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Trump's ego created a crisis he can't escape — and the world is paying the price

Iran's fighting for survival, Israel's fighting for vengeance and Donald Trump is fighting for narcissistic supply. It all started when the president tore up the Iran nuclear deal during his first term, because it was a signature achievement of Barack Obama.

We’re not speculating about Trump’s motives. “[T]he administration is set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism, seemingly for ideological and personality reasons - it was Obama's deal,” British ambassador Kim Darroch wrote in a diplomatic cable to the UK prime minister in 2018.

As you might expect, America’s withdrawal from the Iran deal freed up Iran to enrich a great deal of uranium. When Trump returned to office, he decided that Iran had way too much uranium and he needed to take heroic action to fix this problem of his own creation. His narcissism demanded that he get a better deal than Obama, but his inept real-estate negotiators couldn’t get him there. It’s doubtful that even the most skilled negotiators could have persuaded Iran to do more, but all hope was lost after Trump virtually abolished the State Department and sent his flunkies in lieu of professional diplomats.

In February, Trump decapitated the Iranian regime in the hopes of accomplishing what his predecessor could not. Trump demanded Iran’s unconditional surrender. Iran mocked him with AI-generated videos of Lego President Trump cavorting with Lego Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Lego Pete Hegseth swilling booze and committing rape. More consequentially, Iran picked off key oil infrastructure of America’s allies in the Persian Gulf. So far, none of Trump’s shopworn tactics have forced Iran to capitulate on nuclear enrichment, ballistic missiles, regional proxy forces or anything else.

The first round of peace talks in Islamabad disintegrated after Trump promised to negotiate based on Iran’s framework but reverted to maximalist demands as soon as he got the stock market-soothing headline that peace talks were underway. When Trump claimed last week that Iran had agreed to another round of talks, Tehran said they’d agreed to no such thing. Trump was trying to manifest talks by claiming Iran had agreed when it hadn’t. However, Iran is fighting an asymmetrical economic war against the US and it has no interest in helping Trump juice the market. On Sunday, the US fired on the Touska, a 900-foot Iranian cargo ship that allegedly tried to run the American blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has vowed to retaliate. Peace has never seemed further away.

The Strait of Hormuz is another self-made crisis for Trump. On February 27, the strait was wide open. Ships laden with oil and natural gas steamed safely through the narrow entry to the Persian Gulf without paying a cent. The next day, the US and Israel attacked. The day after that, the conduit for 20 percent of the world’s fossil fuel slammed shut. Iran soon imposed a system of tolls that the government moved to make permanent. Iranian lawmaker Mohammadreza Rezaei Kouchi said parliament was pursuing “a plan to formally codify Iran’s sovereignty, control and oversight over the Strait of Hormuz, while also creating a source of revenue through the collection of fees.” This newfound leverage “must continue to be used,” Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei decreed. When asked when Iran might cede control of the strait, senior lawmaker Ebrahim Azizi answered, “never.”

Trump’s advisors had warned him that Iran would close the strait if attacked, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured him that he needn’t worry about it. The regime would collapse so fast it wouldn’t have time to close the strait, Netanyahu claimed during a February meeting in the Situation Room. “Sounds good to me,” Trump said. His advisors warned that Netanyahu was selling strategic snake oil, but Trump’s mind was made up.

Before the US blockade began on April 13, the hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was extracting about $2 million per friendly ship, payable in crypto or Chinese yuan. This so-called “Tehran Tollbooth” could generate over $200 billion a year for Iran when normal traffic resumes. That’s money Iran could use to rebuild its shattered navy and accelerate its nuclear program. Moreover, being the toll booth operator would give Iran greater global influence than it would with nuclear weapons. Lots of countries have nukes, but only Iran has Hormuz. All this thanks to the hubris of Trump and Netanyahu.

Experts expect Iran to keep charging tolls after the war ends. “You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube,” strategic energy analyst Clayton Seigle told the Times.

