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Donald Trump is caught in a "serious" bind where he must either launch a full-scale conflict with Iran or risk looking weak, according to Michael Wolff, but White House sources indicate that one thing he "hates" might spare the U.S. another war.

Wolff is a veteran reporter and writer, best known for his 2018 book, Fire & Fury, which chronicled the chaos of Trump's first term based on insider accounts and sources. He still maintains access to sources within the White House and offers their insight to help explain what motivates Trump and how he operates.

During the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff and co-host Joanna Coles discussed Trump's escalation of military threats against Iran. The administration has been antagonizing the Middle Eastern nation for the better part of a year, bombing its nuclear facilities, threatening retaliation for violence against protesters and, currently, threatening what observers predict will be a full-scale war if nuclear negotiations fall through.

According to Wolff, all these threats against Iran have put Trump in an extremely tough position. Ideally, he would prefer to avoid a war, but if his demands are not met by Iran, he risks looking weak if he backs down.

“I think he’s got himself in somewhat of a serious pickle here,” Wolff explained. “You know, if he doesn’t go at this point, I mean, he kind of really looks weak and he’s already backpedaled this quite a bit.”

He continued: "He invited all of those protesters into the street under the banner basically of his protection. ‘Help is on the way, warnings to the Iranian regime: If you attack the protesters, you will have to answer to Donald Trump. Then, of course, they did attack the protesters at a level beyond anyone’s imagination. And Trump, what did he do? Nothing. What does that make him look like? Or he can go forward. But the problem of going forward — which is why he didn’t go forward the first time — is that it’s very complicated.”

There is one aspect of going to war, however, that Trump "hates," and which might help keep him from starting a conflict in Iran. According to White House sources who spoke to Wolff, Trump largely dislikes the actual process of carrying out a war.

"It’s too complicated for him. He doesn’t like to listen to generals," Wolff said. "All of the generals are kind of McKinsey-trained guys. He hates that. It’s boring to him. So it’s a difficult moment for him to go forward in attacking Iran on a pretty massive scale, I think is the implication.”

He concluded: "I think he’s caught in the middle of this, you know—he can’t back down because then he’s going to look weak. He doesn’t want to go forward because it’s so complicated.”

President Donald Trump met on Thursday with his so-called "Board of Peace," an unofficial gathering of countries willing to pay to have control over post-war Gaza. The meeting comes as Trump sends an increase in military presence around the Middle East.

Politico's morning newsletter was updated after Trump's speech, welcoming the paid members to his first peace meeting, where, according to "Playbook," the "real backdrop is the growing drumbeat of war."

"There are layers of irony here. First — where better to host a peace summit than the 'Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute for Peace,' a building forcibly seized by the administration and renamed in the president’s honor following a bitter power struggle last year? (A federal judge deemed the takeover illegal, though that ruling was stayed pending appeal)," Politico reported.

Sources told Axios that Trump is plotting a "massive, weeks-long" military operation that "would look more like full-fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela."

“The number of fighter planes, aerial refuelers and surveillance planes that have arrived over the past three to four days is immense,” said Politico's Paul McLeary. “Dozens of F-35s, F-16s and F-15Es have moved from the U.S. to the Middle East and the U.K. Several F-22s used in Venezuela last month have also been moved to the U.K., putting them in range for strikes inside Iran. We also sent RC-135 Rivet Joint intelligence aircraft, E-3 Sentry Airborne Early Warning and Control systems and E-11 Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft. It’s staggering.”

The newsletter cited the WSJ report, calling it the largest air-power buildup in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Although the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has released thousands of files related to the late billionaire financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, many questions about his interactions with prominent people remain unanswered. And the U.K. was rocked by a major bombshell when, early Thursday morning, February 19, the news broke that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — the former Prince Andrew — has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct.

