President Donald Trump wants to end the war in Iran but cannot figure out how, according to a pair of journalists from the conservative website The Bulwark.

Noting that Trump’s approval rating according to a recent AP poll is 33 percent and he recently lost an important redistricting referendum in Virginia, journalist Sam Stein told colleague Tim Miller on Wednesday that “I think he clearly is tired of this s—— and wants to figure out a way out of it. So it's not that he's not feeling the acute political and economic pain here. It's just that he's in a game of chicken.”

Stein added that “there's a larger thing here, a theme through all these stories that I'm going to get to later, but it boils down to this: Donald Trump starts s—— without ever knowing what the off-ramp is going to be. It's the same with Virginia and redistricting. It's the same with Kevin Warsh in the Fed nomination. He always starts something and he has no idea how to figure it out and finish it off. And this is just what's happening in Iran.”

Seizing on Stein’s point, Miller alluded to the fact that on Tuesday the president called for an abrupt ceasefire against Iran, which given the lack of predicating circumstances led many to call it “TACO Tuesday” — that is, “Trump Always Chickens Out” Tuesday. The Independent reported the story with the headline “Trump extends ceasefire deadline with Iran in latest example of ‘TACO’” while The Daily Beast used “TACO Trump Gives Iran an Indefinite Ceasefire.”

“One of the limits of madman theory is that you always have to be the craziest man,” Miller told Stein. “And right now, he's in a game of chicken with ... the craziest sons of b—— in the world. And so it's like, 'okay. So now... now what?' And you can see what happens, which is he says, ‘Oh, I'm gonna end their civilization,’ or, ‘Oh, I'm not gonna extend the ceasefire,’ or, ‘We're gonna go back at their power plants.’ And then when push comes to shove, it's like he doesn't want to do it.”

While the “madman theory” was popularized by another controversial Republican president, Richard Nixon, Trump’s predecessor used this approach only sporadically, only after deliberately plotting his implementation — and could point to achievements like ending the Vietnam War, preventing nuclear war in the Middle East and opening up relations with China. By contrast, as Stein and Miller noted, Trump seems to act impulsively.

“But like, you can tell ... he's trying to veer off,” Miller said. “He's the one with the itchy turn hand.”

Stein replied, “It is a weird situation where it's like, who is the biggest nihilist?”

When AlterNet reached out to the White House earlier in April for comment on criticisms of Trump’s policies in Iran and their impact on the economy, White House spokesman Kush Desai told Alternet that “President Trump has been clear about short-term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, and the Administration went into this military engagement with a plan to mitigate these disruptions to America’s long-term economic resurgenceAs energy markets begin to stabilize, historic tax refund checks hit the mail, and the rest of the Trump administration’s pro-growth agenda continues taking effect, Americans can rest assured that the best is yet to come.”

MAGA influencers are battling with each other over foreign donations from those who support the Iran war.

The Bulwark's Sam Stein and Will Sommer took a dive into the influencer culture of the right.

"There is rampant suspicion that there is a DOJ investigation into conservative influencers who may be paid by foreign sources to both oppose and/or support the Iran war," Stein explained. "And all of these conservative influencers are salivating over the prospects that their ideological foes within the conservative movement, not like liberals within the conservative movement, may soon be arrested."

Sommer thinks that this investigation isn't likely to exist.

All of it stems from a tweet from someone calling themselves "Zero Hour" that Sommer said is a "shady character" he's dealt with in the past. When the account posted it, the right-wing pounced.

"They imagined their foes, whether it be, you know, pro-Israel, pro-Iran war against Iran, war against Israel. They imagine them in shackles," Sommer said.

The Justice Department hasn't given a statement confirming or denying the existence of a probe.

Still, it prompted Sommer to crack a joke about whether "CatTurd" would be arrested.

What Stein found amusing was that conservatives were excited that others on their team might be arrested as opposed to someone on the left being targeted.

"We're past the point where they want to lock up Hillary Clinton, they now want to see their own MAGA influencers locked up over this war," said Stein.

