Althouse: "Play to WIN, or don’t play at all! Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

August 18, 2025

"Play to WIN, or don’t play at all! Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Writes Donald Trump, at Truth Social.

Full text: "We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be. Remember, I was the one who negotiated and got hundreds of hostages freed and released into Israel (and America!). I was the one who ended 6 wars, in just 6 months. I was the one who OBLITERATED Iran’s Nuclear facilities. Play to WIN, or don’t play at all! Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT"

28 comments:

Mary E. Glynn said...: It's life and death. It's not a game. Americans don't understand this. We'll regret arming Israel... Party on in the bighouse, ann and meade!; 8/18/25, 8:35 AM
WisRich said...: I haven't read The Art of the Deal but "Play to Win" would seem to be a very good Chapter 1 heading.; 8/18/25, 8:38 AM
Lucien said...: I'm irked by the fact that President Trump may succumb to pressure for the US to offer "security guarantees" to Ukraine or other European adventurers. That's not an America First position, and not a drop of American blood should be wasted to defend any of those countries. Wait until EVERY NATO member is spending 5%+ of GDP on their mitlitaries, and maybe then we can talk.; 8/18/25, 8:39 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: Trump is much more obsessed with pleasing the Establishment than I thought. I assumed after their treatement of him after J6, he'd tell them to go to hell. But he's quite concerned about what they say about him.

Nobody in the MAGA base cares that he's wailing at the wailing wall and hating Hamas. Nor do they care about bombing Iran. They like that he's ending the war in Ukraine.; 8/18/25, 8:39 AM
Jaq said...: He made a deal in Ukraine that much harder with the shenanigans regarding Iran. We were "pretending" to negotiate, then launched a decapitation strike on their government, attempting to kill the very people we were supposed to be negotiating with. We used the IAEA to spy on Iran, and apparently used information from them to locate the scientists involved and killed them, probably by tracing their cellphone numbers provided by the IAEA.

This is the exact reason that Russia does not want NATO in Ukraine, the possibility of a decapitation strike on Moscow from missiles which Biden told Russia that we were planning to put in Ukraine when they inevitably joined NATO, and Russia would have zero say in the matter. At least his is what Russia says that Blinken told Lavrov, the US has not denied it. It seems like a few reassurances regarding Russian fears would have gone a long way towards averting this war, Blinken could have said "No way are we planning to put missiles five minutes from Moscow in Ukraine," and since no reassurances were coming, one can only assume that we wanted the war.

I think that Trump got played by Netanyahu, and Trump made up a lie about negotiating with Iran's leadership to put them off guard, but maybe that's because I want to think the best of Trump.; 8/18/25, 8:47 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Jaq rewrites history to make us the bad guys again. Trump gave Iran the ultimatum, "Thall shalt not have nukes." Iran continued to insist "it" was on the table and threatening to hit the Big Satan (us) and the little Satan (Israel). Seeing how perfectly the operation to carry through on Trump's ultimatum was could only help with negotiating with Putin. The mission of the IAEA in Iran was to monitor every facet of the process. That was ongoing since before Gulf War 1 and the attempt to blame Trump for the actions of the IAEA is laughable, like most of Jaq's post, especially the bleat about wanting to think the best of Trump.

Sure. Sure you do.; 8/18/25, 9:00 AM
john mosby said...: I am a hat-wearing Trumper, but I am a mite confused as to how you negotiate with someone, then say you want to destroy them. I guess you can do it in that order, one time.

RR
JSM; 8/18/25, 9:02 AM
Howard said...: Mossad plays to win by controlling the US government via Jeffrey Epstein kompromat.; 8/18/25, 9:04 AM
AMDG said...: WisRich said...
I haven't read The Art of the Deal but "Play to Win" would seem to be a very good Chapter 1 heading.

8/18/25, 8:38 AM
———————————
In business deals the optimal result is play to win-win.; 8/18/25, 9:18 AM
AMDG said...: john mosby said...
I am a hat-wearing Trumper, but I am a mite confused as to how you negotiate with someone, then say you want to destroy them. I guess you can do it in that order, one time.

RR
JSM

8/18/25, 9:02 AM
————————————
Hamas has never moved off its position that all Jews should be killed.

There is no negotiation with these animals.; 8/18/25, 9:20 AM
FormerLawClerk said...: "I am a mite confused as to how you negotiate with someone, then say you want to destroy them."

Let me explain it for you.

Trump is telling HAMAS he is committed to ending their lives so long as they hold hostages. This might convince HAMAS to release their hostages. It might also not do that.

In either case, HAMAS will be killed. Every last one of them. It doesn't matter what they do. They can either release all the hostages and live for a few more days or they can kill all the hostages.

In either event, they are dead men walking because the United States of America isn't going to negotiate with a bunch of fucking Muslim terrorists. We're going to kill them.

All of them.; 8/18/25, 9:33 AM
john mosby said...: AMDG and FLC: I gathered (garnered?) that and agree. But it’s not a negotiation tactic. It’s Billy Jack saying he’s gonna put his foot upside the redneck’s head.

