Trump’s War Profiteering Boast Goes Unnoticed in the US Media, but Not in Iran

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Many years down the road, historians will still wonder how Donald Trump routinely got away with the type of lies, outrageous statements, bizarre behavior, and brazen lawlessness and corruption that would have doomed the career of any other politician.

A big part of the answer can be found in the “Access Hollywood” tape in which he admitted to sexually assaulting women. After saying that he just kisses them and doesn’t even wait, Trump adds, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

It’s been a bit like that when it comes to his assault on norms and rules that used to apply to presidents. Trump just never cared about them, and, as it turns out, the gatekeepers “let him do it” way too many times.

Another part of the puzzle is that many in the media have simply grown numb to this relentless onslaught.

A great example of this dynamic took place earlier this week when Trump stated during a speech in Las Vegas that the US has “taken a lot of oil from Venezuela.” While he claimed that this was “billions and billions of barrels of oil,” he probably meant that the oil is worth billions of dollars.

Trump: "We're taking a lot of oil from Venezuela — billions and billions of barrels of oil. To the victor belong the spoils." pic.twitter.com/VFJuPdrnRy

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2026

In any case, what he is talking about is also called “pillaging,” and it is a violation of international law and constitutes a war crime… which might just be one of the reasons why the Trump administration is trying to dismantle the International Criminal Court, the body that prosecutes these types of things.

Trump wasn’t done boasting/confessing.

He noted that the military strike against Venezuela that he ordered in January lasted only 48 minutes, and that the US has “paid for the war with what we have taken out many, many, many times.”

Finally, Trump laconically stated that “to the victor belong the spoils” and added that the US “is doing the same thing in Iran.”

The most remarkable thing about his speech was not that he so openly bragged about his administration committing yet another crime, but rather that hardly anybody in the media covered it.

We even gave it a couple of days ourselves to see if maybe some corporate news outlet would make a big deal out of it. However, it’s just been crickets.

While the media ignored the president’s remark, the government in Tehran did not.

Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs quoted Trump’s remarks and his intention to treat his country the same way as Venezuela.

“To the victor belong the spoils,” the U.S. President has declared. “We’re taking a lot of oil from Venezuela—billions and billions of barrels of oil… And we’re doing the same in the Islamic Republic of Iran", he has added.

One cannot help but think of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22,… pic.twitter.com/9bh5LigDNe

— Esmaeil Baqaei (@IRIMFA_SPOX) August 7, 2026

“There’s just one small problem, though; before you claim the ‘spoils of war’, you actually have to win the war — not get stuck in a strait, fall short of your stated (malign) objectives, run low on weapons, and lose credibility along the way,” he said. “So far, the ‘spoils of Iran’ amount to nothing more than a paper trophy for a victory that shows no sign of materializing.”

There are two things to consider here.

The first is that Trump’s talk makes it less likely than ever for Iran to surrender, since to do so would apparently mean that the US would then come in and plunder its oil.

Of course, we’re not anywhere close to that, so the second issue is more immediately important: The president’s insistence that war profiteering is something to be proud of provides the government in Tehran with ample justification to reap the rewards of coming out ahead in its conflict in the US — in this case in the form of demanding tolls from ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump’s rhetoric means that his administration has no moral basis for objecting to such an (illegal) move on the part of Iran.

As for Venezuela, many people there undoubtedly welcomed the toppling of the regime of Nicolás Maduro, which used the country’s wealth in oil and goal to enrich itself while its citizens were starving. But it seems unlikely that Venezuelans will harbor any kind of positive feelings toward the US when Trump so openly boasts about pillaging its resources.