Sommer said it's a sign about just "how bad things have gotten in the MAGA civil war."

Jack Posobiec posted this week on X, "Influencers who take foreign money and don't disclose it should be deported to the country they took the money from."

"So, I mean, these guys are, they're so excited for what, again, to be clear, is the non-existent pundit purge," mocked Sommer.

President Donald Trump is “losing control” of his own MAGA movement because of lingering high prices and his unpopular wars, according to the editor of a conservative publication.

“I think the risk for Trump here is twofold,” Sam Stein, managing editor at The Bulwark, said during an appearance on MS NOW with host Katy Tur. Stein referenced how popular right-leaning podcaster Andrew Schulz turned on Trump because of his invasions of Venezuela and Iran, with similarly right-leaning podcaster Joe Rogan doing likewise after Trump declared war against Iran.

“These are the podcasts that were gateways to a whole slice of the electorate that was just politically curious — not politically active — but they did get involved in 2024, and they got involved largely on behalf of Donald Trump,” Stein explained. “Andrew Schulz, Rogan, and others activated them. But the other risk is that they're now potentially turning Donald Trump into a cultural punchline — that he's an idiot, that his supporters are dorks, that he's been fooled into doing all this stuff, and that he is a failure.”

Stein added, “Donald Trump, for better or for worse, has had an incredible ability to shape perceptions of himself and the cultural relevance that he has. And to a degree, he loses that control when these people turn on him — when his own supporters turn on him. That hasn't really happened in the entirety of his political career.”

Although Stein speculated that Trump’s ongoing cover up of his links to the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein also contributes to his waning popularity with the MAGA base, the bigger issues are those that directly impact these voters’ lives.

“He literally said he would bring down gasoline prices by half, that he would bring down grocery prices by half,” Stein explained. “We are in a place where prices are higher, and at some point the spin just stops. You can't spin these people away. That's the real danger he's facing right now.”

Notably, the episode also cited Rogan referring to people in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement as “a bunch of dorks. Because a lot of them are dorks — really weird, uninteresting, unintelligent people clinging to something. And yet there are also a lot of people who are genuine patriots, and they're all locked into this one group. And you've got to accept the dorks too.”

Shortly after Trump first invaded Iran, Rogan admitted on his podcast that many of Trump’s supporters feel “betrayed” by the move.

“Well, it just seems so insane, based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?” Rogan said at the time. “He ran on, ‘No more wars,’ ‘End these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

In February, former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois called Trump supporters who still backed him after his invasion of Venezuela and his then-planned invasion of Iran as members of a “cult” for abandoning their principles.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh argued. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Then, despite Trump’s actions against Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, they still support him.

He added, “And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters? What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBu-IX-Hzr4

President Donald Trump is dividing America at a time when he could and should unite it, a conservative pollster and former Democratic politician argued on Tuesday.

“For decades Americans have told pollsters the country is going in the wrong direction,” pollster Mark Penn and New York City Democratic politician Andrew Stein wrote for The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. “It started in the 1970s with Vietnam, carried over into the [President Jimmy] Carter years, and has been more or less constant since—except for periods beginning in the mid-1980s under [President] Ronald Reagan and the mid-1990s under [President] Bill Clinton. The public has been dissatisfied for the past 20 years. That means a whole generation came of age in an era of gloom and doom.”

Penn and Stein speculated that this helps explain why “in last year’s Harvard Youth poll, only 13 percent thought America was headed in the right direction (up 4 points from 2024) and 64 percent said democracy was in trouble.” By contrast, a Lazar poll of Israeli youth found “68 percent expressing pride in being Israeli and 79 percent satisfied with their life. This is a nation in which military service is near universal for both sexes and a state of war has been continuous for 2 and 1/2 years.”

Overall, Penn and Stein concluded that Trump should learn from Israel and other nations that emphasize a positive tone in their politics to simultaneously improve his own political standing and help Americans feel better about their future.