RR
JSM; 8/18/25, 9:44 AM
Narr said...: Trump sometimes reminds me of Morbo the news alien on "Futurama."; 8/18/25, 10:15 AM
Achilles said...: john mosby said...
AMDG and FLC: I gathered (garnered?) that and agree. But it’s not a negotiation tactic. It’s Billy Jack saying he’s gonna put his foot upside the redneck’s head.

RR
JSM

I have agreed twice with ADMG in 20 minutes.

Israel made a mistake taking so long to wipe out Hamas.

Israel made a mistake not immediately conquering Gaza and turning it over to a Saudi/Egyptian/Jordanian regime.

I think Israel is keeping Hamas around so that anyone opposed to what Israel is doing is siding with Hamas.

That includes people who want to see the Israeli lobbyists removed from Washington DC. Expect this flashpoint to boil over soon.; 8/18/25, 10:18 AM
n.n said...: Unconditional surrender. Japan. Germany. Hamas, too.

Iraq? Ceasefire over 8 years. Then unconditional surrender.

Afghanistan? Tens of billions of dollars and equipment surrendered as an endowment to a terrorist organization.; 8/18/25, 10:20 AM
Lazarus said...: Everybody dead means hostages dead too. If that's what you want, fine, but don't pretend it's going to get the hostages released.; 8/18/25, 10:35 AM
Narr said...: Japan did not surrender unconditionally.; 8/18/25, 10:36 AM
Inga said...: “Mossad plays to win by controlling the US government via Jeffrey Epstein kompromat.”

It looks that way. Makes sense that Epstein was a Mossad agent who also enriched himself by blackmailing his clients.; 8/18/25, 11:04 AM
FormerLawClerk said...: "Makes sense that Epstein was a Mossad agent who also enriched himself by blackmailing his clients.

Bill Clinton. You mean Bill Clinton, right, Inga? After all, Epstein had a painting depicting President Bill Clinton draped over a chair wearing Monica Lewinski's famous "blue dress." The dress she spilled his cum on that was then used to prove Bill Clinton committed perjury in the sexual assault lawsuit brought by another of his victims, Paula Jones.

Democrat Bill Richardson was also accused by one of Epstein's child victims of rape.

Happy to see the Mossad helping bring the Democrats to justice.; 8/18/25, 11:12 AM
The Vault Dweller said...: "In business deals the optimal result is play to win-win."

Only if it is an iterative game. If it is a one off interaction your optimum result is to win and win bigly.; 8/18/25, 11:24 AM
Freder Frederson said...: Remember, I was the one who negotiated and got hundreds of hostages freed and released into Israel (and America!).

I don't remember that at all.; 8/18/25, 11:53 AM
Freder Frederson said...: There weren't even "hundreds" of hostages left when Trump took office. WTF is he talking about?; 8/18/25, 11:57 AM
narciso said...: there were loads of American captives that were released in the Trump era, there were many that were captured under Biden, lets leave out the Hamas hostages; 8/18/25, 1:36 PM
FormerLawClerk said...: "Everybody dead means hostages dead too. If that's what you want, fine, but don't pretend it's going to get the hostages released.

That's not WHAT we want. We would obviously prefer HAMAS to never have taken hostages to begin with. Or to release the ones they currently possess.

But if the alternative is negotiating with terrorists, then we'll accept a bunch of dead hostages.. Those people died the minute HAMAS took them.

Such is life. We will not DO anything they ask BECAUSE they took hostages and the reason is simple and inescapable: They'll just keep doing that.

HAMAS has NOTHING to negotiate with. We are not going to be held hostage to their taking of hostages. The very first thing a successful hostage negotiator does is to shoot the hostage.

That ends the negotiation.

There's a reason no terrorrist groups hijack airliners any more. Flight 91. The flight where the passengers killed the terrorists even if it meant dying themselves.

That's success. And it shines the light on the path others must follow.; 8/18/25, 2:43 PM
gadfly said...: FLC: Bill Clinton is not jewish so he cannot be Mossad. On the other hand, Jeffrey Epstein is forever a jewish name, but his citizenship gets in the way of being a member of Mossad but he may have worked with Israeli Intelligence as a Mossad-adjacent "Sayanim", who cooperated with the Israeli government from the United States as a non-citizen.; 8/18/25, 3:47 PM
n.n said...: Surrender of Japan (1945)
"We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan," signified the importance attached to the Emperor's role by the Americans who drafted the document. The short second paragraph went straight to the heart of the matter: "We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated."; 8/18/25, 4:24 PM
Narr said...: The original Allied demand was for unconditional surrender without any assurances as to the Emperor's position. Note that the surrender was of the JIGH and armed forces, and left the Emperor on the throne.

That was a concession--condition--to the Japanese that allowed them to save face.

Of the big three Axis powers, only Germany was subject to truly Unconditional Surrender.; 8/18/25, 5:19 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: G. Maxwell was the daughter of Robert maxwell a UK Jewish Mossad agent. When Robert Maxwell was buried in Israel, all the top Mossad Agents showed up at this funeral. Epstein had Israeli Presidents and PM show up at his mansion in NYC everytime they visited NY.

Epstein was a Mossad agent and running a blackmail reward scheme. That's why his files are being "protected".

Of course, that wont stop Zionists and others from using the rhetorical trick of chanting "He wasnt a mossad agent" or Quibbling over the word "agent" over and over - despite the evidence.; 8/19/25, 4:32 AM