Trump saw dollar signs. He suggested the US and Iran might team up to extort the world. “We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture,” Trump said in a greed-fuelled reverie. “It’s a beautiful thing.” Trump soon reversed course and threatened to destroy Iranian civilization if they didn’t reopen the strait immediately. Despite the genocidal threat, Iran kept right on blocking the strait. Trump offered a two-week ceasefire anyway. Unable to force the strait open, Trump’s next move was to seal it even tighter. The US Navy began blockading Iranian ports last Monday. On Friday, Iran opened the strait with the tollbooth intact, after Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire, only to shut it again because the US refused to call off its blockade.

Early in the war, the US was careful to blunt rising oil prices. It actually removed sanctions on Iranian oil on the grounds that it was more important to maintain global supply than to deny Iran the revenue. Now, Trump is taking the opposite tack, depriving the world of oil to put pressure on Iran. Trump wants a quick end to the war, but a blockade is at best a slow-acting poison that takes effect over weeks or months.

In the meantime, Americans face rising gas prices and accelerating inflation. The US Energy Information Agency forecasts that gas will average $3.70 a gallon for the rest of the year, as cracks widen in the global economy.

“In the past there was a group called Dire Straits,” Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency warned. “It’s a dire strait now, and it is going to have major implications for the global economy."

The International Monetary Fund warned last week that the conflict could cause a global recession. Ireland’s government may face a no-confidence vote after it called in the army to quell fuel protests. Europe is facing a catastrophic jet fuel shortage. Gas stations in Australia are running dry. Indonesia and Malaysia have ordered civil servants to work from home to conserve energy. “Just from a magnitude perspective, [the war’s impact on Asia] is really very, very, very large,” energy scholar Phillip Cornell told the New York Times.

Machiavelli wrote that "wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please." Trump is desperate for an off-ramp, but Iran is in no hurry to give him one. The regime knows that now is Iran’s best chance to inflict pain on the west and thereby deter future attacks. The United States and Israel are running low on critical weapons that they lack the industrial capacity to replenish quickly. If Iran agrees to end war before inflicting major pain and securing significant concessions, it knows the United States and Israel will eventually replenish their missile supplies and come back at them later.

Trump’s war in Iran is a strategic disaster. His ego got him into this mess and his ego is preventing him from leaving. The world is at this madman’s mercy.

Lindsay Beyerstein is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, investigative journalist and judge for the Sidney Hillman Foundation, which honors excellence in journalism in service of the common good. Her forthcoming book, about conspiracy theories as a political rejection of the Enlightenment, is tentatively titled Against the Light: The Deep State Myth from the Illuminati to QAnon.

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I blame Barack Obama for this

Up until inside the past decade or so, I always fancied myself a fairly affable guy. Growing up in New Jersey and working in newspapers as an adult demanded a certain degree of tolerance and a wicked sense of humor.

Everybody had their flaws, but we were all in this mess together, so I figured let’s go for the laughs and make the most of it. I was willing to give anybody a chance.

Not anymore.

These days, if I even whiff the foul scent of Republican on you, I’m either going the other way, or right through you.

Lately, I hate Republicans. I mean I really HATE them. I don’t necessarily like that I really hate Republicans, but there is nothing to recommend them. They are just flat mean, morally busted, and are actively trying to kill us. Worse, many of them are doing it with a smile on their face.

How many more hundreds of thousands of Americans would still be alive if we all simply listened to the science, wore masks and got vaccinated? How much more stable would our democracy be if a defeat at the polls was accepted through gritted teeth and graciousness, instead of threats and insurrection?

Instead, Republicans have doubled down on their heinousness and placed an anti-vax ghoul in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services. They have made scientists the enemy, instead of our friends tirelessly searching for answers.

Rather than defend and replenish the lifeblood of any democracy, our vote, Republicans are doing everything in their power to kill it. It’s not a matter of IF Trump deploys the Insurrection Act but WHEN, to put down people who don’t like him or disagree with him, which we know from last weekend alone is an astronomical number.

It really is hard to see how we survive this without an all-out war. More than 7 million patriots were in our streets last Saturday peacefully sending the message that they’ve had enough of this dangerous, abhorrent Republican fascism.

The grotesque, orange would-be king responded by posting an AI video of himself literally s------g on those protesters. Republicans, as always, were just fine with this. Completely normal. Nothing to see here.

