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Trump Is Flailing on Multiple Fronts

The price of oil is hovering this morning around $90/barrel, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and allies - many of which have be insulted and denigrated by the Felon - have refused to join in the Felon's war of choice despite his demands that they do so.  As the felon twists on a rope of his own creation he continues to lash out and make threats with no one seemingly safe from verbal attacks and denigration be it the Pope, other foreign leaders, or right wing talking heads on the far right who have aligned against the Iran war.  For now, the U,S, stock market has recovered as investors - perhaps foolishly - cling to a belief that the Felon was somehow end the war on some undefined positive note. Yet this belief does not solve other problems besieging the Felon, many of his own making, that continue to drive his poll numbers ever lower as Republican hopes to at least hold the U.S. Senate fade. It goes without saying that if Democrats regain control of Congress, the Felon's life will become even more unpleasant, with hearings and investigations likely to proliferate.  A column in The Atlantic looks at the Felon's flailing on a number of fronts. Here are highlights:

You’ve heard the joke: The White House is going to start talking about the Epstein files to distract from how badly the Iran war is going.

Except that this reverse “Wag the dog” is based on bizarre truth: First Lady Melania Trump did bring the disgraced financier up, unprompted, late last week in an effort to distance herself from the scandal (in a move that, predictably, only shifted it back into the spotlight once again). Meanwhile, as negotiations with Iran stumble forward, the Strait of Hormuz is still in Tehran’s hands and now [the Felon] President Trump has authorized a risky naval blockade that will likely send prices soaring further. Moreover, Trump’s poll numbers have continued to fall, Republicans worry that both houses of Congress could be lost in November, and the president threw away a remarkable amount of geopolitical capital trying to support his now-defeated illiberal buddy Viktor Orbán of Hungary. Oh, and Trump deeply offended adherents of the world’s two largest religions in one week’s time.

[The Felon] Donald Trump has long ruled by fear. He demands complete fealty from fellow Republicans; he pushes around world leaders. He’s a political escape artist. But this time, he has boxed himself in without an obvious way out. The war in Iran was a conflict of his choosing, but it has not gone at all how he expected. Trump believed that it would resemble the military blitz that effortlessly snatched Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, that it would be a surgical strike lasting days or maybe just a couple of weeks. Instead, the conflict is approaching the 50-day mark. Iran is battered but emboldened, and now has greater control of the vital strait—through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes—than it did before the war, wielding it like an economic vise to squeeze the rest of the globe. Trump has demanded it be reopened, even threatening to wipe out Iran’s entire civilization if the regime did not comply. But Tehran didn’t quake in terror. Trump’s usual intimidation tactics aren’t working.

By the closing months of 2025, the momentum of his first six months in office had dissipated and his party had suffered a series of electoral losses. He looked to some like an early lame duck. But the Caracas military operation, White House aides felt, righted the ship. Trump, though never restrained, was transformed into pure id, acting on impulse and goaded on by advisers who saw an opportunity to further expand executive power. And he fell further in love with the might of the U.S. military, telling advisers that it was an unstoppable force. Greenland. Iran. Cuba. His legacy, he believed, would be redrawing the world’s maps.

But Iran didn’t surrender. Trump had overestimated the capacity of the Iranian people to rise up, and he had not understood the extraordinary pain that the hard-line theocratic regime was willing to accept to maintain its grip on power. Thirteen American troops have been killed. Tehran maintained the ability to strike at its Gulf neighbors and damage their energy facilities. And even though much of its navy was destroyed, it was able to seize control of the strait by wielding the threat of mines, fast-attack boats, and armed drones. Giant oil tankers avoided the danger, and prices around the world began to rise.

This is when Trump ran into the limits of his power. He was outraged that such a makeshift force would intimidate the shipping companies, demanding that they “show some guts” and force the passage. But companies balked. He urged European nations to step in, noting that they benefit more from the oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz than the United States does. But Europe refused, having not been consulted before the war began and declining to bend to Trump’s wishes just weeks after he strained transatlantic ties by demanding that the U.S. be given Greenland. They were finally standing up to the president who boasted to my colleagues that “I run the country and the world.”

Back home, some Republicans were also finally saying no. A few loud, isolationist voices—Tucker Carlson, Steven Bannon, Megyn Kelly—declared that a new war in the Middle East broke Trump’s “America First” promises. . . . . Polls showed that Americans, who never approved of the war, were deeply opposed to a ground attack. Instead, Trump went on social media the morning of Easter Sunday and unleashed an unhinged threat, demanding that Iran “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” before adding “Praise be to Allah.” Muslim leaders denounced the post as blasphemous. Two days later, he went further, threatening that “a whole civilization will die.”

