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Massachusetts local news Mass Live reports President Donald Trump is taking a victory lap over a state poll showing respondents approve of him more than one of his latest critics, MAGA podcaster Tucker Carlson.

“Only 31 percent of Republicans had a favorable view of the former Fox News host in the UMass Lowell poll, compared to 24 percent who viewed him unfavorably,” reports Mass Live.

That same poll showed 77 percent of Republicans and 3 percent of Democrats indicating a favorable view of Trump. Trump was quick to suggest why.

“It’s easy! Tucker is a Low IQ person - Always easy to beat, and highly overrated!!! So are Megyn Kelly,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “‘Candace’(Really Dumb and mentally ill!), and Bankrupt Alex Jones, who is completely ‘fried.’”

“There are others, also!” Trump added. “Then we have some that are VERY GOOD, true MAGA all the way, and smart. I should do a list of good, bad, and somewhere in the middle. Wouldn’t that be fascinating???”

Trump’s targets in the rent also included MAGA blogger Candace Owens, who responded to his taunting saying: “It may be time to put Grandpa up in a home.”

Another Trump MAGA target, Alex Jones responded by calling Trump “a rotting husk” of his former self.

The number of exclamation points in Trump’s post suggest the president considered the poll results a much welcomed boost after all the bad surveys dogging him and showing him underwater with nearly every demographic, except for a shrinking pool of dedicated Republican loyalists.

But even that poll was far from good news for Trump, reports Mass Live. Just 39 percent of 1,000 respondents said they approved of the president’s job performance. And 57 percent said they believed their lives had become somewhat or much more difficult over the past six months.

Additionally, that same poll identified that 65 percent of respondents believed the U.S. is spending too much on Trump’s war with Iran, and an overwhelming majority — 87 percent — support pursuing criminal investigations of American individuals named in the Epstein files.

Trump’s name peppers the Epstein files, with more than 38,000 total references through the documents.

Futurism reports “a tranche of psychological studies found something startling about Donald Trump’s most loyal soldiers: they each turn to a grim coping mechanism to make sense of the real estate mogul’s laundry list of lies and documented sexual abuse.”

Three separate research papers, published together in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, each point to the same conclusion, say analysts. Psychologists surveyed 128 U.S. adults in October 2019, who indicated a preference for Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Asked how they justified their support for the GOP candidate given allegations of his sexual misconduct, over half the group said they relied simply on denial and chose to not believe the charge.

“Those results were reproduced in a second study, started in December 2019, two days after federal lawmakers voted to impeach the president,” reports Futurism. “This time, 173 MAGA diehards largely either denied the accusations, or demurred by changing the topic to Trump’s policy decisions. In that study, the majority of supporters denied the accusations outright, while 15 percent declared they simply don’t care.”

Meanwhile, the most recent study, a 2022 survey taken immediately after Trump was arraigned for his role in the January 6 riots, found that of 187 participants, over 60 percent felt the accusations against the president were a lie, despite video footage of the violence at the Capital being readily available.

“While each study is highly complex in their own right, together they reinforce the finding that denial of factual information — Trump’s seedy misdeeds, basically — is a direct response to anxiety caused by cognitive dissonance,” said Futurism.

“I was motivated by real-life experiences,” said study author Cindy Harmon-Jones, senior lecturer in psychology at Western Sydney University. “I’ve been puzzled and confused by the continuing support and admiration that Donald Trump’s supporters hold for him, despite the many accusations that he has engaged in sexual assault, corruption, and other immoral and illegal activities. I wanted to give those supporters a chance to explain in their own words why they support him.”

Harmon-Jones says she is also interested in cognitive dissonance outside the Trump-related breakdown.

“Would supporters of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton react similarly if they learned of similar accusations against them? That remains to be tested,” she said.

Catholic Trump voters graded Pope Leo XIV more harshly for criticizing war than they graded President Donald Trump for committing the blasphemy of presenting himself as Jesus.

While the general public is reacting harshly to Trump’s recent AI calamity, unscientific surveys conducted by Bulwark staff last week reveled that Trump-voting Catholics imposed a higher standard upon Pope Leo that they did not apply to the president.

“The one thing that we don't like about him is also the one thing that we do like about him,’ said one 2024 Trump voter who presented himself as Catholic. “[Trump] doesn't ask for permission. He doesn't take prisoners. He says what he wants and then he does what he wants. And that's one of the things that we like about him that makes him not a politician.”

“I'm not so upset about what he said to Leo because he has every right,” said another Trump voter, defending the president for proclaiming the Pope “WEAK on Crime.” “Leo has his own house to clean, … and he needs to worry about the Catholic church and let [Trump] take care of business.”

Among the Catholic Trump voters who responded to the survey, Bulwark Editor Sarah Longwell said five awarded Trump A's, three B's and one C.”

“These were the highest grades I have seen a group [of Trump voters] give Trump,” said Longwell, adding that most Trump voters in most surveys these days awarded Trump “B's and C's.”

“I haven't seen him get an ‘A’ in a really long time. And this was a group full of A's,” said Longwell.

Bulwark editor Jonathan Last, however, could not bear what he called the double standard, and he blasted one respondent for saying “I just think the Pope's trying to become very judgmental on something that's not his realm.”

“How dare a Catholic Pope be judgmental.” Last said, mockingly. “… Only six of them were upset, and of the six, I think all of them gave some version of, ‘But, you know, yeah, I didn't love [the Jesus meme]. But also, I love that he does stuff like this. And this is kind of why we like him. I just wish he didn't do this one.’”

