Trump Deploys His Favorite Deadline: 'Two Weeks'

When President Trump informed the world on Thursday that he would make his decision on whether to bomb Iran within two weeks, it was a familiar tactic. "As almost everyone in Washington is by now aware, 'two weeks' is one of Mr. Trump's favorite units of time," writes Andrew Shawn McCreesh in the New York Times. Earlier this year, when asked about whether Vladimir Putin could be trusted, Trump responded, "I'll let you know in about two weeks." The trend actually goes back to his first administration, notes Stephen Collinson in a CNN analysis. "Trump has often imposed two-week action deadlines on himself on thorny issues—including infrastructure, trade deals and Russia sanctions."

Sometimes, the two-week deadlines result in action, sometimes not. But either way, they buy the president time. "It is a slippery thing, this two weeks—not a measurement of time so much as a placeholder," writes McCreesh. "It simply means later. But later can also mean never. Sometimes." The Washington Post notes that the deadline already is factoring into possible diplomacy. "A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution," British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Thursday night in Washington. On Friday, European foreign ministers were meeting with Iran's foreign minister, "with White House officials watching the Geneva talks for signals of Tehran's openness to a deal." (More President Trump stories.)