It’s a bad day to be a ketchup bottle in the White House. Or a staffer between Trump and the walls when he starts throwing them. It’s bound to happen (probably already is) because onetime Trump ally but these days blunt sometime critic Chris Christy went on camera and said Iran is about to make Trump into the last person he would want to be – former President Jimmy Carter.
For those of you too young to remember or who don’t know enough of the history between Iran and the United States here’s a refresher. Bear with me because knowing (or re-remembering) it is important. In 1953 the U.S. helped the United Kingdom remove the leader of Iran who’d nationalized the country’s British owned oil industry. They installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, more infamously known as the Shah of Iran who’d fled the country with his father (the former ruler) due to WWII. Pahlavi was friendly to us and other western countries but also ruthless. His western ways didn’t go over well with much of Iran and his brutal enforcers, the SAVAK were hated and for good reason. The fact the agency was formed and trained by our CIA didn’t exactly improve Iranian’s view of the U.S.
All people eventually die, usually as we get older. In the Shah’s case he developed serious health issues and wanted treatment in the United States. Carter allowed him to travel to New York city for said treatment, at a time when it was already clear the Iranian people were in an uprising with the Ayatollah Khomeini as its leader. Khomeini swept to power in a case of ‘be careful what you wish for.’ The bulk of Iranians hoped for a Democracy rather than the Theocracy they got. But in those early days anger at the U.S. boiled over and our embassy in Tehran was overrun and Americans were taken as hostage. The crisis and how he managed it (I love Carter but he could have handled the whole thing with Iran better) is widely believed to have doomed his Presidency.
With that as a warmup let’s take a look at the current state of affairs. While Carter might have made different choices like cutting our support for the Shah’s continued rule, or not allowed him to come to New York for medical treatment things might not have gotten out of hand. Then the hostage crisis which lasted over a year partially paralyzed the Carter administration. Carter was in something of a no-win situation – the only options he had were bad ones and he was going to take a hit politically at home no matter what he did.
For me, and apparently for Christie too the whole thing evokes eerie comparisons. Or ‘deja vu all over again.’ Carter inherited a difficult situation with the decades of support our country provided the Shah. Add in the two OPEC oil embargos and the chaos of a change in leadership in Iran on top of already rampant inflation (ah, gas prices!) and he had little choice but to try and muddle through. Trump on the other hand has created his current ‘no win’ scenario all by himself.
TRUMP started a war with Iran. It was unnecessary and downright stupid and reams have been written about how he came to choose to start the mess he’s mire in. So Trump is facing what for him is an impossible choice. He can either keep the war going and incur even more wrath from Americans (including a lot of MAGAs) and most of the rest of the world. Or he can take an off-ramp in the form of not just agreeing to a nuclear deal similar to the one crafted by Obama’s administration but tore up at the beginning of his first term. AND agree to allow either reparations to be paid to Iran or for it to be able to charge tolls to use the Strait of Hormuz.
That second option would mean Trump would find himself being called a loser. Someone who picked a fight he should have known he couldn’t win, degraded U.S. power, and INCREASED Iran’s power on the world stage. That folks is a humiliation Trump simply can’t abide. So as he sees it his only real option to to keep the current war going and hope some miracle materializes to get him off the hook. Fat chance but that’s all he’s got. Part of Trump knows, or at least greatly fears he’s screwed. Worse, he did it to himself and is looking down the barrel of an electoral whupping just like Carter and Democrats got in 1980.
That’s why Chris Christie says Trump is about to become Carter as this article from Mediaite explains:
“Look, the real problem here is it was an adventure without a plan. And now, you know, I was struck this week when the Iranians put out their list of demands to reopen the strait — reparations, etc. What struck me was that Donald Trump is about to become what he never, ever wanted to be: Jimmy Carter,” Christie insisted, adding:
He is being held hostage by Iran. They are holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage. As a result, they’re holding the world economy hostage. And it’s focused at Donald Trump. And I know from talking to him over the last 24 years, the one person he would never want to be is Jimmy Carter. Talk to him about Jimmy Carter, too. And so here we are. And it was all voluntary.
Yikes! Christie even put out a tweet saying Trump “is about to become what he never wanted to be: Jimmy Carter. Held hostage by Iran. And it was all voluntary.” See for yourself:
Donald Trump is about to become what he never wanted to be: Jimmy Carter. Held hostage by Iran. And it was all voluntary. pic.twitter.com/hFrziwc8Ch
— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) August 9, 2026
Meanwhile Trump’s approval which is already low keeps dropping. Americans are fed up with the war and can see for themselves the higher gas prices and other higher costs. Much as conservatives have worked over the decades to dumb down the public even MAGA goobers know that gas/diesel prices affect things way beyond what they pay at the pump. Trump thought he’d built a trap. For Iran. But it turned out he built the damned thing around himself!
That’s why Christie is looking at things both now and fifty years ago and saying Trump is about to become Jimmy Carter. There’s a mess with Iran. Carter inherited said mess and made it worse. Trump inherited a difficult but at least then managed one and made it worse. Prices are high and won’t be going down before the election even if the war ends tomorrow.
As the headline of the linked article says Christie has hit Trump where it REALLY hurts – comparing him (or at least his situation) to Jimmy Carter. At least Carter did a lot of good that’s only recently been getting him the respect he earned. Trump has nothing but tax cuts for the rich and personal grifting to point to. And his vanity projects which are his way of covering all that up. I take no pleasure in admitting Carter was boxed in with an Iran mess, but Christie is spot on is saying that like Carter, TRUMP is being held hostage by Iran.
Here’s the thing. Carter was for too long deemed to have been a feckless President. Trump will wind up being judged that way starting a short time after he’s gone from office. The difference is that while history had finally begun to generate a more positive view of Carter, it will with Trump rate him increasingly harshly with each new generation’s assessment of what Trump has put us and the world through.
In many respects it would be an honor to be compared to President Jimmy Carter. Not this one however. And hearing that’s his fate will engage Trump to a point where not even “Doctor” Ronnie Jackson has enough goodies in his little black bag to calm Trumpty down.