Last went on to complain that one Catholic Trump voter said sometimes Trump’s “delivery is off, but he's truthful,” and pronounced it “important that somebody has those values.”

“She's talking about the values of just saying what's on your mind,” said Last. “But notice that doesn't apply to the Pope. The Pope can't just say, ‘I do think war is bad.’ When that happens, all f—— hell breaks loose. But when Donald Trump says, ‘look at me, I might be like the late great Jesus, or even better: He rose on the third day. I could have done it in two. And they're like, ‘well, you know, it's a little out there, but I do like that he's honest — these f—— people! The Pope has a line he can't cross or they will turn their back on the teachings of the Catholic Church. But the president? No lines.”

“Yep. That is the takeaway,” said Longwell. “In the battle between Trump and the Pope, these Catholics take Trump.”

The men in President Donald Trump’s circle appear to be primping for their leader and reaching Mar-a-Lago levels of vanity, says New York Times columnist Jesse McKinley,.

“For the men of the Trump administration … the concentration on their appearance is a constant, with policy pronouncements and social media feeds suffused with displays of physical strength, tough-guy talk and masculine mojo,” said McKinley. “At the same time, those traditional tenets of masculinity have been accompanied by flashes of vulnerability about how the men look and dress.”

Men like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and especially Trump, frequently fuss at media for not helping them present their very best face. Trump complained that Time Magazine made him look bald. Rubio castigated a raft of Vanity Fair photos for allegedly being “manipulated” to look less awesome, and Hegseth has barred reporters from Iran war briefings because he found photos to be “unflattering.”

“It’s constant attempts at trying to cultivate a persona that in their eyes seems strong and powerful and dominant and stoic,” said Zac Seidler, a clinical psychologist and the global director of research at Movember, a men’s health charity. “But once you scratch the surface of that, all you see is fragility.”

Trump, who is known for thick makeup, has normalized critiquing men’s appearances, which McKinley says “is ushering in a new era of fawning assessments and regular commentary about the appearance of his cabinet members and others.”

Trump’s obsession with outward appearance is echoed by his staff, said Fairleigh Dickinson University government and politics professor Dan Cassino. “Men in the Trump administration are performing a very specific type of masculinity in order to try and appeal to Trump,” said Cassino.

But Seidler said all the focus on Trump’s men is triggering insecurity with the “overarching belief that you must look and appear a certain way or you have failed.”

“[Trump’s] surrogates frequently tout his vitality,” said McKinley, “and the president often connects himself with men who evince masculine traits, including musclebound influencers.

Masculinity is a constant evaluation among men in the Trump community, but that process of evaluation has been “supercharged,” said “Manhood in America,” author Michael Kimmel, adding that many male members of the Trump administration are seemingly “cosplaying their Rambo-ness” to impress the president.

Critics say President Donald Trump is a walking example of projection. If so, the president’s description of Iran’s leaders over the course of his war with that nation may be telling, considering a steady rollout of claims recorded and presented for MS NOW’s The Weekend on Saturday.

“I think Iran looks like they want to make a deal very badly,” Trump said February 6, in the weeks leading up to the February 28 joint U.S./Israeli attacks.

“They want to make a deal,” he said March 16, weeks after the attacks. And then: “They want to make a deal very badly,” on March 23 in Palm Beach, Florida.

“They want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea how badly they want to make a deal,” he repeated on March 24 at the White House.

“They want to make a deal so badly, but they're afraid to say it because they figure they'll be killed by their own people,” Trump claimed on March 25.

“They are begging to make a deal — not me. They're begging to make a deal very badly,” he insisted yet again March 26.

“They want to make a deal,” he proclaimed on March 27, followed by: “They’re begging to make a deal. They’re begging to make a deal” that same day at a new location.

“They want to make a deal. They want to make a deal more than I want to make a deal,” he claimed in the Oval Office on March 31.

“They’d like to make a deal very badly,” he repeated yet again April 13 at the White House.

Former CIA Director John Brennan told Weekend anchors that he doubted Trump had any credibility left to squander at this point.

“I don't think he's ever had credibility on this issue because he has consistently misrepresented and lied about the situation. And the Iranians know that,” said Brennan. “And that's why when we're talking about the Strait [of Hormuz] right now, it's absurd to think that the Iranians would allow the strait to remain open if the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports continues.”

“So, he's making all these claims about they've agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and, open up. And the Iranians know that he is lying. And why should they believe anything that he might be saying that has an element of truth in it?” Brennan added.

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President Donald Trump's recent social media posts, including an AI-generated image depicting him as Jesus Christ, have ignited debate within evangelical Christian circles about his relationship with religious values and his base.

The controversial posts — which included a profanity-laced Easter message and mocking references to Islam — prompted conservative author Rod Dreher to suggest Trump is "radiating the spirit of Antichrist," though he stopped short of calling Trump the Antichrist himself.

Speculation about the Antichrist's identity has long been a feature of Christian thought. Historical candidates have included Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and more recently, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, according to an analysis featured at Religion News Service.

What distinguishes Trump's posts is the division they've caused within his own evangelical support base, notes RNS. Calvin University professor Kristin Kobes Du Mez noted that the image "caused some real division within his religious base," marking a rare moment when Trump's supporters rejected rather than embraced his social media content.

Matthew Sutton, a religious history scholar at Washington State University, traced modern evangelical Antichrist speculation to early 20th-century fundamentalism and end-times theology. While some theological elements of Trump align with evangelical Antichrist expectations — such as his charismatic communication through Truth Social — traditional interpretations suggest the Antichrist will oppose Israel, a position Trump does not hold.