“This is an opportunity for President Trump,” Penn and Stein opined. “He can lead America out of this cycle of pessimism if he can focus on what makes America great and how we can become even greater. That requires follow-through in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba as linchpins to this recovery of spirit, along with the return of energy prices to normal and economic policies focused on growth and opportunity. The contrast between America and Israel suggests that happiness lies in a spirit that works to overcome adversity rather than complaining about the imperfections of success.”

They added, “The biggest challenge for Mr. Trump will be to set aside his political grievances and the most divisive parts of his message. If he can do that, the greatest legacy he can leave on America’s anniversary is restoring America’s optimism about its future and the next generation.”

Speaking to this journalist for Salon Magazine in 2018, former President Jimmy Carter said that “I think that under Trump the government is worse than it has been before. This is the first time I remember when the truth is ignored, allies are deliberately aggravated, China, Europe, Mexico and Canada are hurt economically and have to hurt us in response, Americans see the future worse than the present, and immigrants are treated cruelly.”

He later said that we continue to have the “crisis of confidence” he described in a 1979 speech, arguing that “we still have the same crises of that time, plus a serious loss of faith in democracy, the truth, treating all people as equals, each generation believing life would be better, America has a good system of justice, etc.”

Trump’s approval rating continues to fall in the polls as a result of various unpopular policies. A recent survey found that 20 percent of people who voted for Trump in 2024 have already decided not to support Republicans in the midterm elections, while almost 60 percent of voters who backed Trump in 2024 after supporting President Joe Biden in 2020 admitted they will not vote Republican in 2026.

“These working-class voters…took a gamble on Trump, hoping he would deliver them from an economic squeeze and restore some sense of social peace,” pollster Jared Abbott explained. “One year on, he has not done so, and worse than that, he’s introduced a lot more chaos.”

Reporters and political analysts are raising questions about Fox News being on hand as the FBI raided the office of Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas, an influential Democrat in the state.

The Bulwark's reporter, Sam Stein, and host Tim Miller both questioned if Fox got a heads-up about the raid in Portsmouth on Wednesday morning.

"How did Fox News get someone live on the scene of a raid in Portsmouth? Do you all have an office in Portsmouth?" asked Miller.

"I will say. Some pretty remarkable instincts by Fox News to have its London correspondent placed in Portsmouth, Virginia, right in time for the FBI raid of Louise Lucas," wrote Stein. "To be clear, I don't begrudge Fox at all here. Take the scoop. But it does suggest a coordination on the part of the FBI and a politicization, too. The folks who accused CNN of getting the tip-off on Roger Stone seem to be fine with it now."

Stein noted that Lucas oversaw a successful redistricting campaign effort two weeks before.

Former Director of Public Affairs at the Federal Trade Commission Douglas Farrar similarly commented, "Fox News knew to be on the scene at the perfect time..."

The Justice Department's manual shows in Title 1 Section 7.710 that any "advance" warning to Fox News would have needed a high-level, investigative reporter Scott MacFarlane wrote on X.

Indeed, the DOJ manual explains:

"In order to promote the aims of law enforcement, including the deterrence of criminal conduct and the enhancement of public confidence, DOJ personnel, with the prior approval of the appropriate United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General, may assist the news media in recording or reporting on a law enforcement activity."

It goes on to say that the assistant attorney general or U.S. attorney must consider whether their hat-tip would "Unreasonably endanger any individual; prejudice the rights of any person; or be otherwise proscribed by law."

"In cases where a search warrant or arrest warrant is to be executed, no advance information will be provided to the news media without the express approval of the appropriate United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General. This requirement also applies to operations in preparation for the execution of a warrant," the manual continues.

MacFarlane saw Fox's reports and asked how the network could characterize it as a “corruption” investigation before reviewing the legal documents associated with the warrant.

"What court filing are they referring to ... that specifies this as a 'corruption' probe?" he asked.

