Is Donald Trump’s Iran mess all about John Bolton’s testimony?

| 4:00 pm EST January 3, 2020
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This morning Palmer Report explained how Donald Trump has actually decreased his odds of reelection by risking war with Iran at a time when he’s already so unpopular, war would only make him even more unpopular. The question is why he did something as stupid as taking out Qasem Soleimani, when a mere proportional response would have worked out far better for him.

My premise this morning was that Trump mistakenly thought taking out a big fish like Soleimani would make him more popular, just as he mistakenly thought that taking out a big fish like al-Baghdadi would make him more popular. But then I came across this New Year’s Eve tweet from Republican strategist Rick Wilson:

In my darkest imagination, I just envisioned a Trump call to Bolton. “Keep quiet and I’ll give you a war with Iran…”

Lurid? Crazy? Remember, Trump’s great gift as a con man is that he seeing into the deepest needs of his marks…

What if he’s right? Various bombshells over the past week have at least incrementally increased the odds that the Senate will end up having to call people like John Bolton to testify in the impeachment trial. And now suddenly Donald Trump is giving Bolton a taste of the war with Iran that Bolton wants more than anything in the whole world. This would be an incredibly stupid strategy on Trump’s part. But then again, these days every strategy that Trump tries is stupid.