Or: The Art of the Nuclear Deal
April 11, 2025
Filed by the Ghost of HST
Trump didn’t trust diplomats, so he sent a real estate developer to end a nuclear standoff. This is not satire. Yet.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal interview, Steve Witkoff — longtime Trump crony and property mogul — played a quiet but active role in Iran nuclear negotiations during Trump’s presidency. His qualifications? He once helped flip the Fontainebleau in Miami and has very strong opinions about Persian rugs. If that doesn’t scream “geopolitical envoy,” maybe the fact that he negotiated free parking at the Wynn will seal the deal.
This wasn’t diplomacy. It was a timeshare pitch to Tehran. The only thing missing was a comped steak dinner and a model unit overlooking the ruins of the JCPOA.
They called it “The Art of the Nuclear Deal.” But what it looked like was “The Apprentice: Ayatollah Edition.” Each round of talks ended with someone getting sanctioned and a round of Diet Cokes. Sources familiar with the delegation described it as “two guys named Steve, a dog-eared copy of The Art of the Deal, and several renderings of beachfront towers in post-revolutionary Qom.”
From Mar-a-Lago to Mashhad, the man built golf condos and somehow ended up talking centrifuges with the Ayatollah. This is the same man who priced luxury condos in Midtown at pre-recession highs while the scaffolding was still up. In Trump’s mind, if you can sell a penthouse to a Russian oligarch, you can negotiate with anyone — even a regime that considers Netflix satanic.
Of course, this wasn’t an isolated blip. Trump’s idea of a master deal goes something like this: promise the moon, ignore the paperwork, default on the bill, and declare it a tremendous success.
Ask the people of Atlantic City.
Ask the rotting skeleton of the Trump Taj Mahal, which was finally demolished and turned into a gravel parking lot — a literal monument to overleveraged hubris. (News coverage here.)
Filed from a Reno craps table where the dice are made of uranium and everyone is turning orange.
Watch the demolition of the Trump Taj Mahal — Jon Stewart, The Daily Show (2025).
It’s not a metaphor. It’s a blueprint.
Also worth revisiting: Trump’s Hall of Deal Shame, available in nearly every collapsed venture he ever touched. Among the greatest hits:
- Trump University: $25 million settlement for fraud.
- Trump Vodka: No taste, no market, no survivors.
- Trump Airlines: Crashed financially, not physically.
- Trump Steaks: Sold through The Sharper Image. Enough said.
- Trump Mortgage: Launched as the housing bubble popped.
- Trump Magazine: Published for people who didn’t read.
And now we’re back in Trump’s third term (in effect, if not by number), where the Iran file is dusted off, tariffs are cranked up like stadium rock, and China’s Xi Jinping is sharpening the knife he’s been using since 2016 — slowly, methodically, and with the calm of someone who knows Trump’s every move before he makes it.
MAGA’s idea of foreign policy isn’t “peace through strength.” It’s “leverage through proximity to guys named Steve.”
Steve Witkoff didn’t bring peace to the Middle East. But he might’ve pitched a nuclear sunset suite in Isfahan if he’d had another round of Diet Cokes. Meanwhile, Trump is still trying to sell the American public a narrative that only exists in PowerPoint decks and red hats.
In the end, the only truly accurate metaphor for this chapter of U.S. diplomacy is what’s left of the Trump Taj Mahal.
Filed from a shuttered Atlantic City casino where the dice are made of uranium and everyone is turning orange.