Members of Trump’s inner circle had counseled him to avoid issuing deadlines; he had now set several, and looked weaker each time one passed. His post was threatening actions that would amount to war crimes—and a genocide. The president was flailing, several people close to him told me. His usual maneuvers had not worked, so he believed that his only play was to escalate. But it wasn’t strategically employing unpredictable behavior to get his way; it was desperation. He looked erratic. . . . The plan was to apply pressure on Iran to open the strait and on Europe to aid the U.S. So far, neither result has been achieved.

In private moments, most Republicans have been saying for months that holding the House is likely beyond their reach. The GOP’s margin is slim, and the party out of power tends to do well in midterm elections. But at least, Republicans thought, the Senate was safe. That’s no longer the case. Democrats are looking at the map and see possible pickups in North Carolina, Maine, and even Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska. Republicans’ poll numbers are falling while prices—particularly of gas—are rising. . . . Before the war erupted, the White House had planned for Trump to hammer home an economic message. But now the president is distracted—and he doesn’t have good economic news to share anyway.

Last summer, the West Wing’s plans to tout the economy were interrupted by questions surrounding Trump’s ties to the dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Epstein scandal has been one of the few areas in which Republicans have felt comfortable breaking with Trump, who wants the matter closed. But once again, the financier was thrust back into the headlines—this time by the first lady. . . . It’s led to speculation that the first lady was trying to get ahead of some sort of damaging Epstein-related story; so far, nothing has materialized. But her call for Congress to give Epstein’s victims a public hearing ensures that the story won’t die any time soon.

Hungary has added to the president’s losing streak. On Sunday, just days after Vice President Vance made a campaign appearance in Budapest with Orbán, the ruling party was routed at the polls. . . . . Trump had invested much in Orbán’s reelection: Secretary of State Marco Rubio also made a Budapest appearance, while the president repeatedly endorsed Orbán and suggested that more U.S. funding would be on the way to Hungary if the prime minister won. The voters of Hungary had other ideas.

And then the president picked a fight with the pope. Pope Leo XIV has been judicious in speaking out about political matters but has been unsparing for months with his criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. When the Iran conflict broke out, the pope (as pontiffs tend to do) spoke out against war. Popes and presidents don’t always see eye to eye, but most commanders in chief opt against attacking the vicar of Christ for fear of alienating the tens of millions of Catholics in the United States—or, perhaps, to avoid any potential for divine retribution.

But [the Felon] Trump, of course, is not most presidents. He does not take criticism from anyone, and those close to him believe that he felt threatened by another powerful American voice on the global stage. . . . unbowed, he chided the pope again on social media late last night.

The pope, for his part, has said this week that he has “no fear” of the Trump administration. He is far from alone.

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The Felon's Latest Meltdown and Deteriorating Mental State

The Felon has long been a malignant narcissist with delusions of grandeur and a belief he can do no wrong regardless of how insane and untethered from reality he and his actions appear to others who are in touch with objective reality.  For far too long many, including lazy "journalists" and spineless congressional Republicans have shrugged their shoulders and basically said the insane behavior is merely the Felon being the Felon.  Yet anyone serious about the welfare of America should know that the Felon's latest behavior is blaring out a warning that he is increasingly unfit for office and has made America's position in the world far less secure.  Indeed, there is more talk of the use of the 25th Amendment as a mechanism to remove the Felon from office as he becomes increasing unhinged and insulting everyone from the Pope to once longtime allies. What we are witnessing is NOT normal behavior and looking the other way or muttering in private disapproval will only make the situation more dangerous as the Felon has meltdown after meltdown.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the unhinged commander-in-chief.  When will more Republicans open their eyes to what is going on? Here are highlights: 

On many recent nights, [the Felon] Donald Trump has been posting obsessively on his Truth Social site into the wee hours. The president, of course, has never been one for a solid night’s sleep—or restrained and temperate commentary on social media—but his emotional state seems to be fraying: This weekend, he attacked Pope Leo XIV, presented himself as Jesus Christ, and then jabbed at his phone until dawn.