Rev. Franklin Graham defended the image, arguing Trump had no intention of depicting himself as Jesus. Trump later claimed it was meant to show him as a doctor with the Red Cross.

Religious technology scholar Heidi Campbell emphasized how AI-generated images reflect and shape contemporary religious consciousness, particularly on social media platforms.

Sutton suggested this moment may represent a turning point in Trump's relationship with his evangelical base, noting that while previous controversial acts seemed to carry no consequences, this image has struck a different chord.

President Donald Trump is historically unpopular and his approval ratings are underwater in Arizona and the other six swing states he won in 2024, largely because independent voters have abandoned him. With the mid-terms rapidly approaching, the president came to Phoenix to gin up support for Republicans — not by reaching out to those disaffected voters but instead by rallying the MAGA faithful and calling for Republican Party unity.

The rally at a north Phoenix church, hosted by Turning Point USA, brought conservative activists and Trump die-hards together to support a slate of candidates in order to “Build The Red Wall.”

The rally also served as a platform to drive Trump-supporting voters to support U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs in his bid for governor.

Biggs, a Trump loyalist who has connections to the events surrounding the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, is facing off against fellow GOP Congressman David Schweikert in the Republican primary election. The winner will challenge Democratic incumbent Katie Hobbs in November.

While the thousands of MAGA voters inside Dream City Church got to hear from Biggs himself, Schweikert’s campaign was blanketing cars in the parking lot with fliers for the Scottsdale Republican.

Biggs has Trump’s endorsement, which may serve him well in a primary election but could be a liability in the general election, especially given Trump’s broad unpopularity.

And if Biggs does get his party’s nomination, he is likely to face an uphill battle against Hobbs, who ended this March with nearly $7.2 million in the bank, about six times what Biggs and Schweikert combined have in the bank.

Democrats see 2026 as a chance to repudiate Trumpism, and are expected to spend heavily to defeat Republicans up and down the ballot.

That was front of mind for many of the speakers, including some GOP officeholders who could be on the receiving end of a Democratic campaign operation that is flush with cash and hoping to capitalize on voters’ dissatisfaction with Trump and Republican governance.

“Republicans are not the solution to all of your problems, but Democrats are pretty much the cause of all your problems,” U.S. Rep. Eli Crane, whose district is a prime target for Democrats, told the crowd. “It is time for us to coalesce right now as much as possible.”

Crane and U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, who represents the most competitive district in Arizona, have gotten influxes of cash this cycle from Republican leadership with Ciscomani getting one of the highest amounts of any other Republican outside of Republican House leadership.

Ciscomani bragged about his victory in 2022 in what he said is “the most competitive district in the entire country,” and which gave Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives.Ciscomani also emphasized to the crowd the importance of electing the man running to replace Biggs, former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb and former NFL kicker Jay Feely, who is running to take the seat that Schweikert currently holds — another top target for Democrats.

While speakers openly praised each other and pushed for unity, some division was seen.

At one point, a cacophony of boos filled the church sanctuary when U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar urged attendees to vote for Rodney Glassman for attorney general over Senate President Warren Petersen. Hours later, Trump gave Petersen a shout-out from the stage.

The elected officials and candidates who spoke gave typical stump speeches, with many focusing on culture war issues that have become the party’s bread and butter in the Trump era.

Last year’s shooting death of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk loomed over many speeches, with many of the speakers talking about their past interactions with the man and their support of his widow, Erika Kirk, who now serves as TPUSA’s CEO.

When Trump took the stage late in the afternoon, he spent roughly 40 minutes jumping from topic to topic.

The president bragged about the war in Iran, claiming that he was winning it and it would be the “tenth war” he has ended. His claims of ending wars are over-inflated.

“This was just a military excursion,” Trump said of Iran. “This wasn’t the big time.”

The U.S. and Israel launched the war seven weeks ago. So far, 13 American soldiers have died and hundreds have been wounded. Negotiations with Iran are ongoing.

Trump also made light of the arguably illegal boat strikes conducted by his administration, which have resulted in the deaths of at least 170 people. Trump claimed they had stopped 97% of boats carrying drugs.

“Trying to find the 3%, because I believe them to be the bravest people in the world. Boom,” Trump said to the crowd, who erupted in cheers and laughs.

After speaking about a surprise raid earlier this year to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, he alluded to some sort of impending action against the nation of Cuba, saying that the administration was working on something that was “70 years in the making.”

“We are going to help them out with Cuba,” the president said.

Earlier this week, USA Today reported that the Pentagon has begun quietly ramping up for a possible invasion of Cuba.

Towards the end of his speech Trump personally called out a number of lawmakers in attendance, including Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who is running for Secretary of State. He is facing off against Gina Swoboda, the former chair of the Arizona Republican Party, who had gotten Trump’s endorsement when she was running to replace Schweikert in Congress.

The United States Constitution provides two paths for removing a sitting president from office: impeachment and the procedures outlined in the 25th Amendment. Both approaches are being raised again, and with increasing fervor, as ways to bring an early end to Donald Trump’s second term of chaos, incompetence and corruption. Both are clearly warranted, but structural hurdles built into both render them legally infeasible.

Instead of looking for a magic bullet in the Constitution to bring Trump down, progressives and anti-Trumpers should concentrate on building a lasting, broad-based and genuine pro-democracy movement. Impeachment hearings and calls for invoking the 25th can play a role in that process, but only an ancillary one.

