After more than five weeks of brutal war in the Middle East, diplomats from the United States, led by JD Vance, and Iran, led by Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, met in Pakistan to reach a deal and end the war. Donald Trump, meanwhile, in all his infinite strategic wisdom, was rage-posting on Truth Social. In Islamabad, roughly 7,000 miles from the Oval Office, Vice President JD Vance sat across the table from the Iranian delegation, attempting to end the disastrous war that Trump preemptively launched on February 28. The Islamabad talks, the most senior direct engagement between the U.S. and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, got underway Saturday morning with Vance leading a delegation that also includes Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The fact that Vance is headlining at all is itself a story. Iran reportedly preferred him as a negotiating partner over Witkoff and Kushner, who led three previous rounds of indirect nuclear talks before the war made all of that prior groundwork wobble. Iran’s 10-point negotiation plan includes an end to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, the release of billions in frozen assets, security guarantees around its nuclear program, the right to control the Strait of Hormuz, and the termination of all sanctions. And back stateside, the man who sent Vance on this impossible mission spent his day simmering on about how powerful and great he is, how all media is “fake news” and how he absolutely decimated Iran. You know, the thing he’s done almost every day since the war began. “The Fake News Media is CRAZY, or just plain CORRUPT!” He wrote. “The United States has completely destroyed Iran’s Military, including their entire Navy and Air Force, and everything else. Their Leadership is DEAD! The Strait of Hormuz will soon be open, and the empty ships are rushing to the United States to ‘load up.’ But, if you listen to the Fake News, we’re losing!” Trump isn’t helping fix his own mess There are several other posts with the same unhinged tenor, making you wonder if any of this is particularly helpful to the man he sent to negotiate. Vance has spent recent weeks performing a careful balancing act, defending an administration he reportedly had private reservations about going to war in the first place, while projecting enough toughness to keep Trump’s base satisfied. The effective disruption of nearly 30% of the world’s oil is hitting markets everywhere. The U.S. military has not been able to effectively impede Iran from launching ballistic missiles or suicide drones at targets in the Gulf and Israel. And despite Trump’s alternating threats and entreaties with NATO, there is still no way to open the Strait of Hormuz without making an even bigger mess of things. From where Donald is standing, though, everything is peachy, and you’re fake news if you say otherwise.