Trump's Clusterf$!k

 

Iran dismissed a US ceasefire proposal on Wednesday and responded with its own negotiation plan as intermediaries sought to keep diplomatic channels between the warring countries open.

Iranian state TV quoted an anonymous official as saying Tehran had rejected the plan it had received via Pakistan, saying it would “end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met”, and until then would continue fighting across the region. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, later said the proposals had been “passed on to the country’s senior authorities” but Iran had “no intention of negotiating for now”.

Gulf states have expressed doubt over Donald Trump’s claims that talks are happening. In a notable departure from Qatar’s role as chief mediator in the region, a Qatari government spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said on Tuesday that Qatar was not involved in any mediation efforts, before adding: “If they exist.”

What is the toll? The US-Israel war on Iran has killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon, more than 1,500 in Iran and 16 in Israel, according to each country’s authorities. More than a dozen deaths have been reported in the West Bank and Gulf Arab states. Experts warn there has been a collapse in healthcare access.

-The Guardian

Trump's war on Iran and its impact

 

Most people have little understanding of what is big or small in the federal budget, in large part because the media have made a conscious decision to not inform people. Rather than taking ten seconds to indicate what share of the budget a particular item is, they just write huge numbers in the millions or billions, knowing they are completely meaningless to almost everyone who sees them.

With this in mind, I thought it would be useful to write a piece pointing out that the $200 billion (2.9% of the budget) Trump plans to ask to cover the cost of his war in Iran is, in fact, a big deal. While this is still less than what we spend on huge social programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, it is far larger than most of the items that are subject of major political debates.

Just to mention a few, we can start with the fraud in Minnesota in social programs that the Justice Department has uncovered. To date, this comes to $250 million. Trump has claimed there is $19 billion in fraud, but Trump also has claimed he has arranged for $18 trillion in foreign investment into the country and that he will reduce drug prices by 1500 percent. Numbers don’t have the same meaning for Trump and his team as they do for the rest of us.

While it is likely that the total figure for fraud will go higher, it almost certainly is not the earth-shattering scandal that Team Trump has claimed. After all, a childcare center refusing to let a random clown with a camera crew film the kids are not evidence of fraud. 

Where there is money on the table, whether in the public or private sector, some will be misspent or stolen. Trump has chosen to make a big deal out of the fraud in Minnesota because at least some of it involves Somali immigrants, but that is evidence of Trump’s racism, not a massive fraud problem.

The next item is the $550 million in annual funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Trump apparently felt it was important to save taxpayers this money rather than helping to fund Big Bird and National Public Radio. This spending comes to a bit less than $4 a household.

Then we have the Biden childcare agenda that would have cost $42.4 billion a year. This set of proposals would have made childcare affordable for the vast majority of people in the country. The last item for comparison is the extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that was the basis for the government shutdown in the fall.  This would cost roughly $27 billion for a single year.

If you’re wondering where the bars are for the Minnesota fraud or funding for public broadcasting, I didn’t forget them. The bars are too small to be visible next to Trump’s Iran war budget. The childcare programs and Obamacare subsidies are visible, but an order of magnitude smaller than what Trump is asking for.

The point here is that the war is a really big deal in terms of the budget. The biggest impact is, of course, the lives lost and put in danger by the war. And the economic impact on the United States and world is enormous. 

But this is also a huge budget issue. It is the sort of expenditure that a president would ordinarily feel they have to make a serious case for and not just demand the money from Congress.

But I suppose Trump thinks that since his mandate was almost as large as Hillary Clinton’s in 2016, he has more authority than most presidents. Congress and the country need to bring some reality to this story.

This first ran on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog. Dean Baker is the senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. 

"When CNN wins in a case like this [against Trump], the rest of us do too"

 

In 2022, Donald Trump sued CNN for defamation. Donald Trump, of course, sues a lot of people and businesses on that basis. This case had a singular focus: he sued CNN over its use of the phrase “the Big Lie” to describe his lies about the 2020 election being stolen from him.