Here’s why.

Impeachment

The Founding Fathers were well aware of the dangers of unbridled one-man rule. Along with removing the yoke of King George III, they sought to prevent the rise of homegrown tyrants driven by ambition, greed and vanity.

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, after prolonged debate about the extent of presidential powers and whether the new federal charter should include a provision authorizing the impeachment and removal of the president, the delegates adopted the now-famous clause inscribed in Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution that provides, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

To strike a balance between a strong chief executive and what the antifederalists dreaded would eventually devolve into monarchy, they created a two-step process for impeachment. As set forth in Article I of the Constitution, the House of Representatives holds the sole power of impeachment, akin to a grand jury’s authority to return an indictment against a criminal defendant. A simple majority vote is all that is needed to accuse federal officers of committing an impeachable act and send their cases to the Senate, which is given the sole power to try cases of impeachment. In the upper chamber, however, a two-thirds vote (67 senators today if all are present) is needed to sustain a guilty verdict and remove a defendant from office.

The conventional thinking that Trump will eventually suffer Nixon’s fate has been proven wrong.

As it was designed to do, the two-thirds requirement has drastically curtailed the frequency and impact of impeachment. Including Trump, only 21 federal officials have been impeached in our history. Fifteen were judges, two were Cabinet members, and one was a senator. The other three were presidents — Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Trump in 2019 and 2021. All were acquitted by the Senate. To date, there have only been eight impeachment convictions, all handed down against federal judges.

Trump is often compared to Richard Nixon for his abuse of power, ruthlessness, paranoia and relentless pursuit of revenge against real and imaginary enemies. Both men have also been accused of believing in the “madman theory” of the presidency — the idea that if the president appears to be temperamentally extreme and unhinged, he will be seen as willing to do anything, no matter how vile or illegal, to impose his will.

But the conventional thinking that Trump will eventually suffer Nixon’s fate has been proven wrong. The Republican Party of the 1970s was tethered to constitutional governance. Today’s GOP has degenerated into a neofascist political cult. Trump has given the party control of all three branches of government, and he has given party leaders permission to be the most authoritarian versions of themselves. The party did not abandon Trump even when presented with overwhelming evidence in his second impeachment trial that he had incited the Jan. 6 insurrection. There is no reason to believe it will abandon him now.

Still, hope springs eternal. On April 6, Democratic Rep. John Larson of Connecticut introduced a resolution to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump. Drafted by Ralph Nader and constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, the resolution consists of 13 articles that charge Trump with, among other derelictions, violating Congress’ war powers by unconstitutionally initiating wars as a belligerent or co-belligerent against Iran, Venezuela, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Nigeria and Gaza; militarizing domestic law enforcement with deployments of the National Guard; and using Immigration and Customs Enforcement to racially profile citizens and suspected immigrants.

In a rational country with leaders committed to the rule of law, the resolution would swiftly lead to Trump’s demise. But we are not that country today.

The 25th Amendment

Ratified in 1967, the 25th Amendment was drafted in the aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy to clarify the law of succession when the president becomes disabled. According to the first paragraph of Section 4 of the amendment:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments [the Cabinet] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

As Trump continues to unravel, invoking Allah in threats to obliterate Iranian civilization and attacking the pope as too liberal and weak on crime, calls to invoke Section 4 have accelerated. But Section 4 is an even weaker remedy than impeachment.

The second and final paragraph of Section 4 instructs that the president can attempt to override a declaration of disability by notifying the Senate and House leadership that no such disability exists. Thereafter, the vice president, with the support of either a majority of the Cabinet or “the other body” of the first paragraph, can contest the president’s override. To resolve the conflict and place the vice president in charge, a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress — not just the Senate — is required to confirm that the president is, in fact, “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

The procedures outlined in Section 4 have never been invoked, and it strains credulity to think they will be used against Trump as long as JD Vance is the vice president and the Cabinet is staffed by sycophants and grifters who routinely pledge their loyalty to their dear leader.

This is not to say that agitating for impeachment or calling for Trump’s removal on 25th Amendment grounds is pointless. But we should not view the avenues for forcing Trump’s early exit as ends in themselves. Rather, they are best seen as organizing tools that can be useful in drawing Americans into a broad-based movement to restore democracy. In Hungary last week, 16 years of authoritarian rule ended with the defeat of Viktor Orbán. It can and must happen here.

Trump’s domestic agenda is so dystopian it’s hard to believe. Unleashing masked goons onto U.S. streets, building concentration camps, punishing the media, threatening judges, and labeling critics ‘enemies of the state’ all vie for his most Hitlerian maneuvers.

Trump has systematically destroyed institutions, privatizing agencies wherever possible to award billions to his cronies, while his family has earned over $4 billion in untraceable cryptocurrency ventures, to say nothing of suspiciously-timed stock transactions. After gutting food assistance, healthcare, and education to provide tax cuts to his wealthy donors, Trump recently announced “it’s not possible” to provide such services. He plans to spend the money instead on “military protection” while he does his best to provoke a military attack.

As bad as it is at home, Trump’s foreign policy blunders are even worse, setting us up for long term security consequences no one is talking about. In every bizarre late night social media post, Trump keeps modeling multi-faceted incompetence to explain his dastardly deeds. From threatening Greenland, to kidnapping Venezuela’s president and stealing their oil, to attacking the Pope, to exploding boats on the high seas then publishing snuff videos to brag about it, Trump has committed one hubristic, sophomoric, and dangerous act of aggression after another.

