On Sunday, June 21, 2026, while Vice President JD Vance was in Switzerland working to negotiate a peace agreement with Iran, President Donald Trump appeared on Fox News and directed a profanity-laced threat at the Iranian diplomatic delegation sitting across the table from his own vice president — breaking what one former diplomat called a taboo that dates back thousands of years.
After an initial round of talks on Sunday, Vance struck a notably optimistic tone with reporters, saying, “We are looking to transform, fundamentally, the relationship with Iran.” The statement drew praise from analysts and seemed to signal that the two sides were edging toward a framework. That momentum collapsed almost immediately.
Trump’s Threat Stuns Diplomatic World
With those negotiations still underway in Switzerland, Trump warned the Iranian envoys directly against keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed. The threat, delivered on live television, was unambiguous and vulgar: “You close it, and you won’t have a country. You won’t even make it back to your **** country.” The Iranian negotiators walked out of the talks in protest.
Richard Stengel, who served as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs in the Obama administration, told MS NOW host Ayman Mohyeldin that what Trump had done was not merely reckless — it broke a rule no leader had dared cross. Stengel said diplomacy has maintained one inviolable principle since ancient Greece: envoys must never be threatened, regardless of how deep the opposition runs.
Stengel said that Trump’s actions went beyond violating an ancient diplomatic principle. According to Stengel, the president had also broken a Memorandum of Understanding he had signed days earlier, which committed both parties to avoiding threats of force — a line Trump had now crossed multiple times.
An Earlier Easter Escalation
The June incident was not the first time Trump had used inflammatory language against Iran. On Easter Sunday in April, the president posted a string of messages on Truth Social demanding that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 20% of global oil and gas shipments pass — using language that raised eyebrows even among supporters. In one post, he wrote, “Open the **** Strait, you crazy ****, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH!” He followed another threatening message with the phrase “Praise be to Allah,” apparently sardonically, after having ended a post the previous day with “Glory be to GOD!”
The Easter Sunday posts drew swift condemnation from Democratic leaders. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on X that the president was “ranting like an unhinged madman on social media,” threatening what Schumer called possible war crimes while alienating allies. “Our country deserves so much better,” Schumer wrote.
Strikes and Civilian Fear Across Iran
The verbal escalation in April played out against a backdrop of intensifying military action. On Tuesday, the United States and Israel stepped up strikes across Iran, targeting military infrastructure on Kharg Island — the country’s main oil export terminal — as well as eight railway bridges. Iran said its oil facilities were not disrupted. Israeli fighter jets also struck railway tracks and bridges; a railway bridge in the central city of Kashan was hit, killing two people. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded by launching additional ballistic missiles toward Israel, while also claiming strikes on a vessel in the Gulf and a Saudi petrochemical facility. The scale of the assault prompted Iranian authorities to urge citizens to form human chains near sites they believed could be targeted by the United States or Israel. A synagogue in Tehran was destroyed in a separate strike that Israel said targeted an Iranian military commander. Strikes were also reported in Karaj and in Alborz province.
Trump had separately posted an apocalyptic warning on Truth Social, writing that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” He set a midnight GMT deadline for Iran to reach a deal or face the destruction of every bridge and power plant in the country — a campaign he said his military could complete within four hours. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said he was deeply troubled by language suggesting civilian populations would bear the cost of political decisions. Pope Leo XIV called such threats unacceptable.
Pakistan Urges Two-Week Extension
As the deadline approached, regional mediator Pakistan stepped in with a proposal to buy more time. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called on Trump to extend the deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to continue, and separately urged Iran’s leadership to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for the same period as a goodwill gesture. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the president had been made aware of the proposal and that a response would come.
The situation left analysts questioning whether meaningful diplomacy remained possible when the administration’s own president was publicly threatening the very envoys his vice president was trying to negotiate with. Stengel, drawing on his experience at the State Department, put the contradiction plainly: Trump had broken a rule that had held from ancient Athens to the present.