On July 28, 2023, Federal Judge Raag Singhal in the Southern District of Florida dismissed Trump’s lawsuit. In it, Trump claimed that CNN defamed him by “making statements comparing him to Hitler and the Nazi regime.” Trump identified five instances of what he alleged was defamatory conduct:

-Publication of a January 2021 piece by contributor (and friend of Civil Discourse) Ruth Ben-Ghiat that was headlined “Trump’s big lie wouldn’t have worked without his thousands of little lies,” and in which Ruth wrote, “This is Trump’s ‘Big Lie,’ a brazen falsehood with momentous consequences.” She “likened the Plaintiff to an authoritarian dictator.”   

-Publication of a July 2021 piece by Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza, entitled “Donald Trump just accidentally told the truth about his disinformation strategy.” Cillizza compared Trump to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels: “One can only hope that Trump was unaware that his quote was a near-replication of this infamous line from Nazi Joseph Goebbels: ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.’”

-Publication of a September 2021 piece by Cillizza entitled, “Donald Trump’s Mental Health becomes an issue again.” Cillizza wrote that Trump “continued to push the Big Lie that the election was somehow stolen despite there being zero actual evidence to back up that belief.” Airing a January 2022 segment of Jake Tapper’s show where Tapper talked about Trump continuing to “push his big lie.”

-Publication of a February 2022 piece by Cillizza entitled, “Here’s the terrible reality: Trump’s election lie is on the march.” Cillizza wrote, “This is the insidiousness of Trump’s big lie. It’s like an earworm – you may hate the song, but you just keep finding yourself humming it in the shower. Trump has created a constant low-level buzz within the American electorate that something is wrong with the way we conduct elections. That he has no proof doesn’t seem to matter; by sheer repetition, his false claims are wheedling their way into the consciousness of the public.”

Trump alleged that the use of the phrase “the Big Lie” was defamatory because it associated Trump with Hitler, and “incited” readers/viewers to have hate, contempt, distrust, ridicule for and “even fear” of Trump. He claimed that CNN damaged both his reputation and his future political career and asked for $475 million in damages (Noteworthy: Lindsey Halligan, who served a brief stint as Trump’s appointed, but never confirmed, U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, was one of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit.)

There is a very low threshold for a civil lawsuit to survive a motion to dismiss. These motions are usually brought after the plaintiff brings the case but before any discovery changes hands. They test the “legal sufficiency” of a plaintiff’s case: assuming all the facts the plaintiff alleges are true, do they have a case under the relevant statutes?

In Florida, to establish defamation, a plaintiff must be able to show that a false, defamatory statement was published with knowledge of or “reckless disregard” for its falsity and the defendant suffered actual damages as a result. The Judge pointed out that the law is well-established that statements of opinion don’t qualify as defamation: “A claim of defamation requires a false statement of fact.” He concluded, “even if the statement is made with bad or evil intent, it is not actionable under the law if it is pure opinion.”

The reason the Judge dismissed the case is this: “The next question is whether the statements were false statements of fact. This is where Trump’s defamation claims fail.” Judge Singhal held that the statements Trump complained about were opinions not statements of fact, which means they can’t support a verdict for defamation. And even, he noted, if CNN had acted with “political enmity” for Trump, that “does not save this case; the Complaint alleges no false statements of fact.”

Trump’s claim that the phrase “the Big Lie” associated him with Hitler and genocide didn’t hold water with the Judge either. He held that the phrase “does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people. No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference.” Even if they could, “Being ‘Hitler-like’ is not a verifiable statement of fact that would support a defamation claim.”

And so, Judge Singhal dismissed the case with prejudice. Trump was entitled to appeal, and he did. A three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit ruled against Trump in an unpublished opinion and without oral argument in November 2025, affirming the district court’s decision.