At 50 days into his “easy” and illegal war in Iran, he remains surprised that our NATO allies won’t join in. He still fails to comprehend that NATO is a defensive pact, not an offensive one.

Iran: A showcase of Trump’s insanity

In Iran, Trump keeps mocking the old adage: when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Instead, he brandishes shinier shovels.

Frustrated by Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, which has strangled 20% of the world’s oil transport, Trump nonsensically decided to impose his own blockade on Iran’s blockade. Blockading their blockade will only worsen the problem he’s trying to solve.

Trying to educate the economically illiterate, the WSJ explained, “The U.S. blockade on ships entering or exiting Iranian ports is set to drain more oil from a tight market, prolong the squeeze on other key commodities flowing through the Strait of Hormuz and inject significant uncertainty into the global economy.” They assessed, “Trump’s naval blockade of Iran risks further upending a global economy already battered by weeks of (Trump’s) war, escalating a regional clash into a worldwide financial shock that could prove more devastating than the fighting itself.”

Trump’s war in Iran will end up costing American taxpayers over $1 trillion, without factoring in energy prices, lack of healthcare, inflation, or the long-term costs of global economic contraction. And for what? Middle East policy experts say the war has made Iran’s cabal of religious fanatics even more dangerous.

How stupid does he think Americans are?

Trump blames the media for widespread public opposition to his war, but seems incapable of considering why Americans are opposed. He needs to look no further than his own words and deeds.

After Trump bombed Iran last June, he claimed to have “completely obliterated” Iran’s enriched uranium supply. Strutting on the world stage with great bombast, he declared that Iran’s nuclear capacity had been annihilated. Eight months later, he’s using Iran’s nuclear capacity to justify a war, without explaining what changed. Even his most diehard supporter wonders: was he was lying then or is he lying now?

It’s bizarre that Trump thinks Americans can’t track such a major incongruity, demonstrating either his deep contempt for them, or his own mental infirmity.

Signaling more incompetence during negotiations

Trump, who proudly rules by his “gut” instead of intelligence reports, doesn’t recognize that he’s swimming in geopolitical complexities above his head. It’s no surprise that the first round of negotiations to end the war he started failed.

To resolve the highly complex quagmire he created, Trump needs negotiators steeped in Iran’s history, geography, culture, and technological capacities. But he’s relying on loyalists: VP Vance, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, all of whom lack the expertise and diplomatic experience needed to achieve an agreement. Two diplomats from the failed negotiations immediately identified Trump’s problem: choosing negotiators for personal loyalty instead of subject-matter expertise.

The results reflect the obvious, and it’s nothing new. Kushner and Witkoff failed in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and failed in talks between Israel and Hamas while Israel continued bombing Gaza. For his part, Vance seems to have failed at everything.

The Pope’s moral clarity should shame Republicans

After Trump insulted Pope Leo XIV as if he were a rival politician instead of the religious leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, JD Vance said the Pope needed ‘to be careful’ when discussing war.

Three days later, the Pope warned that the world is “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.” He reiterated Catholic teachings of peace— “Blessed are the peacemakers. But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.” Looking at you, Hegseth.

Every member of Congress swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. Every one of them, except perhaps Lindsey Graham, knows that what Trump is doing is illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional, but they have chosen power over honor.

Jamie Raskin’s 25th Amendment removal has no chance given Republicans’ immoral choice, long term consequences to America be damned. Watching the Pope hold steadfast in Chistian messaging, his clarity about wars of aggression, and his forceful opposition to evil forces manifesting in Trump, is a welcome balm to Republicans’ shameful depravity.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

President Donald Trump was eager to claim victory on a ceasefire deal with Iran, which he unilaterally declared war on a few weeks ago.

The historically unpopular president is facing midterm destruction of his party in November and was keen to proclaim success on his explosive war, which has similarly blown U.S. and global fuel prices from the water within the last month. Trump declared at a Friday TPUSA event that Iran has agreed to virtually all of his demands to end its nuclear program forever, and that “No money will exchange hands in any way, shape or form.”

But even as MAGA crowed victory on social media Iran officials were throwing Trump’s claims in reverse through both word and deed.

The Guardian reported on Saturday that Iranian military’s operational command, Khatam Al-Anbiya, described Trump’s ongoing US blockade of the strait as “piracy,” and declared the region under the strict control of the armed forces “until the U.S. restores the complete freedom of navigation for vessels from an Iranian origin to a destination, and from a destination back to Iran.”

Critics on social media were quick to blast Trump’s Friday claims the next day as the Iranian reality came to light Saturday.

“Trump is entirely full of sh——,” posted former MS NOW anchor Keith Olbermann on X. “There is no deal with Iran. Its leaders insist the strait is closed. The emperor not only has no clothes; he has no brain.”

“But if the Strait of Hormuz is open again, they've agreed on pretty much everything, Iran has agreed to let the US take its enriched Uranium without paying any money, and he's ‘decimated’ their military, why threaten to go back to war? Could what he says not be entirely true?” asked criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield on X.

Podcasters Danielle Moodie and Wajahat Ali roasted President Donald Trump for crowing about a heavily flawed deal with Iran after first blowing up a superior international pact formed by former President Obama.

“This to me is the epitome of whiteness,” said Moodie, speaking on the “re-deal” Trump’s flaunted at a Friday TPUSA event in Phoenix, Arizona. “When I talk about white privilege, when I talk about white supremacy, this is the epitome of this s——. A Black person had already done something super well. You f—— it up, right? Whether it is a town, a city, a school, whatever. And then you want to redo it and then take credit for it, as if you had an original thought in your f—— head!”