The corporate press, which has gone out of its way to enable this madness, barely gave it a mention.

Like I said, this is not sustainable.

It was quite a surprise then, that when I rolled out of the rack today, I resolved to find a better way to talk to Republicans. I’m sure it had something to do with a recent epiphany, but more on that below.

Something has to change …

I didn’t always hate Republicans. Hell, I used to vote for ’em every now and then.

Are you still there …?

A number of my oldest friends are Republicans. We’ve been around several blocks together. These are the people I grew up with; got in trouble with; fought for; whose pockets were stuffed with my secrets … the people I loved.

I know where my old friends came from; how they were raised; whether their mother or father was an ass; where the skeletons were buried … Nobody knows more about you than an old, trusted friend.

Lately, I don’t much recognize too many of my old friends anymore. I reckon I look pretty hazy to them, too. I see the stuff they load up on their Facebook page, and wonder how it is we ended up living on different planets when we used to share the same bed.

This all started with Trump, of course. The guy brought out the worst in all of us. It’s his singular talent. Everybody around him is miserable and angry.

I realize I’m not splattering you with any big revelations here. We’ve all gone through this. Not a one of us hasn’t been touched by this negative, soul-crushing force.

Used to be we could trade political insults. Poke fun at each other. In the event it got too heated we could turn the flame down by simply agreeing too many of our politicians were full of crap. They were just going to screw us all in the end no matter what. There was money to be made.

Much better to believe in a friendship that had stood the test of time, than some political party that would test your patience.

Those were the days ...

Today was going to be different, though. Today, I was going to be the bigger man. I was going to reengage. Bridge the gap. Start anew. Find some reason amid the ashes of these torched relationships …

I blame Barack Obama for this.

I don’t know about you, but I do most of my above-average thinking while lying in bed. There’s not a more honest place than safely underneath the covers, head nestled in a pillow.

Just before I closed my eyes Sunday night, I remembered something the two-term, scandal-free president said on a campaign trail way back when while stumping for Joe Biden. I’ll paraphrase, and guarantee you it was even smarter than I’ll type it. But it stuck, and here it goes:

“Look,” Obama said in his ascending tone, “If I tell your Republican friends they should consider voting for something or doing something, they’ll look at me and laugh. They don’t like me! But if YOU tell your Republican friends they should consider voting for something or doing something, they’ll listen! And they’ll listen, because-they-like-you! They might even LOVE you! So sit down. Talk with them!”

See what I mean? If FDR deserved four terms, this guy should have got at least that many. Imagine how much better off we’d be for it.

Except we don’t allows kings in the country …

Now, here I was this morning, refreshed and ready to bring it. There were holes to patch and old friendships to cement. I would be the better man, and cautiously extend a hand. Maybe, just maybe … I could reconnect with a few of these lost souls.

I figured there was nothing to lose, because everything has already been lost. If nothing else it might add perspective, and make for a half-decent column.

I poured a cup of coffee, plugged into a comfy chair, cracked open the local paper, and said this out loud: “Awwwwwwwww fuuuuuuuck …”

HEADLINE: “GOP Tries to Weaken Law Shielding Whales, Seals and Polar Bears”

Whales, seals and polar bears????? Holy hell, are there three more lovable and majestic creatures on this earth?

Whales, seals and polar bears?????

Is there ANYTHING these detestable Republicans won’t put their filthy hands on and strangle to death?

Here’s the lede of this important story:

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine (AP) — Republican lawmakers are targeting one of the U.S.’s longest standing pieces of environmental legislation, credited with helping save rare whales from extinction.Conservative leaders feel they now have the political will to remove key pieces of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, enacted in 1972 to protect whales, seals, polar bears and other sea animals.

Turns out this story was filed last week and got very little damn attention, because Republicans are coming at us with both barrels. They intend to end America as we’ve known it since the last Civil War.

It’s impossible to keep up with it all, and process this madness, which is all part of their destructive design.

The Republican Party is anti-life, anti-American, and anti-good.

The party that said boogeymen were coming for our cats and dogs, are literally coming after our whales, seals and polar bears.

How damn much more of this are we supposed to take?