Judges publish opinions when they have important precedential value. Historically, the Eleventh Circuit has published fewer than 15% of its decisions every year. Just over 13% of cases in the Circuit go to oral argument, Again, it’s the most significant cases, or those that are complicated and require argument for judges to hear a full explanation of the issues, that make the cut. Trump’s case didn’t clear either bar. The court heard it because it was obligated to do so and then it dismissed it without much ado.

 

The panel judges, Aldaberto Jordan (appointed by Obama), Kevin Newsom (appointed by Trump), and Elizabeth Branch (appointed by Trump) ruled against Trump 3-0 in a per curiam opinion that held “We agree that Trump did not adequately plead falsity. Therefore, we affirm the dismissal of Trump’s claim.” They explained, “To be clear, CNN has never explicitly claimed that Trump’s ‘actions and statements were designed to be, and actually were, variations of those [that] Hitler used to suppress and destroy populations.’ … But, according to Trump, this assertion is implied in CNN’s use of the phrase ‘Big Lie.’” They conclude, “Trump’s argument is unpersuasive.”

Donald Trump doesn’t like to take no for an answer, so he asked for the full Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the panel’s decision. Each Circuit typically hears only a handful of cases en banc in every term of court. So it was not particularly surprising, but still reassuring, when the Eleventh Circuit turned down Trump’s request today.

Of course, Trump can still petition the Supreme Court to hear his case. He has a similar petition pending before the Supreme Court currently, an attempt to get it to reverse E. Jean Carroll’s victory. He will have a similarly small chance there.

It’s a significant victory when our courts stand up for the First Amendment and free speech. Donald Trump has long been of the view that it’s too difficult for public figures to succeed in defamation cases, and that the law should be changed to make it easier. After Trump won in 2024, Reuters wrote, in a carefully worded story, that he was adopting “a wide-ranging legal strategy in suing media companies over what he describes as false or misleading coverage about him, filing cases under civil anti-fraud laws in addition to defamation lawsuits. 

Some legal experts say the cases appear aimed at punishing outlets for critical coverage, and that the novel legal strategies are an effort to get past steep hurdles in defamation lawsuits, which can be difficult for public figures in the U.S. to win.”

We’ve seen how those cases have turned out, with a number of defendants, like CBS and ABC, settling cases legal experts deemed marginal for astronomical sums. But in cases where litigants have proceeded in court, courts like the Eleventh Circuit have largely backed the First Amendment.

We don’t always have the opportunity to appreciate the many and varied ways federal courts continue to stand for the rule of law. Much of the time, it’s quiet cases like this one that don’t attract a lot of attention. But this decision underscores that Trump is not a monolith; he is not entitled to special treatment in court, and when parties that he sues stand up to him, they can win when they are entitled to. And when CNN wins in a case like this, the rest of us do too.

If you want to truly understand how the First Amendment is shaped—not just in headlines, but in the courts where it actually evolves—this newsletter is for you. Tonight, we take a deep dive into a single, consequential piece of litigation, tracing the district court and court of appeals’ decisions and translating the legal reasoning into clear, real-world meaning so you can see not just that Trump lost, but why it matters, how the arguments developed, and what it signals for the future of free speech. I hope tonight’s column gives you sharper insight into the legal forces quietly defining your rights and that if you think that’s important, you’ll subscribe to Civil Discourse.

We’re in this together,

-Joyce Vance

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Robert Mueller

 

Robert Mueller, the former special counsel whose investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election defined much of Donald Trump's first term in office, has died aged 81. The cause of his death was not immediately clear. CBS News, the BBC US partner, confirmed his death. "With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away" on Friday night, his family told the AP in a statement. "His family asks that their privacy be respected."

Mueller previously led the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013, taking the office just days before the 11 September 2001 terror attacks. He is credited with reshaping it into a modern counterterrorism agency.

Mueller is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Ann Cabell Standish, their two daughters, and three grandchildren. Mueller's special counsel inquiry put Donald Trump's 2016 campaign under a microscope, drawing harsh criticism from the US president.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday: "I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!"

