As President Donald Trump swung back and forth between threatening civilizational destruction of Iran and declaring a ceasefire, where have congressional Republicans been?

“The speaker of the House was tweeting about transgender athletes,” reports The New York Times. “The Republican senator who leads oversight of the Pentagon was promoting Trump-branded investment accounts for children. The chairman of the main foreign affairs panel in the House was posting photos of newborn bald eagles.”

“No better sight than America’s mascot hatching, a powerful reminder of the spirit and strength of our great country,” declared U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL).

Congress, which has been “vested with the power to declare war and regulate trade — remained in recess and largely in the dark,” The Times noted.

Republicans’ “relative silence also helped them avoid wading into what has become a messy intraparty debate over the war, as elements on the right criticize the president for plunging the United States into what could be a prolonged and costly conflict.”

The Trump administration has provided no official briefings to Congress.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) “said he supported pursuing diplomacy but emphasized the need for congressional scrutiny of any peace agreement” — and pointed to Vice President JD Vance.

“I look forward to the architects of this proposal, the Vice President and others, coming forward to Congress and explaining how a negotiated deal meets our national security objectives in Iran,” Graham said. In another post, he added, “I prefer diplomacy if it leads to the right outcome regarding the Iranian terrorist regime.”

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) handed off responsibility to the president.

“At this point in time, I’ve got to hope and pray that the commander in chief the American people chose — we put him in charge of this — that he’ll make wise decisions,” he said in an interview.

U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), who had been posting about Trump-branded investment accounts, responded to Trump’s threat to wipe Iran off the map.

“Iran has been the worst actor on the world stage when it comes to state-sponsored terrorism that the world has ever seen,” Wicker said. “I am glad that they are about to be off the scene.”

Image via Reuters

President Donald Trump, not Iran, is the one who was “begging” for a ceasefire, and had been for weeks before he announced a “double sided” end to hostilities late Tuesday evening, according to The New Republic, citing a report in the Financial Times.

That report reveals that “the Trump administration had been privately pushing for a ceasefire for weeks to alleviate the economic strain caused by Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, and depending on Pakistan for mediation.”

Citing five people familiar with a diplomatic back channel to Pakistan, which had been negotiating for peace between Iran and the U.S., Trump had been asking for a ceasefire since March 21, 22 days after he began the war.

“This contradicts virtually everything the Trump administration has claimed about Iran—that Trump’s constant bombings and threats of extinction caused a wounded, demoralized Iranian regime to limp to the negotiating table, desperate for a deal with the U.S.,” The New Republic reported.

“And just so we set the record straight,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting two weeks ago, “because I’ve been watching the Wall Street Journal’s fake news, and all these stories that get printed like, ‘Oh, I want to make a deal.’ They are begging to make a deal, not me.”

Trump went on to call Iran “lousy fighters” but “great negotiators” who “are begging to work out a deal.”

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that,” he continued. “I don’t know if we’re willing to do that.”

Image via Reuters 

Should the ceasefire in President Donald Trump’s war in Iran hold, America “will have suffered a significant strategic defeat and Iran will have won a significant strategic victory,” says The Bulwark‘s Jonathan V. Last, who predicts what Trump’s Republican supporters will be saying in the coming days.

“You have to be clear-eyed enough to recognize that Trump’s surrender may be a s —— sandwich we can afford to eat—but that Trump is the one who marched the country into the diner in the first place,” he writes.

Last notes that before Trump’s war, Iran was facing significant sanctions, the Strait of Hormuz was a free thoroughfare governed by international law, and Iran had “a fourth-rate navy and a fifth-rate air force.”

After the war, should the terms hold, Iran will face diminished sanctions or a removal of them, Iran will have “permission to enrich uranium” and the ability to control and monetize the Strait of Hormuz, although its navy and air force will “have been (temporarily) neutralized.”

READ MORE: ‘Mad King Donald’: Conservative Kristol Urges Push for Trump Impeachment

He says that Iran’s power and influence will grow, and America’s influence will wane. “We should expect ties between Iran and China to strengthen as the Iranians become a more consequential partner for the Chinese.”

“Iran will probably get a nuclear weapon eventually,” Last warns.

And he predicts what MAGA will be saying by Saturday:

“Can you believe all the pearl-clutching over ‘war crimes’ and ‘genocide’? Trump didn’t do it, so there’s nothing wrong with threatening it. In fact, that threat probably got the peace deal done. So threatening genocide is good, actually.”

“Look at gas prices—they’re already falling! Oil is down to $93/barrel. Have you even said ‘Thank you?'”

“The economy may not be great, but it’s already recovering! All those people who said the war would wreck the American economy were wrong!”

Last calls this a “pattern.”

“If the absolute, worst-case scenario doesn’t happen, then his supporters argue that the current very-bad scenario is actually pretty great,” he writes.

After Trump rescinded what some critics have called his threat of genocide, social media influencer Matt Van Swol, who has over 490,000 followers on X, wrote on Tuesday evening:

“The most predictable script in American politics: >Trump does something strong >Democrats and the media freak out >Everything Trump did works >Everyone moves on >No one gives him credit.”

“Every. Single. Time.”

READ MORE: Trump Administration Wants Protected Health Records of Federal Workers

Image via Reuters