So, hands shaking, I put the paper down, and raged to the point of tears.

I decided talking to my Republican friends could wait for a bit, and until I could do it without wanting ’em all dead.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

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'Thin-skinned loser': Trump slammed over WH exhibit insulting Democratic presidents

President Donald Trump's exhibit of previous presidents at the West Wing of the White House now has a new addition — plaques that include negative commentary written in Trump's voice.

On Wednesday, USA TODAY White House correspondent Joey Garrison tweeted images from Trump's "Presidential Walk of Fame" that show new plaques under images of past Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Both plaques include a plethora of insults of both presidents that include Trump's signature style of oddly placed capital letters.

The plaque for Biden (which is under not a portrait of Biden but a photo of the presidential autopen) used Trump's denigrating moniker "Sleepy Joe Biden" and called him "the worst President in American History" who won the "most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States." The plaque further alleges that Biden "caused the highest Inflation ever recorded."

Under Obama's portrait, the plaque claims that the 44th president of the United States was "one of the most divisive political figures in American History" who "presided over a stagnant Economy." The plaque also claims that Obama "weaponized the IRS and Federal bureaucracies against his political opponents" and "presided over the creation of the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, the worst political scandal in American History."

Condemnation from social media was swift and immediate from both sides of the political aisle. American University alumnus Brian Thomas called the display "incredibly crass and low-class." Canadian communications consultant Greg MacEachern sarcastically described it as "very adult." Former CNN host John Harwood quipped: "The incumbent president is mentally ill."

"Staggering level of pettiness and grade-school immaturity," tweeted former Kentucky Republican state senator Whitney Westerfield. "Once again, right on brand from this President. Once again, a stain on the honor and dignity of the office of the presidency, and further driving the decline in our national civic decorum. A shame."

"What a bunch of children," observed Maryland-based sports commentator Paul Douglas. "The funny thing is all the insults and skits and bits will never fill the infinite chasm in Trump's soul. Twice elected the most powerful person on the planet and yet still the most insecure person in human history.

"It takes a special kind of thinned-skinned loser to drive stuff like this," tweeted tech and digital media lawyer Josh King.

"Handing the keys to the worst humans imaginable in this administration continues to humiliate," civil attorney Daniel Aguilar wrote.

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Law professor tears apart Dershowitz's book arguing Trump can serve a third term

(This article has been corrected to clarify that Washington Monthly Legal Affairs Editor Garrett Epps was not a student of attorney Alan Dershowitz. I apologize for the error. --Lynch)


Former Jeffrey Epstein lawyer and President Donald Trump ally Alan Dershowitz has published a whole book arguing for Trump to have a third term. But Washington Monthly Legal Affairs Editor Garrett Epps is having none of it.

Dershowitz made good arguments back in the 1960s and 1970s. But Dershowitz is a different man now, said Epps — and what he’s written is bunk.

This doesn’t mean Epps is not an admirer, however.

“I gladly took part in a symposium honoring his career,” said Epps.

But this doesn’t mean the lawyer who helped arrange a sweetheart deal for convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein makes the best arguments in Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?: My Nonpartisan Legal Analysis.

Epps criticism comes at some risk because Epps said Dershowitz, is a vindictive man who “… dishes it out but doesn’t want to take it.”

“When a political scientist accused him of plagiarism, Dershowitz wrote to the offender’s superiors demanding that he be denied tenure; the university obliged,” said Epps. “When a Yale psychiatrist suggested that Dershowitz’s speech patterns seemed to be drawing closer to those of President Trump, Dershowitz demanded that Yale rescind her teaching appointment; Yale obliged. When Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown’s dogged reporting broke open the full extent of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, Dershowitz (lawyer for and a friend of Epstein) wrote to the Pulitzer Prize committee and enjoined them from giving Brown the prize. They did not.”

Still, Dershowitz’ arguments that Trump could be “elected or appointed vice president and later succeeding to the presidency,” “being elected or appointed speaker of the House and succeeding under the Presidential Succession Act,” or “being chosen by the House of Representatives following an Electoral College deadlock” is not only a stretch but an outrage.