Mueller's former employers and colleagues praised him as a longtime public servant. Both of the presidents he served under as FBI director - George W Bush and Barack Obama - paid tribute. Bush, who appointed Mueller to lead the FBI, said he was "deeply saddened" by his death.

"In 2001, only one week into the job as the sixth director of the FBI, Bob transitioned the agency mission to protecting the homeland after September 11," he said. "He led the agency effectively, helping prevent another terrorist attack on US soil."

Obama called him "one of the finest directors in the history of the FBI" and commended his "relentless commitment to the rule of law and his unwavering belief in our bedrock values".

Former FBI director James Comey, who succeeded Mueller at the agency and whose abrupt firing by Trump led to the Mueller investigation said: "A great American died today, one I was lucky enough to learn from and stand beside."

A spokesman for Mueller's former law firm, WilmerHale, called him an "extraordinary leader and public servant and a person of the greatest integrity" in a statement.

Mueller was born in 1944. After studying politics at Princeton University, he joined the Marines and deployed to Vietnam in 1968. As a lieutenant, Mueller led a platoon of troops, was wounded twice in battle and was awarded numerous commendations, including the Bronze Star for velour and a Purple Heart. After returning from the war, he went to the University of Virginia, where he studied law and graduated in 1973. In August 2001, Mueller was unanimously confirmed as FBI director by the US Senate and he served at the agency for more than a decade. He retired from the FBI in 2013.

But four years later, Mueller found himself at the center of a political maelstrom that consumed Washington and would later define his legacy. His investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election – and the potential involvement of Trump and his campaign – were a near daily source of intrigue and speculation for nearly two years, from May 2017 to March 2019.

The court filings of his special counsel's office were meticulously picked apart, with each new revelation a potential bombshell that could, depending on one's perspective, bring down a president or destroy a nation.

Trump condemned Mueller's inquiry as a "witch hunt" and a "hoax", viewing the special counsel as one of his greatest political adversaries. Trump frequently said there had been "no collusion" between his campaign and Russia.

During the investigation, Mueller's team scrutinized Russia's actions as well as several of Trump's top campaign staff and allies. Despite his work frequently making headlines, Mueller himself rarely spoke publicly.

"I did not always agree with everything that Robert Mueller did," Andrew Weissmann, a member of Mueller's team, told the BBC. "I think it's really important for people to know how much integrity and how much thoughtfulness went into his decision-making and how much faith he had - maybe more than I did - in the American people, in citizens and in Congress."

The investigation resulted in multiple indictments and plea deals with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as national security adviser Michael Flynn.

In the end, the 448-page "Mueller report" was thorough but ultimately inconclusive. It found that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in a "sweeping and systemic fashion" but did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated in these activities.

His findings noted that "while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him".

In February 2021, Mueller sat for a rare interview with MSNBC to recount key moments in his decades-long career. Asked why he agreed to oversee something as politically daunting as his Russia investigation, he said: "I found that I've gotten tremendous enjoyment out of public service. And I find it hard to turn down a challenging assignment." 

-BBC

“Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!” -Donald Trump

When are we going to indict a bully who constantly attempted to obstruct the Justice Department's criminal investigation into Russian interference in a presidential election; a bully who, according to the Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice Robert Mueller, made "public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation..."

When are we going to indict a bully who tried to have his former Attorney General Jeff Sessions remove Mueller from investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election and cover up his own obstruction of justice; a bully who "dictated a message for [former campaign manager] Corey Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions... that should publicly announce [Sessions'] recusal from the Russia investigation, that the investigation was 'very unfair' to the president, and that the president had done nothing wrong"; a bully who expressed anger at Jeff Sessions' recusal and told advisers that "he should have an Attorney General who would protect him"; a bully who "reacted to news that a Special Counsel [Mueller] had been appointed by telling advisers that it was 'the end of his presidency' and demanded that Sessions resign..."

