What Changed After Almost 4 Months of War? Analysts Say Not Much.’ REALLY? Their Military is DONE, their Navy is GONE, their Air Force is GONE, their Launching Pads, Missiles, Drones and Manufacturing of same, is almost GONE, their top two sets of Leaders are GONE, their Inflation is at 250%, their Economy is BROKEN, their Soldiers aren’t being paid, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN, THE OIL IS GUSHING, and the U.S. Stock Market and Jobs are at record HIGHS. That’s what’s CHANGED, you corrupt and unethical cowards, and MORE!!!”
Ninety-one minutes later, a second post hit. Trump accused the paper of using “FAKE & MADE UP ‘FACTS'” about the Iran war and called the coverage “TREASONOUS.”
And then he went further. Trump said he will be adding that reporting to his existing multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the paper — the $15 billion defamation case he refiled in October 2025, centered on the book *Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success* and related coverage the Times published during the 2024 campaign. “I will be adding all of their false and ridiculous reporting to my multi Billion Dollar lawsuit against them,” Trump wrote. “They are Criminals.”
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) posted a response backing Trump up, calling the Times story an “insult to our men and women in uniform” and saying Trump’s pushback was “spot on.”
What the Times Actually Said
MacFarquhar’s piece acknowledged that the conflict had inflicted real damage on Iran but argued the results fell short on the issues that supposedly drove the war in the first place.
“Neither the war nor the agreement ended what U.S. and Israeli officials regard as the main threats emanating from Iran. The country’s nuclear program, while heavily damaged, was not eliminated — its fate punted to future negotiation,” MacFarquhar wrote.
The story also noted that Iran’s ballistic missile program was not addressed in the deal, that Iranian-backed groups remain active throughout the region, and that fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon kept grinding on despite the broader ceasefire effort.
On top of that, Iran’s military announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz again — citing what it called U.S. failure to stop Israeli strikes in Lebanon. The U.S. military disputed that, saying the strait remained open as the agreement required.
The Times did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump’s posts.
JD Vance Was Already at the Table
All of this landed while Vice President JD Vance was sitting across from Iranian officials in Switzerland, working to lock down the terms of a final deal.
Vance and his wife Usha flew to the Burgenstock resort outside Lucerne, where high-level talks took place alongside mediators from Qatar and Pakistan. Presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had already been on the ground handling technical elements before Vance arrived.
“Jared and Steve have been on the ground now for a few hours dealing with some of the technical elements of this negotiation,” Vance told *Fox & Friends* before departing. “I can only be there for a day or two. I think we’re going to hopefully make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue. Those are the two big things that I think we’re to be focused on.”
The talks hit some turbulence. Trump posted a warning during negotiations that Iran needed to rein in its proxies in Lebanon or face more strikes. Iranian state media said the talks entered a “difficult phase” after the post. But a senior U.S. diplomat told reporters the Iranian delegation stayed engaged and did not signal any intention to leave.
By the time Vance wrapped up and headed home, both sides had agreed to what mediators from Qatar and Pakistan called “a road map” to reach a final deal within 60 days, along with a communication line to manage incidents in the Strait of Hormuz. Vance called it “a good foundation for a successful final deal.”
“The final deal is the house,” Vance told reporters. “We set the foundation. We haven’t built the house, but we’ve laid a successful foundation to get to a good place for the American people.”
Tehran agreed to invite International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back into the country — which Vance called “a major milestone for the American people and the first step in permanently denuclearising or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program.”
The Establishment Press Wants This to Look Like a Failure
Here is the thing worth paying attention to. The Times piece ran precisely as Vance was sitting in Switzerland doing the hard work of actual diplomacy. The timing is not a coincidence — it fits a pattern the media has followed since Trump first started pulling America away from the neoconservative foreign policy playbook that delivered Iraq, Libya, and two decades of failed nation-building at a cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives.
The argument in the MacFarquhar piece — that the war “changed not much” — is the same genre of criticism that gets deployed every time an administration tries to end something rather than escalate it. The nuclear program wasn’t eliminated, so the war failed. The proxies are still out there, so the deal is worthless. Hezbollah is still firing, so nothing was accomplished. By that standard, no diplomatic resolution ever qualifies as a success, because something always remains unfinished. That’s not analysis. That’s a preference for continued conflict dressed up as sober expertise.
Trump ran on ending the cycle of endless foreign entanglements. Voters gave him that mandate in 2024. JD Vance flew to Switzerland and sat across the table from Iranian officials to deliver on it. And the New York Times responded by publishing a piece suggesting the whole thing was pointless.
But Trump told Fox News exactly what happens if Iran tries to close the Strait of Hormuz and means it. “You close it, and you won’t have a country,” he told Iranian leaders, according to Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst.
That is not the language of a president who thinks the war accomplished nothing. And the American people who sent him back to Washington know the difference between a paper of record and a paper with an agenda.
Sources: Mediaite, NPR, ABC News, CBC News, NBC News, RT