“These queries leave me profoundly torn. Part of me says the answer is ‘no’; the other part says ‘F——, no.’” said Epps. “Dershowitz and some other scholars say that there is doubt. They are (how shall I put this?) wrong.”

Similarly, Dershowitz’ claim that his arguments are “an honest, objective, nonpartisan analysis of a complex series of interesting issues” are also bunk.

“Anyone reading this book carefully cannot reasonably conclude that it is partisan advocacy rather than a neutral exercise in constitutional analysis,” wrote Dershowitz in his book. “Former President Barack Obama, because of his relative youth (sixty-four), is at least as likely to benefit from my analysis as seventy-nine-year-old President Trump.”

That’s a dog, said Epps, that “won’t even leave the kennel, much less hunt.”

“Let’s review the bidding: Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, is the current president of the United States. Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, has demanded a third term. Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, has followers who attacked the United States Capitol to win a second term for Trump to which he hadn’t been elected,” said Epps. “Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, is currently the commander-in-chief of the military. Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, has recently attempted to use the American military for politicized ‘law enforcement.’ Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and impose military rule on parts of the country he deems unfriendly to him. “

“And Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, is a former client of Dershowitz,” added Epps.

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Trump's bungling prompts surprising praise for Obama — from the right

American Conservative Features Editor Spencer Neale does not hide the disdain he has for President Donald Trump — or the unjustified scorn Trump shows for better presidents.

Neale points out that Trump filled his Thursday press conference with blame for former President Barack Obama, accusing “Barack Hussein Obama” of giving “Iran a nuclear deal” and choosing “Iran over Israel and others that didn’t want him to do it."

Then Trump handed the conference over to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who droned on about negotiating “with bombs” as “Trump nodded in and out of sleep beside him,” said Neale.

“It was a fitting scene for an administration helmed by a president nearing 80, who has effectively handed control of the Iran war to a former Fox News co-host previously accused by colleagues of habitual drunkenness, sexism, and financial mismanagement,” Neale added.

But Trump’s claim that Obama “chose Iran over Israel” is “as absurd as Trump’s second term has itself become,” said Neale.

Likewise, Trump appears to be one of the few people who approve of his behavior. Neale points out that Gen Z voters predict the Republican Party is going to lose big in the midterms, primarily because of Trump’s Iran invasion. Even senior White House officials say White House memes mixing cartoon memes with videos of deadly U.S. strikes on Iranian targets make them “feel embarrassed.”

“One place Trump has found favor is on Fox News, where Trump joined The Five on Thursday night by phone,” said Neale. “Trump critic Jessica Tarlov was unsurprisingly absent from her usual spot in the cast on Thursday night. That didn’t stop Trump from lobbing a jab at the 42-year-old political strategist, stating ‘the show would be better without her.’”

“Trump’s comment revealed what many of us already know about the man; he lives to be celebrated and objects to anyone who dares question his decisions, either political and personal,” said Neale. “The quip about Tarlov is indicative of a presidency insulated from reality.”

Meanwhile, Trump is enjoying comfy regular weekends at Mar-a-Lago, while everyday Americans “struggle to finance housing, fill the tank, and pay off long-term debt,” said Neale. And instead of detailing war objectives or explaining how it helps the working-class, Neale said Trump pivots to still more criticism of Obama.

“President Obama, he wasn’t a smart man,” Trump recently said after bragging to reporters that he’d “aced” a cognitive test. “I know all about him. He wasn’t a smart man. Highly overrated.”

“And though there is merit to the claim that Obama was ‘highly overrated,’ Trump appears to be vastly overrated himself by the sycophants leading his administration,” said Neale. “He has bungled this war and made a mess of our standing among allies near and far.”

“Trump promised to end such foreign policy mistakes. Instead, he allowed himself to be coaxed into a conflict that even the ‘highly overrated’ Obama knew better than to engage in,” said Neale. “Trump’s second term has not just fallen short of his promises, it has made the restraint of Barack Obama look, by comparison, distinctly presidential.”

