S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

Donald Distracted

by Andrew Egger

Well, here we are again: The ceasefire in Iran is once again in a state of near-total collapse. The U.S. military hasn't yet resumed its bombing campaign of the Iranian mainland, but the danger in the Strait of Hormuz is as bad as ever.

After claiming Friday that the strait was now open and letting a trickle of ships through, Iran abruptly reversed course Saturday, firing on at least two merchant vessels and insisting the strait would remain closed as long as America maintained its military blockade of Iran's ports. Then, yesterday, U.S. forces fired on and seized an Iranian cargo ship that they said had tried to run their blockade—causing Iran to announce it was pulling out of the second round of Islamabad peace talks, which were scheduled to begin today. Oil prices, which on Friday had fallen by more than $10 a barrel on Iran's claims of an open strait, rocketed back upward, now hovering back around $100.

In one sense, we're right back where we were last month—the strait closed, Iran intransigent, Donald Trump threatening. But that undersells the damage. A cancer patient who goes under the knife and wakes to discover they couldn't remove the tumor isn't likely to be comforted that at least the doctors stitched him up properly. The ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz is becoming a global economic catastrophe, and it's clear Trump is running out of options to compel Iran to stop throttling it.

The White House has suggested two ways this all might end, and neither seems particularly close to materializing. Trump still seems to think he can bully the Iranians into submission, even though his strategy of making theatrical threats and then backing down at the last second has already failed to accomplish this four or five times. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth keeps announcing confidently that Iran's weapons stockpiles are all but depleted. But the Pentagon has quietly acknowledged the hollowness of this story: "Iran retains thousands of missiles and one-way attack UAVs that can threaten U.S. and partner forces throughout the region," Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. James Adams noted in a budget memo to the House Armed Services Committee last week. "In addition, Iran poses a persistent threat to freedom of navigation through the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman, including retaliatory seizures of commercial ships and the threat of mining the Strait of Hormuz."

But it isn't just that Trump low on options: More and more, he barely seems to understand what's going on in the conflict at even a basic layman's level. His pronouncements—whether they be threats, triumphant announcements, or even just descriptions of what's underway in the strait—resemble reality less with every passing day.

Sometimes this is a good thing: His genocidal threats that "a whole civilization will die tonight" never materialized. But other times it's simply an alarming reminder of how fitfully and flightily the president is monitoring his own war. "Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again," Trump posted Friday morning. "It will no longer be used as a weapon against the World!" He was so confident the end was in sight that he was already throwing the conflict in Iran and the proxy fight in Lebanon on his fanciful list of eight wars he's "solved": "It has been my Honor to solve 9 Wars across the World, and [Lebanon] will be my 10th, so let's, GET IT DONE!" he posted. None of these statements had the slightest bearing on reality.

One other weekend example of Trump's unaccountably gauzy grasp of the conflict bears pointing out. In announcing America's blockade of Iran last week, Trump claimed that the United States would be "BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz." In the following days, U.S. leaders hastened to clarify that America was not blockading the entire strait—which would have violated international law—but was merely blockading Iran's ports.

But somehow nobody managed to get this simple and crucial fact to lodge in the president's tortuous mind. "Iran recently announced that they were closing the Strait," Trump posted Saturday, "which is strange, because our BLOCKADE has already closed it. They're helping us without knowing, and they are the ones that lose with the closed passage, $500 Million Dollars a day!"

The hour is growing very late. Already the political damage is irreversible for Trump and his party: Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged Sunday that domestic average gas prices would likely not return below $3 a gallon until 2027. (Today gas is north of $4.) And the simple fact causing it all—the same as it's been all along—is that Trump, having chosen to kick the Iranian hornet's nest, remains at a loss for what to do next. We've known he had no plan for months. But what's becoming shockingly apparent now is how little he's even paying attention to the problem.

Donald Distrusted

by William Kristol

It was the afternoon of April 3. An American F-15E fighter jet had been shot down over Iran. The two airmen aboard were missing. The president of the United States was screaming at aides about Jimmy Carter's hostage crisis and how this incident could cost him the next election.

Meanwhile, the military was devising and then executing a complex and challenging operation to rescue the airmen. And in order to help make this operation a success, "Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn't be helpful, instead updating him at meaningful moments, a senior administration official said."

"Aides kept the president out of the room." It's worth dwelling for a moment on this remarkable detail from a Wall Street Journal report this weekend on the state of Trump's psyche. Aides—presumably senior military officials in particular—believed that they had to exclude the president from the decision-making if it were to succeed.

And Trump was excluded, and the operation succeeded.

On the one hand, it's good news that some of Trump's subordinates understand, at least somewhat—the truth about the man and the dangers he poses. And it's good news that they are willing and able—at least in some circumstances, and to some degree—to act on it.

In the short term, we can only hope that other aides will similarly act to mitigate their boss's furious irresponsibility.

On the other hand, it's an untenable situation when the president can't be trusted to be part of—or even present at—a crucial national security operation.

So as soon as is practically possible, which probably means early in 2027, Congress should take responsibility and remove him from office.

The fact is that Trump is far more reckless, unstable, and detached from reality than Richard Nixon was in 1974, when some of his senior aides also acted to protect the nation from his worst impulses. They did their job, but it was a short-term expedient. Two more years of Nixon in office would have been dangerous. Today, two more years of Trump in office would be unacceptably dangerous—not least because many more of Trump's subordinates than Nixon's are pandering to his whims rather than checking them.

As it happens, Trump has also committed acts of corruption and abuse of power even more deserving of impeachment and removal than Nixon's. In other words, Trump's removal from office would be in the national interest and would serve the cause of justice.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that we would be much better off if someone like Gerald Ford were vice president. But JD Vance isn't deranged. And to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, you have to go to impeachment with the vice president you have, not the vice president you might wish to have.

But it's important to the country's well-being to remove the unfit president we do have.