The Daily Beast's Leigh Kimmins reports, "Reports from the BBC and The Times of London said a convoy of police cars descended on the royal Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, eastern England, at around 8 a.m. local time (3 a.m. Eastern). Just hours before the operation, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the broadcaster that 'nobody is above the law.' Starmer, who has faced criticism for appointing another Epstein associate, Peter Mandelson, as Britain's ambassador to the U.S., said that the principle 'has to apply in this case in the same way it would in any other case.'"

On MS NOW's "Morning Joe," British reporter Katty Kay (well-known for her work with the BBC in the past) told conservative host Joe Scarborough, "No one in the royal family has ever been in this position…. This is incredibly shocking."

Scarborough told Kay that the arrest "has really shaken the British establishment."

Mountbatten-Windsor's arrest is also drawing a lot of reactions on X, formerly Twitter.

Liberal firebrand and former MSNBC (now MS NOW) host Keith Olbermann tweeted, "BREAKING: the former Prince Andrew arrested in Epstein investigation Here? Nobody."

Conservative Victoria Byrne posted, "If true, this is massive. Accountability doesn't care about titles — Prince Andrew and his ties to Jeffrey Epstein have followed him for years. Let's see what BBC confirms."

MS NOW legal analyst Joyce White Vance, a former federal prosecutor, noted, "Former Prince Andrew arrested over accusations that he shared confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy."

ITV News' Chris Ship observed, "Today is (former Prince) Andrew's birthday. He is 66. There are reports emerging that police cars have been seen arriving at his new home, Wood Farm, on the Sandringham Estate."

The global diplomatic goals of the U.S. used to be handled by a vast corps of skilled professionals, but under Trump, virtually all overseas goals are in the hands of one "witless" envoy, as James Ball wrote for The i Paper, possibly because he has a background "almost identical" to the president's.

Ball broke down Steve Witkoff's unlikely and alarming ascent in a scathing analysis from Wednesday. Initially chosen to oversee an Israeli ceasefire deal in Gaza, he was later upgraded to overseeing all missions in the Middle East, including brokering a deal to defuse tensions with Iran.

Now, he is also handling talks to end the years-long war between Russia and Ukraine. This high-stakes job has seen him make many alarming breaks from standard diplomatic procedures, such as meeting solo with Russian President Vladimir Putin and insisting that he trusts the Kremlin's English interpreters. These decisions overwhelmingly give Russia an upper hand, something Witkoff might not mind, Ball noted, as he has previously praised Putin and said that he does not "regard him as a bad guy."

"Is he amoral, or just incompetent?" Ball asked. "Usually, sensitive diplomatic negotiations are left to people with huge experience of the areas in which they operate. Typically, the lead negotiator has lived and worked in the region for decades, speaks the relevant languages, and has relationships with key power brokers in the various factions involved. They know the history, the resentments, the red lines. The hope is they can leverage that into the patient drudgework of diplomacy, dragging often reluctant parties over the line to a deal none of them will love, but that they can all live with."

Witkoff cannot meet that standard for all the missions he has been tasked with, Ball argued, because "No one on the planet has intimate experience of Israel, Gaza, Iran, Russia and Ukraine." That matter is made by the fact that the billionaire has had no diplomatic experience at all prior to his appointment as Trump's "Special Envoy for Peace Missions." The president, Ball suggested, seemed to pick him because of their strikingly similar professional backgrounds.

"His background is almost identical to Trump’s – Witkoff is a billionaire who made his money through real estate deals," Ball explained. "His portfolio is even more U.S.-focused than the President’s, and the handful of major deals his company closed outside the U.S. were in London. Witkoff knows the world of US real estate, and little else."

With "the witless Witkoff" now handling the Russia-Ukraine peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, Ball wrote that Trump has made him all of Europe's problem, with no regard for the consequences of his failure.

"It is Ukrainians first, and then Europeans, who will pay with their lives if Witkoff screws up," Ball wrote. "Americans will sit a continent away and pretend it’s not their problem if it blows up in their faces."

President Donald Trump's "Golden Visa" scheme has inspired New Zealand to adopt one of its own, and now wealthy Americans are using it as a new opportunity to flee the United States.