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Trump twists himself in knots to explain why giving Iran money is different from Obama

President Donald Trump spoke to reporters ahead of a trip to Memphis, Tennessee on Monday morning after spending the weekend in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump took questions, including a few from CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, who asked how his lifting sanctions on Iranian oil is any different than former President Barack Obama allowing Iran to have access to their money that was being held up from sanctions. After Iran signed the nuclear agreement that allowed for nuclear inspectors to come in and test whether they were doing weaponry or nuclear power, Obama relaxed sanctions. Trump has falsely painted it as Obama giving Iran billions in cash.

"The Treasury lifted sanctions on Iranian oil that was out to sea. You criticized President Obama for giving Iran $1.7 b—" Collins began.

"Well I just want to have as much oil in the system as possible," Trump interrupted. "We don't even know that Iran gets that money. Frankly, I think it's very hard for them to get it. But you have ships that are out there that are loaded up with oil. Rather than keep it there, I would rather see it go to the system. Any small amount of money Iran gets is not gonna make a difference in this war. But I want to have the system lubricated."

"Even $14 billion, you don't think helps them?" Collins asked.

"Where's the $14 billion?" Trump said.

"Because the inflated price, they are getting the —" Collins began again before Trump interrupted her.

"I don't think they're getting the money," said Trump. "I can tell you, when this is all over, I will tell you who is getting the money."

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Trump marks the feeble 'end' of the nation's King-President experiment: Opinion

Conservative court watcher Sarah Isgur tells the New York Times that Trump has made a lot of noise but accomplished very little long term in his second term.

There’s very little that Donald Trump has done — in fact, I’m hard pressed to think of anything that is wholly unique,” Isgur said on the Times’ “Interesting Times” podcast. “What Donald Trump has done is turn the amp up to 11 on places that his predecessors have had built on in the past.”

Isgur cited former President Barack Obama referring to his “pen and phone moment.”

“I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone, and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward,” Obama told reporters, likely in response to Republican recalcitrance and opposition at the legislative level.

“In a lot of ways can see Trump doing a much bigger pen and a much bigger phone, and really having all of government by executive action,” said Isgur. “In another lens, you could go all the way back to the Progressive Era — you know, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Progressive Era, where they think Congress is a bunch of dum-dums coming from wherever. What if we did government by experts in the executive branch?”

“So, in another sense, Trump is the endpoint of this 100-year experiment that we’ve been running of: ‘Meh, let’s just have the presidency do it all,’” Isgur said.

But when asked about Trump’s personal culmination of America’s executive-dominated “endpoint,” she said there was very little to show for it.

“I say it’s an endpoint because it is so obviously failed,” said Isgur. “He has failed to implement any of his major policy initiatives through executive order in any realistic sense. You think about Alien Enemies Act, federalizing the National Guard, worldwide tariffs, birthright citizenship. These are the main pillars of Donald Trump’s policy presidency, the substantive aspects of it. And they’ve all failed with the exception of birthright citizenship — which is going to.

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Trump returns to event that humiliated him into first presidential bid

President Donald Trump has boycotted the White House Correspondents Dinners since the start of his first term, but on Monday he announced he is abandoning that tradition.

“In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these ‘Correspondents’ now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!” Trump posted on his social media platform TruthSocial.

He added, “Because the Press was extraordinarily bad to me, FAKE NEWS ALL, right from the beginning of my First Term, I boycotted the event, and never went as Honoree. However, I look forward to being with everyone this year. Hopefully, it will be something very Special.”

Trump has a unique relationship with these annual events. In 2011, after Trump controversially spread the unfounded conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, Obama produced his birth certificate and then ridiculed Trump at that year’s dinner.

“Now, I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald,” Obama joked. “And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter — like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”

Obama also took shots at the fact that, up to that point, Trump was most famous as a reality TV show host.

“We all know about your credentials and breadth of experience,” Obama said. “For example — no, seriously, just recently, in an episode of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ — at the steakhouse, the men’s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn’t blame Lil’ Jon or Meat Loaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir. Well handled.”