Judging from those posts, the commander in chief is in distress. No one can say for sure what is causing the president’s bizarre behavior. Perhaps Trump’s narcissistic insistence that he is always successful in everything he undertakes is feeling the sting and strain of multiple public failures, including the collapse of his campaign to dislodge the Iranian regime, plummeting approval ratings, the decline of the U.S. economy, and, on Sunday, the crushing defeat of one of his favorite fellow authoritarians, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

But whatever is driving this decline in [the Felon's] Trump’s self-control, Americans must not shrug off the president’s latest implosion. They should recover their ability to be outraged; more to the point, they must demand that their elected representatives ask questions about the course of the war and whether [the Felon] Trump still has the capacity to fulfill his constitutional duty as commander in chief. Too much is at risk to dismiss his outbursts as just another idiosyncrasy: U.S. forces have been at war for almost six weeks, and China is reportedly helping Iran rearm. Even if all other problems, including the economy, were holding steady—and they are not—America cannot keep ignoring the dysfunction of the commander in chief, the sole steward of the codes to a massive nuclear arsenal.

Trump has always gotten lost in his own public statements, splashing about like a poor swimmer trying to reach the shore of a fast-moving river. But the [Felon] president is now flailing in blacker and deeper waters. Genocidal threats against the the Iranians, with whom America is at war, are bad enough, but his defenders will excuse them as part of the Trumpian bulldozer approach to international negotiation; aiming long screeds at the pope, as if he, too, is an enemy of the United States, is not only unhinged but entirely pointless. Trump’s fusillade against the first American pope was not only politically incomprehensible—20 percent of Americans are Catholics, and most of them voted for Trump—but it was yet more evidence that the president is sinking into rage and confusion.

Why was Trump angry with Pope Leo? For the same reason that Trump ever gets mad at anyone: The Holy Father dared to criticize him.  Last week, the president of the United States posted an expletive-filled threat—on Easter Sunday, no less—to destroy the ancient civilization of Iran. His supporters wrote this off as a clever gambit to bring an end to the war (which it has not). Leo called the threat “unacceptable,” blasted the “delusion of omnipotence” that led to the war, and said: “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”

Of course, Trump wasn’t going to take that kind of talk from some former Chicago science teacher just because the guy is now the Bishop of Rome. So a few minutes after nine on Sunday night, Trump posted a salvo of more than 300 words on Truth Social. . . . The [Felon] president accused the pope of being “Weak on Crime” and “Weak on Nuclear Weapons.” He said that Leo “wasn’t on any list to be Pope” and that he likes Leo’s brother Louis much better because “Louis is all MAGA.” . . . . And so it went, sentence after sentence of boorishness and whiny self-regard.

But [the Felon] Trump wasn’t finished. He had recommendations for the pontiff about how to be a better Vicar of Christ, saying he “should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” Again, Trump is not a Catholic—he has referred to Communion as a “little wine” with some “little crackers”—and his track record both as a president and a person is replete with the seven deadly sins (and probably a few more that haven’t made the list yet). He is also now officially the most unpopular modern president ever, so the pope might understandably pass on accepting either his secular or spiritual advice.

This one screed against the leader of a billion and a half Catholics was worrisome enough, but for [the Felon] Trump, it was just the beginning of a long night. Only 45 minutes after flaming the pope, Trump—now back at the White House—posted an AI-generated image of himself as (apparently) Jesus Christ, healing a sick man while soldiers and nurses and other worshipful white people gaze in awe and military jets fly overhead. You have to see the image to really grasp its weirdness, and to take in how offensive, even heretical, it might be to Christians of any mainstream denomination.

This is not the behavior of a stable, healthy leader. Pope Leo, for his part, said he has “no fear” of the administration and will continue to preach the messages of the Gospel. The rest of us, however, should be very worried about a commander in chief who is trying to govern the country between social-media binges, who attacks religious leaders in narcissistic frenzy, and who imagines himself as a deity. If an elderly parent did such things, most people would be concerned. The president doing such things is far more alarming.

The American people must not look away, as they have done so often in the past. They must pay attention to the president’s deterioration, and insist that the House and Senate start acting like functioning branches of the government by asking the White House to explain what is happening, without insults or evasions, before the eyes of the country and the world.

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Message to Trump: Authoritarianism Is Not Inevitable

At times it is easy to become demoralized and to fear that the anti-democracy forces in America cannot be stopped and Americans watch the Felon's efforts to destroy longstanding norms and pro-democracy institutions. Add to this the Felon's efforts to silence critics in the media and his so-far failed efforts to prosecute the Felon's political opponents and critics and it can be depressing.  Yet, the election in Hungary on this past Sunday demonstrated that even with a highly stacked deck against democracy, it is still possible to defeat would be authoritarians and dictators if politicians promote the right messages and are able to convince the larger population that voting can and will make a difference.  In Hungary the voter turn out was almost 80% of voters - something that should embarrass America's lazy and indifferent voters who by staying home basically vote for those most adverse to their social and economic interests.  While the differences between Hungary and America are stark in numerous ways, the take away lesson is that authoritarianism and dictatorship are not inevitable and that it is possible to topple corrupt , pro-Russia, anti-democratic regimes like that of Orban and the Felon. A piece in The Atlantic looks at what can be learned from Hungary's election:

In the end, the defeat of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, required not just an ordinary election campaign or new messaging but rather the construction of a broad, diverse, and patriotic grassroots social movement. And by building exactly that, Hungary’s opposition changed politics around the world.

