It's the media buzz meter with Howard Kurtz.

I have been telling anyone who would listen.

For weeks now that Donald Trump was not going to carry out his increasingly bellicose threats

to bomb Iran back to the Stone Ages. He didn't want to do it. He was boxed into a corner

by his own actions. There was starting to be a serious revolt among certainly some of his former

allies in conservative media and some Republican lawmakers as he stepped up the rhetoric.

I mean, even yesterday morning, and remember the deadline was to be 8 o'clock Eastern last night,

yesterday morning when he said that he was going to end Iraq's civilization, and it would never

recover. Well, first of all, I don't think the president

wanted to kill that many people. Second of all, even though he can act very impulsively,

do you think he wanted to go down in history as the man who destroyed Iraq's civilization. So as all the

hyperventilating was going on all day, TV online yesterday, what I was saying was, well, he needs

an off-ramp, but he can't be seen as backing down on these threats.

And so the only logical conclusion would be delay, which would not exactly be shocking because

there's been three or four delays so far in what the president has threatened to do.

And that is exactly what happened.

Now, I don't say all this, you know, to pat myself on the back, it's just I've known the guy

for 35 years.

I know he makes a lot of threats.

We saw some of this in the tariff war.

We're, you know, starting tomorrow, 100% tariffs, and then suddenly, oh, okay, I'm putting on this hold for a week,

and then some deal would be worked out. So you could say that, I mean, critics would call it erratic,

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