ABC, the most consistently Trump-deranged among the major commercial broadcast networks, laid out a particularly bad-faith frame of the military operation in Iran ahead of an interview with Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Sunday’s edition of This Week. Rather than informing viewers, the pre-interview segment seemed intent on terrifying viewers about the prospects of the war.
Watch as ABC Senior Political correspondent Rachel Scott framed her Iran (and a little bit of Ukraine) roundup with the ominous “no end in sight:”
POISON FRAME: Watch as ABC's Rachel Scott begins and ends her Iran wrapup with "no end in sight", no mention of the bump in tanker traffic or Hezbollah's catastrophic (for Iran) loss of the Ali al-Taher ridge in Southern Lebanon.
RACHEL SCOTT: Into the Iran war’s seventh month… pic.twitter.com/VQXqgIFesh— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) September 6, 2026
RACHEL SCOTT: Into the Iran war’s seventh month with no end in sight, President Trump declaring this week the conflict is, quote: “small potatoes”. Can you explain to the American people if this is not a war, what exactly is it?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I'll tell you what. A lot of people don't call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it's- it's small potatoes for us. It's not a big thing.
SCOTT: But 18 U.S. Service members have died. Nearly 800 have been wounded in a conflict the president said would only last four to six weeks. It certainly doesn't feel like small potatoes. 18 service members have died. We're seeing record long deployments. You initially said this would not last long...
TRUMP: Record long -- why is it record long? So --
SCOTT: Well, the 82nd Airborne is now being extended to a year.
TRUMP: How long are we in Vietnam? How long were we in Vietnam?
SCOTT: We’re seeing record --
TRUMP: No, no, how long were we in Vietnam?
SCOTT: The USS Abraham Lincoln was out for more than 250 days at sea.
TRUMP: We’re in five months now.
SCOTT: The president making those comments as he defended Vice President JD Vance, who earlier in the week claimed it was not a war.
JD VANCE: I wouldn’t call it a war. Right now there is no active shooting.
SCOTT: This week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick issued an apology after he says he misspoke when he forgot those 18 Americans who have died.
HOWARD LUTNICK: I think the way the president is playing Iran, right, there’s not -- there haven’t been American deaths. It’s really just an economic choke out, which the administration is now executing more broadly.
SCOTT (voice over): Lutnick later saying he was thinking about the operation in Venezuela.
But by Saturday morning, the two sides trading attacks again. U.S. forces striking three Iranian crude oil carriers responding to Iran launching ballistic missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships.
CENTCOM Commander Brad Cooper saying in a statement, “if you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost, taking out three of yours.”
Meanwhile, President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner in Moscow yesterday, pushing for an end to the war in Ukraine. A White House official tells ABC News the two discussed substantive plans for the next steps and a plan for peace. The pair arriving in Ukraine this morning to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It comes as Vladimir Putin has increased his assault on Kyiv, striking the Ukrainian capital at a level not seen since the earliest days of the war.
Ukraine ramping up their own attacks, hammering Russian energy infrastructure and striking deeper into Russian territory.
SCOTT BESSENT: We are going through an energy shock right now due to both the war in Ukraine, because, you know, Ukraine has decided that they want to blow up Russian energy assets and refined products. So, that is creating upward price pressure on a global basis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCOTT (on camera): So, Martha, back to the war with Iran. Clearly, the larger problem for the Trump administration is the backup in the Strait of Hormuz. This war has no end in sight, and the conflict is driving up gas prices, Martha.
MARTHA RADDATZ: Thanks, Rachel.
The roundup was scant on any serious reporting beyond rounding up all of the quotes from within the administration that could be framed as incendiary and then responding to them. In effect, Scott gave viewers just under three minutes of Democrat rapid response to these various quotes.
There was Scott’s response to her own exchange with President Donald Trump and his "small potatoes” quote, and her response to Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s misspeak on casualties. After a recap of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, Scott went back and closed on Iran, citing “the backup in the Strait of Hormuz” and the fearmongering “no end in sight.” Scott only got there because she omitted some critical developments.
Prior to this week’s renewed hostilities, oil was flowing out of the Persian Gulf at levels not seen since the start of the military operation. Per Gulf News:
Something extraordinary is happening in the Strait of Hormuz.
Tankers carrying millions of barrels of Gulf crude are effectively disappearing from public view as they approach the world’s most important oil chokepoint — only to reappear hours later on the other side.
They are not missing. They are deliberately going “dark”.
About 80 per cent of traffic through Hormuz over the past two weeks has been operating this way, according to shipping analytics firm Kpler. Tankers are switching off their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders and travelling close to Oman, as far from Iran as possible.
Behind many of these journeys is the US military, which is helping protect vessels moving through a southern corridor of the strait.
Vessel traffic was anywhere from a third to 70% of prewar outflows, depending on who you ask. This went largely unreported in the Elitist Media, which sought to peddle the “no end in sight” narrative for domestic political consumption.
Additionally, Israel claims to have cleared the Ali al-Taher ridge in Southern Lebanon: a strategic catastrophe for Iran’s mullahs. Per Reuters:
Israel's military has cleared Hezbollah fighters holed up in tunnels under the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday, though the Iran-backed group did not immediately comment.
Israel had said Hezbollah fighters were embedded in tunnels under the ridge, which overlooks a wide area and had become one of the most hotly contested areas in the Israel-Hezbollah war, despite a ceasefire announced in June.
The ridge was one of Iran’s self-professed red lines, due to their massive investment in recreating one of their own underground complexes for their most powerful proxy. Gone is the mullahs’ ability to project power beyond Iran’s borders. But you never heard about this on the evening news or on the Elitist Media’s Sunday shows.
These were critical developments that should’ve gone reported well before today. But, as Rachel Scott demonstrates, Trump Derangement is the order of the day- facts be damned.