Many individuals close to Trump argue that Obama’s roast, though humiliating Trump into temporary silence that year, ultimately inspired him to seek revenge by running for president in 2016. Nor was this the only occasion when Trump would show a tendency to harbor grudges against people who make him the butt of the joke. Day after late night talk show host Stephen Colbert referred to Paramount’s legal settlement with Trump as a “big fat bribe,” Colbert was fired by CBS. Although CBS insisted the firing had nothing to do with Trump’s open dislike of Colbert and public calling for his termination, Colbert and others have cast doubt on that theory.

More recently, Trump successfully pushed for ABC to suspend late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel after Kimmel criticized Trump supporters for blaming liberals for the assassination of pro-Trump commentator Charlie Kirk. Trump’s effort to fire Kimmel ultimately failed after widespread public outrage.

"You may have read in your colorful newspapers my country’s president would like to shut me up because I don’t adore him in the way he likes to be adored," Kimmel said after his show was saved. "The American government made a threat against me and the company I work for, and all of a sudden we were off the air."

He continued, "But then, you know what happened? A Christmas miracle happened. Well, it was September, it was a September miracle. But the holiday does seem to come earlier and earlier every year, doesn’t it? Millions and millions of people stood up and said: ‘No, this is not acceptable’ ... Our show came back stronger than ever. We won, the president lost and now I’m back on the air every night giving the most powerful politician on earth a right and richly deserved bollocking."

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Trump’s in ‘free fall’ — but there’s a catch: report

President Donald Trump is in a state of political “free fall,” argued an expert on Tuesday, but that does not mean Democrats are poised to capitalize on it.

“Donald Trump is in trouble,” wrote Time Magazine senior correspondent Philip Elliott. “Poll after poll show him posting his worst numbers yet. Record crowds took to the streets this weekend in the single largest day of political protest in the nation’s 250-year history. His Department of Homeland Security remains shuttered because his allies in the Republican-led Congress cannot sort out a spending plan. Construction projects like a West Wing ballroom and proposed Miami skyscraper of a presidential library are roundly mocked. Gas prices seem to be coasting toward $5 a gallon, consumer confidence is in freefall, and the joint U.S.-Israeli war against Iran remains deeply unpopular.”

Yet despite these theoretical advantages, Elliott warned that Democrats could “stumble” in trying to retake the Senate and House of Representatives, much less doing so by the desired landslides.

“The structural problems that bedeviled the Democrats in 2024 remain,” Elliott wrote. “And their decision last year to shelve an internal autopsy of Kamala Harris' loss to Trump remains emblematic of Democrats’ continued unwillingness to address its problems head on.”

Democrats benefit from a slight edge in most polls, Elliott conceded, but this did not amount to a “slam dunk” in terms of their chances of decisively retaking Congress.

“Cast another way: Democrats are still positioned to have a good election year but may be viewed in hindsight as having let a true blowout slip through their grasp,” Elliott wrote. “Millions of people in the streets signal strength but guarantee nothing, especially with a laundry list of thorny issues like environmental rights, reproductive freedoms, good governance, foreign policy, LGBTQ rights, and economic insecurity all getting lumped together in a sea of posters.”

He added, “The true problem here is that the party hasn’t really carried an identity since the era of Barack Obama. Nothing has really glued the Democrats’ identity together in more than a decade as bridges between the corporate liberals and the in-the-streets progressives have proven impossible to maintain.”

Dr. Robert J. Shapiro, an economic adviser to Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, disagreed with the gloomier aspects of Elliott’s analysis.

"Look, the issue is not polls,” Shapiro told AlterNet. “The issue is the conditions that are driving the polls, and those conditions are most likely much more likely to worsen than to improve. That's true with respect to affordability, which is getting worse in part because of the oil price shock that the Trump administration effectively engineered. And it's true with respect to healthcare coverage. It's true with respect to people's general optimism or pessimism about the economy and about the country as a whole. We've created almost no jobs in the last year, after four years of creating millions of jobs every year. The price increases that people confront — particularly in food and gasoline — those are reality. And voters respond to reality, particularly in a midterm election or a presidential reelect, when they perceive the administration to be responsible for it.”

Later he concluded, “All the underlying conditions strongly favor Democrats.”

Regardless of whether one believes Democrats could be weak, Trump is undeniably vulnerable enough as he approaches the midterms that conservative historian Robert Kagan warned CNN’s Christiane Amanpour last month that he would likely try to cancel and/or rig them.