“It's like [artist] Elvis [Presley] doing a rendition of ‘Hound Dog,’ and people saying ‘this is amazing,’ and people always forget that Hound Dog was originally sung by a Black woman,” said Ali, who then went on to cite Christopher Columbus as example.

“When they discover countries that are already inhabited by indigenous people, like when Christopher Columbus discovered America — except that he thought he discovered China. And to his dying day, he said, no, no, I discovered China. No, dumba——. You stumbled upon America. And also, you were an insane, vicious, violent slaver.”

Moodie further burned Trump for bumbling his way into a worse agreement at considerably more cost than Obama. Trump is reportedly negotiating an agreement that would stop Iran from producing a nuclear weapon in exchange for unfreezing $20 billion in Iranian assets — only Obama orchestrated a much cheaper deal releasing less than $2 billion in Iranian assets.

“Trump tore up Obama's agreement, spent $55 billion on war, got hundreds of Americans injured, killed 165 plus kids, and exploded oil prices to try and negotiate the same basic deal that Obama did without a single f—— weapon, without hampering the global economy, and did so within diplomatic means,” said Moodie.

Ali pointed out that Trump showed all the characteristics of feeble white men by demanding statues and a taxpayer-financed 250-foot arch.

“It literally goes to your point. It's the delusion of white supremacy,” said Ali. “It's these fickle, weak, broken, fragile men who need to cosplay as crusaders, who need to cosplay as heroes, who know that they're weak, but they believe in these strange myths that allow them to act in such a reckless manner.”

Airline pilot and former Republican George Poncy says he was furious when he discovered Republican Florida Gov. Ron Desantis planned to slap the name “Donald Trump” on his Palm Beach International Airport.

“Well, the guy’s a criminal,” said Poncy, speaking to the Miami New Times about Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records. “I don’t know anything that’s named after a criminal. There’s no Lucky Luciano Bridge or Jeffrey Epstein Highway. It’s insane. It is. It’s not much more complicated than that.”

The Times reports Poncy filed a lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, arguing that Desantis and the state has “unlawfully stripped” the county of its home rule authority by mandating the name change.

The name change to the “Donald J. Trump International Airport” arose from a bill in the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature describing Trump as “the most consequential president of our lifetime,” but that’s not the way 83-year-old Poncy sees it.

“Nobody stands up to the guy, ever. And so somebody should try,” said Poncy, who says he has been a Republican long before Trump first ran for office.

The president is eager to put his name on buildings, including the now renamed “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts," which accelerated the trend of artists canceling their scheduled performances at the venue before Trump finally closed it. He has also hung his face on large banners draping at least three buildings since getting re-elected to office.

These include the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor and the Department of Agriculture.

Conservative commenter William Kristol says things are looking bad for President Donald Trump and his Republican Party in November, but if things go down in November as voting trends suggest it will still leave in charge a desperate and angry president with staff willing to jettison both the law and self-respect to conduct Trump’s agenda.

“If you’re going into a midterm when your party has controlled both the White House and Congress, and that party is joined at the hip to a president who’s losing 29 percent to 49 percent among those who care the most and who are the most likely to vote, your prospects are . . . not good,” said Kristol. “So April’s electoral good news from Hungary could well be followed by good news from the United States in November.”

“But! An increasingly desperate Trump will still be in charge of the executive branch,” Kristol warned. “He’ll have all the levers of presidential power at his disposal, and he has subordinates seemingly as willing as ever to use them as he wishes.”

“Trump administration apparatchiks seem ever ‘more fanatic about making the president happy, either by carrying out his vendettas more aggressively or by aping his worst impulses more doggedly,’” said Kristol, quoting Dispatch writer Nick Catoggio. And vengeful Trumpist fanatics will likely come with consequences.

“To protect their hold on power, he and his menagerie will need to be considerably more ruthless about challenges to it than [Deposed Hungarian leader] Viktor Orbán was,” said Catoggio. “As Trump and his aides become more convinced that a Democratic midterm wipeout is a fait accompli, they may surmise that there’s nothing left to lose by leaning all the way in on unpopular autocratic gambits.”

With Trump’s unpopularity and his desperation both mounting, the next thirty-three months — especially the next eight months before the new Congress is seated — are likely to be ever more dangerous.

Ronald Reagan’s former asst. attorney general tells The American Conservative that it’s time for President Donald Trump to go before his damage to the nation becomes permanent.

“Trump has said and done appalling things no other president has dared — not even close,” said attorney Bruce Fein, pointing out that Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) has introduced 13 articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump through House Resolution 1155, “to save the nation from a worse tyranny than provoked July 4, 1776.”

Fein ticked down a long list of reasons to jettison Trump, including exploiting the powers of office “for billions of dollars in personal or family enrichment indistinguishable from bribery or extortion,” and “commercializ[ing] his pardon power as if he were a Sotheby auctioneer selling a Hieronymus Bosch painting.”

He also razed Trump for “militariz[ing] domestic law enforcement by concocting national emergencies divorced from reality in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis to deploy the National Guard,” and for “retaliat[ing] against universities, lawyers, journalists, and lawfully present aliens for refusing to join Trump’s claque.”

Not to mention, said Fein, Trump “threaten[ing] the death of the 6,000-year-old Iranian civilization,” and murdering “nearly 200 alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific without even providing evidence of their crimes to the public.”

