White House immediately mocked for praising Trump’s ‘brilliant’ move: ‘Certainly is not!’

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a glowing report Monday about President Donald Trump’s decision to enact a U.S. Navy blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which called the decision “brilliant” – and immediately drew widespread ridicule from critics.

“President Trump brilliantly calls Iran’s bluff – with his own Strait of Hormuz blockade,” Leavitt wrote in a social media post on X, sharing the headline from a New York Post report.

The Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping channel through which 20% of the world’s oil trade flows, has remained closed to U.S.-aligned vessels since late February, when the United States launched a large-scale attack on Iran. Trump has grown frustrated with Iran’s refusal to reopen the strait to U.S.-aligned vessels, demanding Tehran “open the f----- strait” last week.

After peace talks between Washington and Tehran failed to produce results on Saturday, Trump announced that the United States would be enacting its own blockade of the strait, a decision that was described as “brilliant” by Leavitt and the Post, but perplexed onlookers.

“Your definition of 'brilliant' certainly isn't brilliant,” wrote liberal influencer Brian Krassenstein in a social media post on X to nearly 1 million followers.

“Open the strait or I will block the strait isn’t a genius move,” wrote X user “Lucifer,” a frequent political commentator and Trump critic who’s amassed nearly 73,000 followers.

Trump’s decision to respond to a partial blockade of the Strait of Hormuz with his own blockade has baffled experts as well, including Karen Young, a senior scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, who told CNN on Sunday that Trump’s blockade would only exacerbate the increasing scarcity of oil.