Marc Thiessen is a former George W. Bush speechwriter, a Washington Post columnist, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
On Wednesday, he published an op-ed suggesting that if Iran’s negotiating faction refuses to accept Trump’s terms, the United States should kill them.
That endorsement of killing diplomats for rejecting terms was enough for a decorated military whistleblower to reach for a Hitler comparison before lunch the next day.
Thiessen’s Washington Post column argued that Trump should “carry out a final barrage of leadership strikes, eliminating the Iranian officials who had been spared for the purpose of negotiations,” adding that “Iran’s leaders must be made to understand that their lives literally depend on reaching a negotiated settlement to Trump’s liking. If they refuse to do so, they will be killed.”
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Trump shared the piece on Truth Social and followed it with a second post endorsing the idea as “Very True!!!” The exclamation marks were his.
The remarks prompted a formal response from Daniel Davis, a former Army lieutenant colonel known for exposing falsified progress reports during the Afghanistan war.
“This is the most vile, wicked, and unAmerican behavior I’ve seen in my adult lifetime,” Davis wrote. “This is a profound absence of morality, gross violation of any laws that have ever existed, and puts us on the same mental plane as some of the early followers of Adolf Hitler.”
Davis was careful to note he was not exaggerating. He pointed out that even “vile Hitler” did not seek to kill negotiators from other countries. The bar being cited is Adolf Hitler. Trump cleared it, according to Davis, by endorsing an op-ed in the Washington Post on a Thursday morning.
The broader warning Davis issued went beyond the immediate question of Iranian diplomats. “And if you think this kill-them-all mentality will be limited to Iranian negotiators, you are fooling yourself,” he wrote.
“Once a leader has so dehumanized his opponents that you can callously call for them to be murdered for the ‘crime’ of not agreeing to your terms, there will be no lower inhibition to killing larger and larger numbers of people who don’t submit.”
Davis also rejected any attempt to separate Thiessen’s argument from Trump’s endorsement.
Trump’s “Very True!!!” response, he argued, placed the president directly on record.
“It is time to stand up for whatever is left of our morality and categorically declare that this is beyond the pale and condemn both Thiessen and the president for sharing such reprehensible views.”
This is the most vile, wicked, and unAmerican behavior I’ve seen in my adult lifetime. This is a profound absence of morality, gross violation of any laws that have ever existed, and puts us on the same mental plane as some of the early followers of Adolf Hitler.
You think… pic.twitter.com/wQNqXhbuFQ
— Daniel Davis Deep Dive (@DanielLDavis1) April 23, 2026
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman also weighed in, calling the Thiessen op-ed “incitement to violence” and “state terrorism,” while questioning how Washington could accuse Iran of bad-faith negotiations while openly discussing the targeted killing of its diplomats.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