“Congress should not idle like Nero while the Constitution is in flames,” said Fein. “… Trump must be impeached and removed from office immediately before it is too late. He is a dictator, pure and simple, who may well seek to disrupt the 2026 congressional elections by illegally invoking the Insurrection Act to dispatch the military to seize voting machines and occupy voting places.”

Fein added that Trump orchestrated the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol “to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from counting state-certified electoral votes,” and this shows “Trump will move heaven and earth to remain in power.”

“Our constitutional dispensation glorifying the rule of law and liberty may be destined to pass away. But it is the duty of Congress to be the last, not the first to surrender,” said Fein.

President Donald Trump delivered the cap to the Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, Arizona, and he had a friendly audience to take his words. This might explain the absence of rolling eyes and questioning looks on a few claims that Trump inflated, played down or made a point not to mention at all due to their controversy.

1.The U.S. will march in and take the Iranian nukes that he claimed were obliterated.

Months ago, Trump claimed to have “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities — the lingering existence of which he then later cited as one of the reasons to attack Iran last month and blow-up global fuel prices. But at the Friday TPUSA event, Trump said Iran’s nuclear capabilities are still somehow both “obliterated” yet in need of collection.

“You'll be very happy. The USA will get all nuclear dust,” he told the cheering TPUSA crowd. “You know what the nuclear dust is? That was that white powdery substance created by our B-2 bombers, those great B-2 bombers. Late one evening seven months ago. … And you know how we're going to get the dust, right? We're going to take it anyway. But taking it, taking it that way is slightly more dangerous. But we were going to get it anyway. … They will never have a nuclear weapon.”

But this information was immediately fact-checked by CNN reporter Nick Robinson, who told CNN anchor Jake Tapper that Iran has agreed to no such plan.

“[W]e’re hearing from Iranian sources who say that is just not the case. So, the Iranians are pushing back on some of what the president is claiming,” said Robinson.

2. The U.S. is paying Iran no compensation for Trump’s unilateral war.

Trump must be hotly aware of critics accusing him of hypocrisy for agreeing to pay Iran $20 billion after criticizing former President Obama for giving the country $1.7 billion because he denied that very fact at TPUSA.

“No money will exchange hands in any way, shape or form,” Trump insisted, in defiance of news that the U.S. has tentatively agreed to unfreeze $20 billion in Iranian assets.

British ambassador to the United States, Christian Turner claimed to CNN that he was “not close enough to the detail of how that would work” to say whether or not the transaction counted as a gift, but he conceded that as part of U.S./Iran negotiations Iran and Syria is “asking for an economic lifeline” from the U.S.

Bulwark Editor Jonathan Last called the transaction of money for Iran’s nuclear arsenal “a purchase … to the tune of $20 billion, which would be something that Donald Trump criticized the Obama administration for doing, but at a much greater scale.”

3. Ten wars ended.

The number of wars Trump has allegedly singlehandedly put an end to appears to be creeping up. This apparently includes the ending of the war he voluntarily started himself with February airstrikes on Iran, that left the nation’s more combative leadership in charge of the country.

Trump called his second term “by far the most successful first year of any administration in the history of our country, acknowledged by everybody.”

“To begin with, I ended eight wars, and it may be a little early to say this, but if we add Iran and Lebanon, that will be ten wars ended and many, many millions of lives saved,” Trump said.

Critics rated much of that claim bogus, with various international leaders denying either Trump’s intervention, or that the wars really ended at all.

Former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh, of Illinois, destroyed President Donald Trump for trying to take credit after other people repair his chaos.

“We all knew people like this,” said Walsh on his Friday podcast. “We all knew parents like this. We all knew kids like this. … Parents who would never say ‘no’ to their kid, would never discipline their kid, would never teach their kid. And these kids were just out of f—— control, breaking s——, making messes, can stay up all night. That's what Trump is. That's what he's been his whole f—— life. He breaks s——. He f—— up, he makes a mess and then somebody has to fix what he broke.”

Worse, Walsh complained that not only must smarter people clean Trump’s messes, but Trump keeps trying to seize credit for the cleanup.

“Somebody cleans up his mess, right? Whenever that happens, Donald Trump says, ‘look at me, I'm the greatest. Victory!’ I'm so f—— tired of this! He breaks something. Somebody fixes it. And Trump tries to take the credit. All you got to do is look at the headline this morning,” Ranted Walsh, pointing to Trump’s announcement that The Strait of Hormuz is open again. But it was Iran's foreign minister announcing the opening to commercial traffic again.

“And that idiot ... that, that child — that bratty child who made the mess — when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz you bet your bottom dollar he was out there in a nanosecond taking all credit, said Walsh, reporting

“Iran has just announced that the Strait of Iran is fully open and ready for full passage. Thank you,” Trump proclaimed on Truth Social. He then followed up that post with a gripe at CNN News, saying “Why don’t they just say, at the right time, JOB WELL DONE, MR. PRESIDENT, and start to gain back their credibility???”

“Trump is such a dumba——. It's not the ‘Strait of Iran.’ It's the Strait of Homuz,” Walsh barked, before railing Trump for daring to claim-jump Iran leaders clearly giving him slack.

“That strait was fully open six weeks ago before Trump launched his illegal war. And Trump celebrating? This is what he does,” said Walsh.

On Friday morning, April 17, Iranian and Trump Administration officials announced that the Strait of Hormuz — a waterway crucial to the flow of oil in the Middle East — had been reopened. Oil prices, according to NBC News, fell by 12 percent in response to the news.

