Jake Broe: I Watched Your Video — And Sadly, Trump Is Worse Than You Think
- john raymond
- Jun 24
- 4 min read
Dear Jake Broe,
Your analysis is one of the better attempts to make sense of Trump’s attacks on Iran in the wake of Israel’s escalation.
You seem to grasps that Trump is not operating as a sovereign actor pursuing U.S. interests. But you also intuit that Ukraine is becoming a bargaining chip....
Yet your framing is still too generous.
The truth is NOT that Trump is using Ukraine to gain leverage over Iran—it’s that he is undermining both in service to Vladimir Putin. His actions are not strategic; they are subservient.
Jake, this is because the reality is darker, and more dangerous than you concluded in your video.
After Operation Spiderweb—a devastating Ukrainian drone strike against Russia’s strategic bomber fleet—Putin’s aura of invincibility cracked.
Israeli strikes on Iran followed shortly thereafter, destabilizing the regional alignment that had long favored Russia.
Trump, freshly humiliated on the international stage for his weak leadership and domestically boxed in by mounting political pressure, now needs to reassert control over Israel.
But more importantly, Putin needs him to do so.
Their so-called “good conversation,” the one between Trump and Putin which followed Operation Spiderweb, was not a coincidence—it was a war council.
The two men gamed out a strategy to reframe global attention if and when Isreal attacked Iran.
Their solution was twofold: first, Trump was to perform limited, symbolic strikes on Iran in coordination with Israel; second, they would use those strikes to fracture NATO consensus, distract the media and electorate from Ukraine, and buy time for Putin to regroup.
Trump’s actions are not those of a peace-seeking president. They are the actions of a man trying to project control over geopolitical narratives slipping from his and Putin's grasp.
Trump swore at Israel and Iran today, but only because both are becoming harder for him and Putin to control.
We must understand that Netanyahu’s unilateral decision to strike Iran without Russian blessing was a breach in the "Axis of Autocrats."
Likewise, Trump’s entry into the fray is not about fully stopping Israel—it is about retaking the stage and preserving the illusion that Trump is still a dominant actor.
In doing so, Trump must at least pretend to be a broker of peace while ensuring no Western-styled peace is possible. He and Putin need controlled chaos, not resolution.
Jake, you claim that Trump will trade Ukraine for Iran, but that presupposes Trump is an autonomous operator making strategic trades.
That framework, however, fails to account for the asymmetric structure of Trump’s foreign posture. Trump does not own his own strategy—Putin does.
Trump’s job is to protect Russian proxies where needed, attack them when useful, and above all else, maintain the illusion of American initiative while still advancing Kremlin goals.
When Netanyahu attacked Iran, Trump had to follow—not to punish Iran, but to preserve Putin’s leverage, and with luck rupture NATO unity.
This also explains why Trump’s strikes were so carefully targeted—unmanned nuclear facilities, and minimal loss of life.
The goal wasn’t to cripple Iran but to signal alignment with Israel while limiting the destruction to Tehran.
Why?
Because Putin does not want Iran destroyed.
Putin wants wants Iran constrained—angry, defiant, capable of stirring chaos in the region, and intact enough to serve him as a strategic asset in his own war against Ukraine.
Trump’s “restraint” isn’t wisdom; it’s obedience.
And so, we must see that Trump’s temper tantrums about the Iran ceasefire are not contradictions—they are signals.
His tantrums reveal that his true frustration lies in the difficulty of managing the narrative and holding together the fragile alliance of autocrats.
Firstly, Israel acted too soon and out of turn. And now Iran is also not playing along.
And so what about the good guys?
NATO leadership is watching warily, too afraid to break with Trump for the damage it might do to the alliance.
And Ukraine? Through new "Spiderwebs" and relentless resistance, they keep winning headlines and sympathy.
And so the truth is the script for Trump and Putin is partially working, but also partially unraveling.
For now, Trump and Putin both want the spotlight on Iran.
This is why Trump screams about ceasefires and strikes simultaneously.
It’s all about power—specifically, his power to act as the middleman between Israel and Iran, to be the bottleneck of diplomacy.
That power gives him leverage over NATO. And in the chaos of the moment, it gives Putin two things he desperately wants: time and a brain-damaged NATO alliance that is too afraid to act against him.
So Jake, you are right to raise the alarm. But don't stops short of calling it what it is. This is not American foreign policy gone awry.
What we are seeing is a hostile operation playing out in real time. So make no mistake, Trump will not turn on Putin.
That means, we must absolutely accept that the President is not a flawed statesman but an obedient agent of a foreign autocrat.
We accept that or we will keep misreading the game being played—and continue to lose it.
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