… and that the Iranian leaders are “scum.”

But note the qualifiers such as “I think”:

There may be somewhat of a distinction between the people they’ve been talking to and the people in charge of decisions to attack, although Trump doesn’t say that in those remarks. But many of us have speculated that those two groups are not quite the same.

Trump also leaves some wiggle room for negotiations to continue. In other words, we still don’t know where this will go. Trump is highly motivated to keep oil prices down before the midterms, and the Iranians know it. That’s a huge factor in all of this. Note, also, that he’s not threatening to bomb them into the Stone Age (or even the Bronze Age).