Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter . At 6:23am on Monday, March 23, at which point the United States and Israel had been at war with Iran for nearly a month, Donald Trump posted an all-caps missive on Truth Social. “I AM PLEASED TO REPORT,” he wrote, that over the weekend the countries had engaged in “VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS” about a “COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES.” Iranian officials denied any talks had taken place. Even so, when US markets opened a couple of hours later, the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all jumped, and global oil prices fell from more than 112 dollars a barrel to less than a hundred. Trump’s post—on the platform owned by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), of which Trump is the largest shareholder, with a stake worth 1.1 billion dollars, via a trust controlled by his oldest son—was disseminated by the news media, and seemed to achieve its aim.…