Living through Trump's time bomb

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When I woke up Tuesday morning I believed there was a very real possibility that the United States might drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. And as I was going to bed Wednesday night, that possibility returned. Thursday, an eerie calm settled as we waited to see if the alleged cease fire would hold, knowing it could change at any moment. It felt like we were dangling off a cliff, hanging on with one sweaty palm.

Sometimes journalism is relaying new information; other times it’s capturing what you already know so that you don’t forget how it made you feel. I wrote this so you and I don't forget. 

Those who were sentient during the first administration will remember how it felt like we were just existing from one Trump tweet to the next. Often indecipherable posts punctuated every day like an exclamation point with a foghorn attached, cortisol constantly pulsing, mind never knowing who or what he’d go after next. While a great deal of those posts were bluster, his words had real impacts: trans people in the military, as an example, found out via tweet that Trump was claiming they were no longer allowed to serve. The space between the tweets where we lived our lives felt that much more precarious. In this second administration we’ve gone from precarity to mortal peril. 

Donald Trump started his day Tuesday by logging onto Truth Social and posting this:

I read the post while still in bed, a product of terrible sleep hygiene wherein there’s no separation between slumber and the terrors of the day. My half-warmed up brain snapped to attention as I scanned the words, each one landing with a thud. 

“Holy shit,” I muttered. My husband, no stranger to my random outbursts about the horrors on my phone, passively asked what was happening as he got ready for work. “I think Trump might nuke Iran?” I replied, eyes still glued on the post. 

There’s been no shortage of what-the-fuck-are-we-supposed-to-do-with-this-information moments since Trump retook office in January 2025, but instead of speeding up time in anxious anticipation, this instance made the merry-go-round pause. It was the first time in my lifetime that the idea of the United States dropping another nuclear bomb felt within the realm of possibility. And that possibility slowed time to a crawl.

The shocking post didn’t come entirely out of nowhere: On Sunday Trump posted what we thought at the time would be the worst he had this week. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” he wrote. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.” In a subsequent post he added “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” as the deadline for opening the straight. It was then that the countdown really began, but it wasn’t until Tuesday morning that the countdown turned nuclear.

A whole civilization will die tonight.

After the shock of the first read, the questions flooded: Which civilization would allegedly die Tuesday night? Iran? Ours? All of human civilization? How would it die? “WHO KNOWS?” What could he have planned that would warrant the hyperbole of calling it one of the most important moments in world history? Would April 7th become one of those seismic dates to which people knowingly refer without context? Why is he blessing the people of Iran when he wants them dead? Was this a real threat or did he just want attention? Did that distinction really matter when a country of 92 million people thought they might be vaporized overnight? 

Shortly after Trump’s post lit the world on fire, Iranian officials called on young people to form human chains around power plants and across bridges that were potential targets of an American strike. Our president’s actions gave permission to other reckless leaders abroad to put their own people in the very direct line of fire. While the Iranians who showed up at these various sites were linked to one another, it was difficult not to feel as though we were linked to them, too. Because while Trump may have been pointing a weapon at them, Americans were undoubtedly in the crossfire.

I put away dishes from the dishwasher that had been sitting there for two days, carefully placing each fragile item in its designated space, and gathered a few things to toss in my backpack before heading out to see my parents on Long Island and return their car I’d borrowed. At the wheel I shouted along with Celine Dion until my vocal cords ached, the Power of Love helping carry me just a little closer to 8pm when we’d learn the fate of a civilization. I stopped for a salad, wondering why I was eating a stupid salad when the world could be about to irrevocably change, and brought some stuff I ordered online to the UPS Store to send back. Would the refund for these jeans mean much tomorrow? Impossible to say. 

By mid-afternoon, more than 50 congressional Democrats had called for Trump to be impeached, in an effort that felt like much too little, much too late. Republicans practiced their patented silence in the face of anarchy.

“So, Trump might nuke Iran tonight?” I said to my dad when I walked in the house, after telling him about the bit of traffic I hit on the way. 

As 6:30pm Eastern Time rolled around, I sat in the kitchen of my childhood home, the clock on the wall sounding louder with each tick towards the future. In that moment there was nothing to be done but sit and listen. To hope that cooler heads, if any such heads existed here, would prevail in deescalating a situation in which we should have never been in the first place. With the certainty of tomorrow gone, the fullness of the present felt suddenly rife with meaning. 

A few moments later, Trump announced—again via social media post—that a tentative cease fire agreement had been reached with Iran via mediation by Pakistan. 

“Subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” he wrote at 6:32pm. Shortly after, Iran confirmed that the terms had been agreed upon by both countries. For the people of Iran, I felt immediate relief. But for those of us who’ve lived at Trump’s whims in one way or another for the past decade, we knew the relief would be temporary. No bombs would be dropped by the US on Iran Tuesday night, but we still had all been shattered. 

And we learned Wednesday that Israel did not believe they were subject to the cease fire, continuing to ceaselessly attack Lebanon as a proxy for Iran. More than 100 targets were hit with 1,000-pound bombs in less than 10 minutes, killing mostly civilians while they were going about their days—just as I was in New York. 

“First responders in Barbour worked to find people trapped under the rubble,” The Guardian reported on Thursday. “Firefighters sprayed water on the smouldering remains of the building while forklifts lifted crumpled cars to clear the road for ambulances. An emergency worker on the scene said they had not yet found any survivors, only pieces of people.”

Only pieces of people. 

By late afternoon Wednesday, Israeli’s murderous carnage in Lebanon threatened the US-Iran cease fire, a term that felt and continues to feel ridiculous when the fire is far from ceased. There were reports Iran was charging ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, meaning we were now paying for something that just days earlier had been free. 

As I settled into bed Wednesday night I couldn’t help but check Trump’s Truth Social feed, my hypervigilant mind ever-convinced that the sooner I knew something, the less it would hurt. Sure enough, Trump had just posted again:

Trump’s all caps assurance that nuclear weapons wouldn’t be used in Iran only made the threat feel more real, and again he only prompted more questions. We were back in limbo, but had we ever really left? Where was the next conquest? And from where was America back? We’d have to tune into tomorrow’s episode to find out. 

At 5:08 on Thursday, Trump posted: “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!”  Then at 6:29pm he wrote: “Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!” The outlook for Friday didn’t look good.

While a civilization did not yet die this week, we most certainly experienced a very real loss; the loss of that last shred of hope that no matter how unhinged Trump becomes, no matter what he says in a rambling speech or an incoherent press conference, that he wouldn’t do that. That is now a menu item, even if its threat is just a means to an end.