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There comes a point where partisan blinders stop being political strategy and start looking like something far more troubling. Senator Chris Van Hollen hit that point Monday when he appeared on CNN and was asked a simple question: who do you believe — Iranian state media or President Trump?
He wouldn’t answer.
What Van Hollen would do, repeatedly and without hesitation, was call the president of the United States a liar. When CNN’s Kasie Hunt pressed him on whether he trusted Tehran’s denial of diplomatic talks over Trump’s confirmation that “very good” discussions were underway, the Maryland Democrat deflected. He pivoted immediately to attacking Trump’s credibility, claiming the president has been “lying to the American people from the start.”
Let’s sit with that for a moment. A sitting U.S. senator, when asked to choose between believing the mullahs in Tehran or the American president, chose to attack the American president instead. He wouldn’t vouch for Iranian officials — smart move, given their track record of hostage-taking, terrorism sponsorship, and chanting “death to America” at parliamentary sessions — but he also wouldn’t acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, the commander-in-chief has access to intelligence that a cable news viewer doesn’t.
This is the state of Democratic leadership in 2026. The same party that spent years warning about foreign interference in our elections now finds itself implicitly siding with a regime that executes protesters and funds proxy wars across the Middle East. Not because they have evidence Trump is wrong, but because they can’t stand the possibility that he might be right about something.
The context here matters. Trump had just announced a five-day pause on planned strikes against Iranian targets, citing diplomatic progress that could lead to a broader nuclear framework. Iranian state media immediately denied any talks were happening — standard operating procedure for a regime that maintains plausible deniability the way other governments maintain embassies. The president’s claim was measured, specific, and consistent with back-channel diplomacy that has preceded every major Middle East breakthrough in modern history.
But Van Hollen didn’t want to talk about that. He wanted to talk about how Trump is a liar. It’s the same tired playbook we’ve seen for years: when you can’t win on policy, attack character. When you can’t dispute facts, question motives. And when you’re asked to choose between America and her enemies, find a way to choose neither while sounding self-righteous about it.
Here’s what Van Hollen and his colleagues don’t seem to understand. The American people are watching. They see a president who moved the embassy to Jerusalem, brokered the Abraham Accords, and is now trying to prevent another endless war in the Middle East through strategic pressure and diplomatic openings. They also see a Democratic senator who can’t bring himself to say he trusts his own president more than a regime that took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
There’s a word for that, and it isn’t leadership.
What do you think — is this reflexive anti-Trump posture making Democrats look weak on national security? Sound off below.
Providence watches over the bold.
via Fox News
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