“I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028,” Kagan said. “I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”

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Trove of documents shed rare light on Supreme Court’s secretive affair with poison

The conservative U.S. Supreme Court increasingly relies on the secretive shadow docket to derail clean air standards and remove guardrails on a Trump White House, but the New York Times managed to nab confidential correspondence from 2016 that provides insight on the furtive court’s effort to dismantle an EPA crackdown on poisonous airborne mercury.

“Over five days in the winter of 2016, the justices of the Supreme Court exchanged an extraordinary series of confidential memos about how the court should address an ambitious climate change initiative from President Barack Obama. The debate yielded an order halting the program by a 5-to-4 vote — without any explanation,” reports the Times. “Legal scholars have called the episode the birth of the modern shadow docket, in which the court has used truncated procedures cloaked in secrecy to block or allow major presidential initiatives in terse rulings.”

The Times reports these confidential papers are normally not disclosed until after a judge’s death, meaning the “public might not learn what happened, and why, for decades” after a decision.

In an effort to unravel new clean air standards by the Obama administration, the communications reveal Chief Justice John Roberts sought to invoke the “major questions doctrine” to block federal regulations seeking to shut down dirty coal plants in favor of newer, cleaner energy tech. His argument was that agencies can’t make decisions of vast “economic and political significance” if Congress explicitly grants them that power. The Times notes that the conservative court has increasingly relied upon that argument to discourage energy evolution and cleaner air standards.

Among some of Roberts’ correspondence are claims that “solar plants are not built in a day” but that renewable energy facilities are virtually here to stay once constructed and do “irreparable harm” to Congress’ power to kill or discourage them.

Roberts also accuses the Democrat-led E.P.A. of sidestepping the court overturning an Obama administration rule limiting coal plant mercury emissions — which are a proven neurotoxin according to President Donald Trump’s own EPA. The Times also reports that the fact that most power plants were already in compliance “or well on their way” to reducing mercury emissions appeared to anger the chief justice all the more.

Further private correspondence reveals liberal justice Elena Kagen was “not buying” Roberts’ insistence that immediate action by the court was necessary to save power companies the costs of upgrading or shutting down dated technology, while a third liberal justice asked the court to slow down its EPA rollback, while conservative Justice Samuel Alito is already prepared to rule in favor of continued mercury poisoning.

The “shadow papers,” according to the Times, represent the inner workings of a conservative court that has become increasingly mysterious within the last decade and it prefers to render decisions without argument or public scrutiny.

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Trump still rules MAGA — but there’s a twist: Fox News poll

Countless polls released in 2026 have showed President Donald Trump with weak approval ratings, but there is usually a caveat: He still enjoys enthusiastic support among his hardcore MAGA base. A Fox News poll released on March 25 is no exception, but according to podcast host and former Obama Administration official Tommy Vietor, the poll also shows a difference between MAGA diehards and conservatives who don't identify as MAGA specifically.

Fox News' poll showed Trump's overall approval among registered voters at 41 percent. That number includes voters in general, from Republicans to Democrats to independents to members of third parties. But Trump fares much better with MAGA.

The Daily Beast's Martha McHardy notes, "What makes the latest results especially striking is the erosion inside the GOP. Trump's approval among Republicans dropped to 84 percent, his lowest level of the second term, down from 92 percent last March. The softening appears to be driven largely by non-MAGA Republicans, whose approval of Trump fell 11 points over the past year, from 70 percent to 59 percent."

McHardy adds, "By contrast, Trump's support among his most loyal backers remains nearly intact. Among MAGA Republicans, approval barely budged, slipping just 1 point from 98 percent to 97 percent."

Similarly, one of Vietor's big takeaways from the Fox New poll is how much MAGA Republicans and non-MAGA Republicans differ when it comes to Trump.

In a March 26 post on X, the 45-year-old Vietor — who served as a National Security Council (NSC) spokesman during former President Barack Obama's first term — commented, "Interesting data via the latest Fox News poll about declining Republican support for Trump. He's still wildly popular with the MAGA base, but there's erosion from the broader GOP."

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