When are we going to indict a bully who wanted us to believe the Russian investigation was an attack on the legitimacy of his election and just "a witch hunt," despite 34 indictments, seven guilty pleas, and five imprisonments because of Mueller's investigation; a bully who had pressured Australia to help his current Attorney General William Barr investigate the origins of the Mueller probe; a bully who would have been indicted if he weren't a sitting president?[...]. 

When are we going to indict a bully who called on Russia's interference with his election: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press"; a bully who believed Vladimir Putin instead of the 17 U.S. Intelligence Agencies; a bully who, on the world stage in Helsinki, stated fawningly: "I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today"; a bully who confiscated the interpreter's notes at his private meeting with Putin at the Group 20 Summit in Hamburg and would not share them with his senior administration officials; a bully who had met privately with Putin five times and has had 11 private telephone conversations, all of which were never made available for his senior administration officials to review; a bully who shortly after firing James Comey told two Russian officials visiting the White House that he wasn't concerned about election interference because "America does the same thing"; an ignorant bully who also disclosed highly-classified information to these Russian officials, thus, "creating political and security concerns in the U.S., its allies and especially in Israel"?  […]

 from “Why Donald J. Trump Is a Threat to Our Democracy and Unfit to be President of the United States of America” by Glen Brown

August 24, 2019

For the complete article:

glen brown: Why Donald J. Trump Is a Threat to Our Democracy and Unfit to be President of the United States of America by Glen Brown

"Let’s go back to contemporary sources and make sure we have a clear picture of what investigators found and what the Report said about Donald Trump"

There is an enormous amount of misinformation circulating about former Special Counsel Bob Mueller’s investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. election and the effort to obstruct that investigation following his death. Tweets honoring Mueller’s life of service to his country are now knee-deep in trolls and MAGA comments that have no relationship to the well-documented facts. 

So, let’s go back to contemporary sources and make sure we have a clear picture of what investigators found and what the Report said about Donald Trump. We’ll also look at why Mueller, nonetheless, didn’t indict Trump or even weigh in on whether he should be indicted. That decision drew a lot of criticism.

Some of the key results of the Special Counsel investigation:

Thirty-seven indictments, including six former Trump advisers, 26 Russian nationals, a California man, a London-based lawyer, and three Russian companies. Seven were convicted. And perhaps most significantly, Mueller developed compelling evidence that Trump obstructed justice. Repeatedly. Mueller said publicly that the investigation did not exonerate Trump.

Among the specifics: Trump associates repeatedly lied to investigators about their contacts with Russians, and President Trump refused to answer questions about his efforts to impede federal proceedings and influence the testimony of witnesses. 

A statement signed by over 1,000 former federal prosecutors, including me, concluded that any other person who engaged in the obstructive conduct attributed to Trump would have been indicted.

Barb McQuade and I wrote a summary of the part of the investigation that delved into obstruction. You can read it here. “Attorney General William Barr did the country a disservice,” we wrote, “when he withheld the Mueller report from public view for weeks, while claiming Mueller concluded there was ‘no collusion, no obstruction.’ That is not what the report says.” 

We noted, “We start by acknowledging Mueller’s decision that he was bound by DOJ policy that prohibits indictment of a sitting president. Whether that policy is correct or not, prosecutors must follow the rules. Mueller did.”

We also laid out some of Trump’s most significant obstructive conduct per the Report: Trump asked his White House counsel, Don McGahn, to arrange for Mueller to be fired in June, after he started work. Trump denied he’d done this when a reporter broke the story about the requested firing in 2018.

Trump tried to get McGahn to deny reporting about his conduct as it surfaced and once threatened to fire McGahn if he wouldn’t. McGahn refused. Trump summoned McGahn to the Oval Office and ordered him to create a false record that denied that Trump ordered him to fire Mueller, which would be a federal felony if proven.

After Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused from overseeing the investigation, Trump repeatedly tried to compel him to “unrecuse” (no such thing exists) and tried to get Corey Lewandowski to threaten Sessions that he would be fired if he wouldn’t. Trump wanted Sessions to limit the Special Counsel to investigating future elections. That would have meant no investigation into Russian interference in 2016, an information gap that would have left the country vulnerable to future attacks.

The president engaged in witness tampering, with one of the worst examples being dangling the prospect of a pardon to keep Paul Manafort from cooperating with the Special Counsel’s investigation.

Of course, the fact that Mueller was able to investigate and uncover much of this means Trump didn’t succeed with his efforts to obstruct. Some people suggested that means what Trump did wasn’t all that bad. As Barb and I wrote at the time, “Nothing could be further from the truth. To protect the integrity of our criminal justice system, prosecutors are able to hold accountable people who attempt to interfere with an investigation, not just people who have the luck to be successful. 

Allowing an individual to avoid accountability because they weren’t successful or because investigators were unable to develop proof of underlying crimes would ensure that the most successful obstructors avoid justice.”

It’s especially important to remember, as Trump, today, launches attack after attack against the investigation into the 2016 election and the people who conducted it, that the Mueller investigation confirmed the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia was behind the attack on the DNC’s computers and developed important and specific information about the full nature of the attack Russia launched. 

Mueller’s charges included computer hacking, conspiracy, and financial crimes. Given that context, it’s shocking that in order to try to protect himself, Trump was willing to put national security at risk, attempting to derail the investigation into Russia in order to save himself.

If you want more, there is a detailed analysis of the Mueller investigation from Just Security, which I participated in along with some very skillful lawyers. It’s divided out by topic, so you can dig in deeper on anything of interest.

Barb McQuade, impeachment counsel Norm Eisen, me, and John Dean.

In June 2019, I testified before the House Judiciary Committee, alongside Barb and John Dean (yes, that John Dean), about the Report. In my opening statement, I explained why Mueller had adhered to DOJ policy when he declined to make a prosecutorial decision on whether to indict Trump.

I asked Barb tonight what has stuck with her all these years later, and this was her response: “Mueller indicted 38 individuals and entities, including Russian agents who hacked into computers and stole email messages and who posed as Americans on social media to influence voters. And far from exonerating the Trump campaign, Mueller found that its members met with Russians at Trump Tower, shared polling data with a Russian intelligence officer, and coordinated messaging with the WikiLeaks release of stolen emails. This case was always less about Donald Trump and more about Russia, but rather than report Russia’s overtures to the FBI, Trump welcomed the help.”

It was and still is “Russia, Russia, Russia.”

Even though Mueller couldn’t get the Russians he indicted before a court in the U.S., he managed to educate the American people about how Russia tried to interfere in our elections. Trump pardoned five of the Americans Mueller convicted: Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and Alex van der Zwaan. Manafort and Stone were convicted by juries. Flynn, Papadopoulos, and van der Zwaan pled guilty in court, each acknowledging under oath—Flynn twice—that they were pleading guilty because they were guilty, and for no other reason.

That’s Bob Mueller’s legacy. He uncovered the truth when it was difficult to do so and held people accountable. That’s a sharp contrast to the president who has criticized him. Bob Mueller was fair and decent, and he played by the rules, including respecting the rule of law, which may seem quaint in the time of Trump. Ultimately, criticism of Mueller’s report and his work is an indictment of what Trump has done to our country. The Mueller investigation and its results speak for themselves.

We’re in this together,

-Joyce Vance

 

"Nice Work, MAGA Voters"

 

Well, here we are. Exactly where a lot of us said we’d end up. But no, no. You MAGA voters knew better. The economists were wrong. The generals were wrong. The historians were wrong. The diplomats were wrong. Basic pattern recognition was wrong. Only the guy in the orange makeup yelling in all caps had the real plan.

