Anti-Trump animus caused much of the press to read this war backward. Now reality is catching up.

For weeks, a great deal of the coverage of this war sounded like it was written in anticipation of one ending and one ending only: Donald Trump overreaches, Iran outlasts him, the region spirals, and the president is left holding the bag. 

It was a good story. And the press was obviously enamored with the narrative and what it might mean for Democrats in the midterms.

Too bad it wasn’t true.

The facts on the ground point in a different direction — and they are pointing too strongly for the press to continue to ignore, downplay, and spin the truth.

Iran has reopened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. Oil dropped roughly 10% to 11%. The Dow surged more than 1,000 points. And the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian vessels is still in place while negotiations continue. That is not what an Iranian win looks like. That is what it looks like when one side tried to use a chokepoint as leverage and wound up negotiating under even more pressure than before.

Iran’s strategy of closing Hormuz backfired stupendously. Advantage, Donald Trump.

What is striking is not that the press has ignored these facts entirely. Many outlets have, at least technically, reported some of them. What is striking is the tone: grudging, caveated, reluctant, as though a straightforward description of events might accidentally hand Trump too much credit. 

Richard Haass told MS NOW’s Morning Joe on Friday that the blockade has hit Iran’s “Achilles’ heel,” that Iran was not prepared to be “counter-blockaded,” and, most tellingly, that “we’ve run out of targets” and the logic of further escalation is fading. In ordinary English, that sounds a lot like this: the coercive phase worked, there is less left to gain militarily, and diplomacy is now being asked to formalize the gains. 

It’s a masterclass in doublespeak that describes victory without quite admitting it.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth accused the “Trump-hating press” of being too blinded by political animus to acknowledge what had been achieved. His rhetoric was, as political rhetoric often is, a bit overheated. His Pharisees comparison was an appeal to emotion, rather than logic.

But beneath the theatrical flourish was a point worth taking seriously.

At an April 16 Pentagon briefing, Hegseth heralded “Operation Economic Fury,” said the blockade could be intensified quickly if needed, and said the administration would ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. That briefing made clear that Hegseth’s core complaint was about what he saw as relentlessly negative framing in the face of what the administration views as a historic battlefield and diplomatic success.

He is not wrong — as much as progressives might wish he was.

The biggest media blind spot in this war has been a refusal to grapple with the possibility that Trump may actually have turned Iran’s own strategy against it. Tehran seemed to believe that threatening the Strait of Hormuz would panic the world and split the coalition pressuring it. 

Instead, the United States imposed a blockade, U.S. forces turned back 13 ships, and Treasury expanded pressure on Iran-backed militia commanders in Iraq under the “Economic Fury” banner. In other words, Iran tried to weaponize the world’s energy artery, and Washington answered by making Iran’s own economy the more vulnerable point of failure. That is not a muddle. That is leverage and turned tables.

The nuclear endgame points the same way, even if the paperwork is still catching up. Trump told Reuters the United States would work with Iran to recover enriched uranium and bring it back to the United States. He has also said no frozen U.S.-held funds will be paid out and that Iran has agreed to halt enrichment and suspend its nuclear program indefinitely. 

Iran, unsurprisingly, is still publicly denying the most humiliating parts of this. Tehran seems to be doing what weak regimes do at the end of a bad negotiation: trying to save face at home while the stronger side defines the broad direction of the settlement.

This is why so many progressives may be in for a rude surprise in the coming days as this situation resolves to the benefit of the U.S. and its partners in the Persian Gulf. 

If you consumed this war mainly through the lens of Trump pathology, media panic, and familiar predictions of “the walls closing in on Donald Trump” you were primed to expect a quagmire. 

Instead, progressives are now staring down reopened shipping lanes, falling oil prices, rising markets, and improved U.S. leverage. Even Trump critics are now conceding that the escalation logic is burning out because there is little left for Iran to gain. The story many people were emotionally invested in is not the story that unfolded.

Of course, if Iran is truly giving up enrichment, surrendering its stockpile, and stepping back from the proxy war model, the world should not rely on vibes or Truth Social posts. It should rely on inspectors, access, and enforcement. But that caveat does not erase the broader reality. It simply means the United States now has to lock in what it appears already to have won in practice.

The press does not need to become pro-Trump to say what is plainly in front of its face. It just needs to stop acting as though every Trump success must secretly be a failure waiting to be decoded. Sometimes the simplest reading is the right one. Iran closed the strait and now it is open. Iran talked big and now it is negotiating under blockade. Oil is down. Markets are up. The coercive phase appears to have gone America’s way. And a large slice of the media, unable to say that cleanly, is left doing what it has done all through this conflict: describing a U.S. victory without quite admitting that is what it is.

And that is why the media keeps losing trust — and being caught flat-footed by Trump’s successes.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)