The FoxNews.com report alleges the raid could be related to a cannabis dispensary that Lucas co-owns. Virginia hasn't approved sales of cannabis products containing THC recreationally, which is the ingredient that can achieve the "high" feeling from cannabis products. However, those with a medical card can use cannabis in Virginia.

A February report by the Virginia Mercury said that some of the products in the dispensary claimed to have high doses of THC, but when tested, didn't come close to achieving the advertised amount.

Trump reclassified state-licensed medical marijuana as a less dangerous, Schedule III drug in April. It did not fully legalize cannabis federally.

Fox News was broadcasting immediately as the FBI conducted a raid on the office of Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas, a Democrat, and progressive foe of President Donald Trump.

Trump has spent the past several months using his Justice Department to target his political enemies after his former attorney general failed to secure indictments of them.

Lucas has been a thorn in the digital side of Trump for the past few years, relentlessly trolling him and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on X.

There is currently no information on how the FBI obtained a warrant to raid Lucas' office, however, WJLA News cited sources saying it might be related to a corruption probe. The warrants were approved by a federal judge.

Bulwark reporter Sam Stein questioned how Fox News happened to be on hand just as the FBI acted.

"I will say. Some pretty remarkable instincts by Fox News to have its London correspondent placed in Portsmouth, Virginia right in time for the FBI raid of Louise Lucas," wrote Stein.

According to Fox's reporting, it wasn't merely Lucas, there were many people taken into custody during the raid "as agents move through the area."

WJLA News reported that federal agents are also serving a warrant at a cannabis dispensary nearby.

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted about a year after he posted a photo of shells on the beach spelling out 8647.

"She told Fox News that she had no idea what the FBI agents were doing at her office," the Fox report said.

President Donald Trump is facing pushback from conservatives, some of whom are turning on him because of his unpopular war in Iran — and others because he is not fulfilling his own professed political goals.

"At a moment when the opposition seems pretty energized, it's hard to ignore that Republicans don't seem to match the urgency,” The Federalist's elections correspondent Brianna Lyman wrote on Sunday in an editorial that juxtaposed Democrats’ high turnout for the No Kings protests with Republicans’ comparatively lackadaisical attitude. While Lyman was no fan of the No Kings protests, which she characterized as “stupid,” she also blasted Trump and his fellow Republicans for lacking the aforementioned sense of “urgency.”

As one example, Lyman wrote that “the Republican-controlled Senate has failed to confirm more than 50 Trump-appointed nominees, as reported by The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd. Add in rising gas prices amid an ongoing war, and the result is a political environment where voters are likely to feel less than enthusiastic about heading to the polls.” She also focused on the president’s bill to require increased voter ID for people to cast ballots, a measure critics argue is an attempt to rig the 2026 midterm elections.

"Republicans — with a majority in both chambers of Congress — have yet to get the SAVE America Act to Trump's desk,” Lyman said. "Yet Thune has come up with excuse after excuse, talking like he wants to pass the legislation while failing to take the measures necessary to do so."

Lyman also argued, "Thune refuses to use a talking filibuster to pass the legislation, which would require no rule changes.” By contrast, Lyman seemingly could not help but acknowledge that the No Kings protests which she deplored at least energized opponents of Trump, something that his own party has failed to accomplish.

“On social media there’s no shortage of Republicans mocking the protests — and with good reason,” Lyman said. “But however stupid the message of the ‘No Kings’ protests, the left nonetheless managed to mobilize millions of people, including current and future voters.”

A more centrist conservative, The Bulwark’s managing editor Sam Stein, has also noticed a waning of enthusiasm for Trump, in his case among the swing voters who helped him win in the 2024 presidential election.

“I think the risk for Trump here is twofold,” Stein said during an appearance on MS NOW with host Katy Tur. He identified two right-leaning podcasters, Andrew Schulz and Joe Rogan, who have turned on Trump because of their opposition to his invasions of Venezuela and Iran.

