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A frantic President Donald Trump insisted Wednesday that the U.S. maintains control of the Strait of Hormuz even as transit hit record record lows and peace talks stalled, reports show.

“The U.S.A. has total control over the Strait of Hormuz," wrote Trump on Truth Social. "I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, ‘A WALL OF STEEL,’ and there is nothing Iran can do about it."

This boast arrived as problems mount in ceasefire talks with Iran, multiple reports show.

"Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict and fully re-open the strait have continued to stall," Al Jazeera reported. "Iran has continued to assert its influence over the strait as it has pursued talks with Oman on future management. Wider peace talks with the US have been largely paused amid the Iran-Oman talks, which do not include Washington."

What's more, multiple news outlets report just eight vessels passed through the strait this week, compared to pre-war 130 ships a day.

Nonetheless, on Truth Social, the president claimed things could not be better.

“They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, their remaining soldiers are unpaid, the IRGC is decimated and fleeing, and their ‘Leadership’ is uncertain, at best!” he continued, “They have No Money - Their country is ‘shot.’”

Trump also claimed Iran has a problem currently plaguing his own nation.

“All they have is FAKE NEWS and 300% INFLATION, and getting worse! Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer," he wrote. "Praise be to Allah!”

An Australian TMZ reporter confronted Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) outside a Senate hearing Thursday, challenging him to explain how punishing someone for using the Fifth Amendment could be constitutional.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had just voted 8-5 along party lines to hold former top federal health official Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for invoking his Fifth Amendment right 111 times at a hearing last week. TMZ reporter Charlie Cotton caught Scott in the hallway immediately after.

"Now maybe I'm just, like, not in the know because I'm Australian," Cotton said to Scott, "but how can you hold someone in contempt and punish someone for using a constitutional right? Isn't it there to use as a right?"

Scott argued Fauci had no grounds to use it.

"He had a pardon, so he — he didn't have that right to do that once he had the pardon," the senator said.

"But didn't he have risk of prosecution because if he'd misspoke, or if he'd lied or something?" Cotton pressed.

"Yeah, if he lied," Scott admitted.

"So he was at risk?" Cotton pointed out.

"He didn't have the right," Scott insisted.

"But not from the hearing," Cotton said, "because the hearing — if he lied, you said that he could be held, you know, accountable for that."

"He could've just told the truth," Scott said. "That's all he had to do."

"Well, he felt like it was a witch hunt," Cotton pushed back, "and you guys would stop at nothing to catch him and send him to prison."

"That's not my intention," Scott said. "I just want to get information."

"It's Rand Paul's intention, though," Cotton pressed.

"No," Scott said. "It's for his actions."

As Cotton was asking his next question, the Republican senator quickly walked away.

"Yep. Okay then," the TMZ reporter said.

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek that invoking the Fifth was "the right legal move" — the pardon covered past conduct, but pleading the Fifth protected Fauci from perjury charges based on anything he said at the hearing.

As CEO of Columbia/HCA, Scott himself invoked the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a 2000 civil deposition while the company faced a federal investigation that led to a $1.7 billion settlement — at the time the largest Medicare fraud case in American history, Florida Phoenix reported.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) planned to hand-deliver the contempt referral to the Justice Department Thursday, bypassing a full Senate floor vote, CBS News reported.