During an early afternoon appearance on MS NOW, The Lincoln Project's Stuart Stevens — a veteran conservative strategist who is very much in the Never Trump camp — stressed that despite the reopening, the Republican Party is facing a "really toxic cocktail" of political liabilities in the 2026 midterms.

Stevens told host Chris Jansing, "Now, for the first time since Vietnam, there's going to be automatic draft registration for these voters. That didn't happen before the war. So, that's a really toxic cocktail in politics. You have low job opportunities, high gas prices, not a good job situation for young people, and the draft. I mean, that's a pretty bad mix."

Trump's "style," according to Stevens, is to "say things are better than they are."

"So, he'll just deny this," Stevens explained. "And then, he'll attack someone else."

Over the years, Stevens (now in his early seventies) worked with a who's-who of conservatives — including former President George W. Bush, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. And Stevens, drawing on his experience, told Jansing that in 2026, Trump is "running into a particularly dangerous political environment."

Stevens told Jansing, "There is no way that Republicans can separate themselves from Trump. Because if their opponent doesn't attack them, Trump will attack them. So, they're sort of tied to the mast here, and I think it looks very bleak for him."

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For four years, Josh Owens was beside prolific MAGA podcaster Alex Jones, filming, traveling and editing video for InfoWars before he finally realized he was being manipulated by a volatile con artist.

Speaking to Charlie Warzel for the "Galaxy Brain" podcast from The Atlantic, Owens said that he doesn't want to be absolved of his role in helping Jones spread his conspiracies. What he hopes to do with his new book is to help people understand how the lies were made.

Owens went to film school and won a contest to work for Jones. One reason he wanted to vote for Jones, Owens continued, is he grew up in a close evangelical community.

"...[T]hat was what I was raised on. And at the exact time that I was introduced to Jones, I was stepping away from that world. Jones, in a lot of ways, sort of lines up to the televangelist way of doing things. It’s all about 'everything is motivated by fear,'" he said. "Everything is motivated by, there is this intense need to accomplish this thing in order to quite literally save the world. That’s the narrative that he spins."

"So yeah, I mean, him being in my ear constantly was a big part of that. But also just the ideology, and the grandness of the ideology, was such an attractive concept. And I think that’s part of the reason that I decided to go there. Another part of the reason was I was trying a lot of stuff at the time. I interned a day at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta," he recalled.

He was ultimately offered a job by Perry's studio and by Jones. Jones was the choice, in large part, he said, because he felt he had more of a purpose."Like maybe it could serve something bigger than myself. Maybe it could do something. Maybe, you know, I think at the time I was naively well-meaning," Owens explained.

The interest wasn't political, he said, because he knew nothing about politics at that time. That's how he got sucked into politics. And Jones, he said, was the " ultimate micromanager." His mood determined what they were talking about on the show. Owens writes in the book that Jones was also "an extremely volatile and manipulative presence."

Owens said it is "the essence of how he operates. And how he, you know, keeps the people around him is that sometimes Jones could be kind of what you see on his show: this raging lunatic who is screaming about literal demons running the world. And then, in an instant, he is this complete other person; he is at times warm and jovial and fun to be around. But on my first day, I was sort of warned about that. I was told that that could turn on a dime, and sort of to always be watching out for it. Jones might try and rope you into a joke—but don’t play along, because you could be the reason that that turns."

Classic manipulation, Warzel called it. And Owens agreed "Yeah; that’s the job. That is the job whether you’re in the office; that’s the job whether you’re in the field; that’s the job whether you’re, you know, shooting a video with him. About politics or whether it’s about the products that he’s selling. Like, no matter what, it’s about 'How do we do what he wants?'"

He added that he was so desperate for Jones' approval that he wondered if that's why Jones pulled him into the inner circle. "Because he knew that I almost wanted it as much as he was sort of demanding it. And so, those people who were closest to him … I think he sort of senses that. And then he pulls those people in, because he can get what he needs out of them," said Owens.

Warzel wanted to know whether Jones truly believed some of the things he said.

"When people ask me that question — like, not what he believes, but 'Does he believe the things that he says?' — my feeling on that has changed a little bit. I used to say, 'Who cares?' Like, it doesn’t matter what he believes. He has been doing this for two decades plus. He broadcasts on his show six days a week, for hours a day. I don’t even think he could tell you what he believes, and what he doesn’t believe, with the things that he says. But his audience believes it. And so, ultimately, it doesn’t matter," Owens said.

He then quoted a book by Harry Frankfurt, which describes liars as intentionally skewing the truth, while bulls—— don't care about the truth.

The Sandy Hook conspiracy was different, Owens said. "That’s something deeper and darker. That Jones, I feel like, just doesn’t care about how his rhetoric affects people. I think you could probably hook Jones up to a lie-detector test, and he would pass it. I don’t think he cares what the truth is. So, I think it frees him up, in some sense, to sort of say whatever he feels is of value to him in any given moment."

When Owens left he spoke to NPR's "This American Life" and "Jones sent me this voice memo that was very manipulative. And it was him saying that if I had to do that for people to like me, that’s fine. That’s okay. But he likes me, he cares about me, but he refuses to become my villain. And the mainstream people that I might be talking to are much worse than him, and I need to keep that in mind." When fact-checkers reached out to Jones for comment, he got two threats from Jones and there hasn't been any communication since.

For those trying to get out of the far-right world of Jones and even Donald Trump, Owens said he doesn't have the answer, but he knows that it can be done, because he did it.

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