“These are the podcasts that were gateways to a whole slice of the electorate that was just politically curious — not politically active — but they did get involved in 2024, and they got involved largely on behalf of Donald Trump,” Stein explained. “Andrew Schulz, Rogan, and others activated them. But the other risk is that they're now potentially turning Donald Trump into a cultural punchline — that he's an idiot, that his supporters are dorks, that he's been fooled into doing all this stuff, and that he is a failure.”

Stein added, “Donald Trump, for better or for worse, has had an incredible ability to shape perceptions of himself and the cultural relevance that he has. And to a degree, he loses that control when these people turn on him — when his own supporters turn on him. That hasn't really happened in the entirety of his political career.”

While Schulz has some way, Rogan has been America’s number one podcaster for years, and his support for Trump is widely perceived as having helped normalize the far right politician to millions of people. Yet after Trump invaded Iran, Rogan began to describe Trump supporters as feeling “betrayed.”

“Well, it just seems so insane, based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?” Rogan said. “He ran on, ‘No more wars,’ ‘End these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

In February Rogan also warned that Trump’s ongoing cover up of documents related to the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — who was close friends with Trump from the 1980s to the 2000s — looks “terrible.”

“Who knows what f — — happens with all this Epstein files s — —,” Rogan said. “It just keeps getting crazier and crazier and crazier and deeper and deeper.”

He added, “Why would your name be redacted if you’re not a victim? Like, this is what’s crazy about all this. Like, how come you redact some people and you don’t redact other people?”

During his first presidency, Donald Trump fired a long list of conservative appointees — from former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to ex-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to former National Security Advisor John Bolton to ex-White Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. Trump hasn't fired nearly as many appointees during his second presidency, as many of picks were ultra-MAGA loyalists who were unlikely to question or challenge him. The first Trump Administration had a lot more turnover than the second one.

But in 2026, Trump fired two of his most prominent loyalists: first former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, then ex-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Since Bondi's departure from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Todd Blanche has been serving as acting attorney general. And it remains to be seen whether Trump's nominee for a permanent AG, if he chooses one, will be Blanche, federal prosecutor and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Harmeet K. Dhillon (who presently heads the DOJ Civil Rights Division), or someone else.

In an article published on April 20, Washington Post reporters Jeremy Roebuck, Perry Stein, Salvador Rizzo and Theodoric Meyer examine the chaos plaguing the post-Bondi DOJ.

"Since President Donald Trump tapped Todd Blanche, his former defense attorney, to temporarily lead the Justice Department this month, the message from those familiar with the president's thinking has remained consistent: A permanent shot at the job of attorney general is Blanche's to lose," the Post journalists explain. "But that hasn't stopped a frenzied competition to push other candidates for what has become one of the most important Cabinet-level posts in the president's plans for his second term. And the uncertainty around top leadership roles has prompted concern from some in a department already struggling with claims of politicization and the abandonment of long-held norms over the lengths to which Trump's next pick may go to impress him."

Roebuck, Stein, Rizzo and Meyer note that Trump "has given no indication of when, or if, he intends to formally nominate a permanent replacement for Bondi."

"Either option carries risks," the journalists report. "Nominating Blanche could result in a fiery confirmation fight, but leaving him as an unconfirmed attorney general gives him less stature and legitimacy…. Trump's decision to fire Bondi followed months of frustration with the limited progress she had made in delivering on one of his chief expectations for the department: his desire to see his political enemies put on trial…. Even without a nomination, Blanche could continue to lead the Justice Department in an acting capacity for months to come."

Will Sommer and Sam Stein of The Bulwarks say that growing cracks in President Donald Trump’s support from the MAGA social media sphere “really matters,” as a good number of popular commentators “don’t seem to be on board with what’s going on.”

Stein noted that support for a wartime president is traditionally highest in the early phases of conflict. That such backing apparently isn’t there right now means, “It’s only going to get messier from here.”

To buttress his point, Stein played a bit of a video from MAGA vlogger Sneako.