And thank God, you saved us from Kamala Harris. Because obviously the greater danger was a competent adult who can read a briefing folder without turning it into a hostage situation. Instead, you gave the nuclear codes back to a man with the emotional regulation of a toddler who just had his iPad taken away at an Applebee’s.

You were warned he’d alienate our allies. He did.
You were warned he’d turn America into an international joke. He did.
You were warned he’d govern by impulse, grievance, flattery, and whatever dumb thing last crawled across his television screen. He did.
You were warned that putting a narcissistic idiot in charge during a global crisis might end with America isolated, hated, and dragged into a catastrophe.

And now, unbelievably, the narcissistic idiot part is really coming through. Today he said negotiations with Iran to end hostilities were showing promise. The Iranians replied, "What negotiations?". Did he say it to manipulate the markets? We don't know. He joins the Iranians in having no credibility.

So now Trump has managed to pull off something genuinely impressive: nearly everyone at home outside the cult hates him, most of the world hates him, our allies don’t trust him, our enemies don’t fear him in the way MAGA fantasizes they do, and the global economy is getting worked over because one emotionally unstable man wanted to cosplay Churchill after spending years acting like a drunk uncle in a Facebook comments section.

Brilliant. Absolutely first-rate patriotism. And now all the options are bad. If the U.S. backs off and Iran’s regime stays in power, Trump looks like the reckless fool he is.

If the U.S. stays in and tries to “finish the job,” we own the chaos, probably alone, because after years of insulting allies and blowing up trust, it turns out other countries are less enthusiastic about joining his latest tantrum. 

They’re not staying out because they’re cowards. They’re staying out because Trump has spent his second term threatening NATO, curtailing aid to Ukraine, damaging allied economies with tariffs, and proving over and over that he has no strategy beyond whim, impulse, and whatever grievance is currently foaming at the top of his brain.

And if his followers think there’s some magic fourth option where Trump struts around, everyone trembles, oil prices behave, and democracy survives the experience—yes, that does sound like something a person would believe right before buying commemorative gold sneakers from a man under criminal indictment.

You cheered him on as he alienated allies.
You cheered him on as he sneered at diplomacy.
You cheered him on as he replaced serious people with cranks, hacks, and human chain emails.
You cheered him on because cruelty felt good, because ignorance felt authentic, and because hatred finally had a candidate who spoke your dialect.

That’s the part worth saying plainly. A lot of this wasn’t about policy. It was about permission: permission to hate, permission to sneer, permission to feel like the decent people were the suckers and the assholes were finally back in charge.

And now look at it. America more isolated. The world less stable. The economy wobbling. Bad choices everywhere. And your big orange patriot in the Oval Office, pacing around with Lindsey Graham, furious that after setting fire to the neighborhood, nobody is showing up with a casserole and moral support.

Because this is the part MAGA never understood: allies make sacrifices when they believe a country stands for something, when they believe their sacrifice will matter, and when they believe the people in charge will remember it five minutes later.

Under Trump, they don’t. He acts on impulse, denies responsibility when things go wrong, and then lies about what he said the week before. At some point other countries stop looking for hidden logic and start accepting the simpler explanation: the President of the United States is just an unstable idiot with no strategy.

But yes. Tell us again how Kamala would have been worse. That remains one of the funniest unintentional jokes in modern American politics. America used to have a brand. Imperfect, hypocritical, often violated in practice, yes — but still a brand. The idea that we at least aspired to something larger than appetite. That we could be counted on, however inconsistently, to defend allies, uphold norms, and stand for something other than “what’s in it for us?” No more.

Now we’re a country that stands for less and less beyond naked self-interest, tantrums, and the moods of one vain, impulsive old man. No one trusts us. No one considers us reliable. No one expects us to stand up for what’s right. They assume any contribution they make will count for nothing, because a few days or weeks later Trump will change his mind, forget it happened, or lie about it anyway. Trump has ruined his own reputation forever. He might have permanently ruined America’s too. Nice work, MAGA voters.

-Mike McCready