Orbán’s loss brings to an end the assumption of inevitability that has pervaded the MAGA movement, as well as the belief—also present in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric—that illiberal parties are somehow destined not just to win but to hold power forever, because they have the support of the “real” people. As it turns out, history doesn’t work like that. “Real” people grow tired of their rulers. Old ideas become stale. Younger people question orthodoxy. Illiberalism leads to corruption. And if Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too.

Péter Magyar, the opposition leader and likely next Hungarian prime minister, has now won by a substantial margin, giving him and his party, Tisza, a constitutional majority. To do so, they had to overcome obstacles not usually present in European democracies. After 16 years of what Orbán himself described as an illiberal regime, the Hungarian leader’s political party, Fidesz, had come to control much of the judiciary, bureaucracy, and universities, as well as a group of oligarchic companies that in turn controlled a good chunk of the economy.

Orbán used his control of the state to build an extraordinary web of international illiberal and far-right supporters, and funding mechanisms to support some of them. In the last weeks of the campaign, these friends and beneficiaries rallied round. Orbán received visits or verbal support from Donald Trump, J. D. Vance, Benjamin Netanyahu, Marine Le Pen (the leader of the French far right), Alice Weidel (the leader of the German far right), and other illiberal leaders from Argentina, Poland, Slovakia, Brazil, and more. Both Hungarian and American news organizations reported that a Russian intelligence team had set up in Budapest to amplify Orbán’s social-media campaign, and perhaps to stage provocations.

By contrast, Magyar had very little access to Hungarian media, the overwhelming majority of which is owned either by the state or by Fidesz oligarchs. He and his party had limited access even to billboard space, both because they had less money than the ruling party and because many advertising spaces are controlled by the government. Tisza leaders and supporters faced personal obstacles as well. . . . Even three weeks ago, many Tisza leaders in Budapest would speak only off the record.

Magyar and his team fought back on the ground. Knowing he could not win if he stuck to Budapest and other large cities, Magyar has been traveling the country since 2024, visiting small towns and villages, many more than once. In the last few days of the campaign, he was holding five or six election meetings every day. He avoided the themes that Orbán chose to promote—global politics, the war in Ukraine, the conspiracy that Ukraine was somehow colluding against or might even invade Hungary—and focused his campaign speeches and social media on the economy, health care, and schools. . . . He portrayed himself as a part of the European, democratic, law-abiding center-right. He waved a lot of Hungarian flags, as did his supporters.

Despite enormous restrictions and both financial and political pressure, the tiny number of journalists who were still able to report in Hungary also made a difference. In the past few weeks, the investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi, along with his colleagues at the website Direkt26, one of the few independent outlets in the country, patiently debunked Orbán’s anti-Ukrainian propaganda, producing leaked transcripts and audio that revealed Orbán and his foreign minister colluding with Putin and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.

For years Orbán has claimed to be fighting shadowy foreign forces—George Soros, the European Union, migrants—but in fact he was himself dependent on foreigners all along.

Those stories resonated, especially with younger Hungarians. At a rock concert in Heroes’ Square in central Budapest on Friday, tens of thousands of them started chanting “Russians, go home”—the same chant that their grandparents used when Soviet soldiers invaded their country in 1956.

Although results are not final, Tisza appears to have won more than two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. That would give Magyar a constitutional majority that should allow him to pick apart some of the damage that Orbán has done to the Hungarian constitution and to public life. In his victory speech, he called for the resignation of the president, the prosecutor general, the president of the constitutional court, and other institutions. He said he would rejoin the European legal system. In response, according to one witness, Hungarians at his rally chanted, “Europe, Europe, Europe.” . . . .Some in the opposition are still expecting dirty tricks in the next days and weeks, before Orbán formally hands over power.

But whatever happens next, this election represents a real turning point. For most European governments, this result is a relief: We can’t know yet what kind of government Tisza will create, but it won’t be one that functions as Russia’s puppet in Europe, blocking EU funding for Ukraine or European sanctions on Russia. Nor will it be a regime that serves as a model for Americans or Europeans who want to capture their own states, or take apart their own checks and balances, or impose their own illiberal ideologies on people who don’t accept them.

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