While acknowledging Sneako as a bit of a “problematic character,“ Stein said, “people listen to this guy.” Opinions like his particularly matter because such vloggers are “a huge component of Trump’s political support.”

Sneako condemned Trump as “80 years old,” and someone “would rather sacrifice his own citizens.” He claimed the Iran conflict was meant as a distraction from the release of damaging Jeffrey Epstein material that would tarnish Trump’s reputation. He added, “that’s what type of man is in charge of our country right now.”

Sommer said Sneako’s take is “how people in this universe view this stuff,” adding he would be very interested to “see where [Joe] Rogan picks up” on this developing trend.

He also cited a “California Republican woman” whose online X post called MAGA defections “shedding the dead weight,” adding that it’s good that certain people are jumping ship on Trump. “We only need the loyalists,” she said.

Sommer countered by saying, “When you’re saying that it’s good that you’re losing support, I don’t think things are working out for you.”

President Donald Trump is losing many once-staunch members of his right-wing base because they view him as “a lame duck and a loser,” according to a conservative commentator.

“Mike Cernovich is not just one of the original MAGA influencers, he’s arguably a paradigm case—the ever-active operative/influencer who just won’t stop coming up with crazy new ideas,” wrote The Bulwark’s Will Sommer on Monday. Describing Cernovich’s evolution from a manosphere influencer in the early 2010s to a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist in 2016, Sommer pointed out that Cernovich in November described Trump’s D.C. “as a city consumed by corruption, with Trump appointees filling their pockets with impunity.” He added that Cernovich himself commented, “During recent visit in DC, the talk of everyone was how overt the corruption was. It’s at levels you read about in history books. In nearly every department. Lots of, ‘Do people just think Democrats will never win and they’ll all get away with this?’” On March 25 he tweeted about big trades that seem to coincide with major Trump administration news, “It was a scandal when Hunter Biden did less than this. New MAGA does not care.”

Sommer noted that Cernovich is not only upset with corruption.

“Whatever effects the ayahuasca may have had on his mind, Cernovich’s case is interesting to me because it signifies a generational fissure breaking out within MAGA,” Sommer observed. “A massive, multi-front fight over Israel, antisemitism, and the assassination conspiracy theories surrounding Charlie Kirk has been driving much of the discontent on the right. But there is also a class of original Trumpers like Cernovich who appear to be pivoting away from the president. They are convinced that he has fallen short on his promises and have been around D.C. enough to see how unethical and corrupt the administration is acting. They also increasingly look at Trump, embattled by the Jeffrey Epstein case and the Iran war, as a lame duck and a loser.”

Cernovich is not alone among Trumpers who are turning on Trump. Earlier in March, right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan said “America is great. Make America greater? I’m down. But Make America Great Again, and then it becomes a movement of a bunch of dorks. A lot of them are these really weird, f------ uninteresting, unintelligent people who have got something that they cling to.”

Shortly after Trump invaded Iran, Rogan described the war as “crazy” and the president’s supporters as having been “betrayed,” adding, “He ran on no more wars: End these stupid, senseless wars. And then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

On Monday The Bulwark’s managing editor Sam Stein told MS NOW that Trump is “losing control” of his own movement.

“I think the risk for Trump here is twofold,” Stein told MS NOW host Katy Tur referring to both Rogan and another right-wing podcaster who has recently turned on Trump, Andrew Schulz.

“These are the podcasts that were gateways to a whole slice of the electorate that was just politically curious — not politically active — but they did get involved in 2024, and they got involved largely on behalf of Donald Trump,” Stein said. “Andrew Schulz, Rogan, and others activated them. But the other risk is that they're now potentially turning Donald Trump into a cultural punchline — that he's an idiot, that his supporters are dorks, that he's been fooled into doing all this stuff, and that he is a failure.”

He added, “Donald Trump, for better or for worse, has had an incredible ability to shape perceptions of himself and the cultural relevance that he has. And to a degree, he loses that control when these people turn on him — when his own supporters turn on him. That hasn't really happened in the entirety of his political career.”