Reporting late Tuesday, The Guardian said that the new Active Investor Plus visa has inspired 1,833 people to apply since April 2025. Since the visas are usually for families, the full number of applications is 573. To put that in context, in the past two-and-a-half years, New Zealand visa applications were only 116. A whopping 40 percent of the applicants come from the United States.

The demand is that they must make an economic investment of at least $5 million in New Zealand dollars. That comes to about $3 million in U.S. dollars.

"Robbie Paul, the chief executive of the Auckland-based venture capital firm Icehouse Ventures, has worked with more than 30 people who have applied for a golden visa," the report said. He's been working with clients to help navigate their investments to qualify.

The reason given is all about Trump.

“I’ll put it this way, never in my time in New Zealand did I have an applicant reference [former presidents Joe] Biden or [Barack] Obama … and then, absolutely, a lot of references to people’s feelings towards MAGA and Trump,” he said.

People see New Zealand as a great place for business because the economy and politics are stable. Meanwhile, it's English-speaking and a beautiful country.

It isn't the first time New Zealand has benefited from Trump, however. In 2016, visits to the country's immigration website went up 2,500 percent. After the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade law was overturned, the immigration site quadrupled. In the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election, real estate in New Zealand saw a surge of interest.

Right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel angered New Zealanders when he bought citizenship in 2017 despite spending just 12 days in the country.

So, former Labour prime minister Jacinda Ardern shored up rules for the investment visa. She also ensured a ban on foreign home ownership in 2018, out of fear that it was driving up costs during a housing crisis. So, the new rules would allow people to buy homes, but they must be over NZ $5 million.

New Zealand has made $3.39 billion from the program so far.

President Donald Trump is ready for war with Iran, and he's coming close to beginning it.

Axios reported Wednesday that sources say Trump is plotting a "massive, weeks-long" military operation that "would look more like full-fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela."

Military officials in former President George W. Bush's administration estimated about six months for the war in Iraq, recalled the Miller Center. It lasted nearly nine years. However, Bush declared "mission accomplished" about six weeks after the bombing began.

The war would be a joint U.S.-Israel operation with a "much broader scope — and more existential for the regime — than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June."

Axios said that Trump already came close to war with Iran last month when he learned that the government killed thousands of protesters. When he passed on an attack, the White House began talks while building up a significant military presence in the region.

"By delaying and bringing so much force to bear, Trump has raised expectations for what an operation will look like if a deal can't be reached," said Axios.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump pledged "no new wars," promising supporters that he would end all foreign conflicts. Since then, he's bombed Iran once, and kidnapped the sitting dictator of Venezuela.

During Donald Trump's first presidency, views on foreign policy were often described as "isolationist." And he was sometimes compared to paleoconservative Patrick Buchanan, whose 1992 presidential campaign championed America First themes and drew scathing criticism from neocons.

Yet during his second presidency, Trump has taken a much more interventionist and imperialistic turn — from the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to calling for Greenland to become part of the United States

In a blistering op-ed published by The Guardian on February 17, progressive journalist Mehdi Hasan argues that Trump is obsessed with "empire" — a theme that Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized during his speech at the recent 2026 Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany.

"Fresh from toppling the president of Venezuela and taking control of the world's largest oil reserves," Hasan explains, "the Trump Administration's top diplomat arrived at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, (February 14) with a rather new and very disturbing message for European governments: Empire is great. Empire is back. Empire is American. The U.S. secretary of state delivered what can only be described as a 22-minute ode to empire. A love letter to conquest and colonialism. A proud defense of the West's territorial expansion."

The former MSNBC (now MS NOW) host adds, "That secretary of state was, of course, Marco Rubio, the longtime foreign-policy hawk who is now one of the most influential voices in a MAGA-dominated Republican Party that once pretended it wanted to end 'forever wars'…. (Rubio) issued a full-throated endorsement of empire — and he did it at exactly the moment the United States, under his boss Donald Trump, is openly engaging in the kind of territorial and extractive imperialism that most Western European governments spent the last 80 years renouncing."

Hasan argues that although Rubio "may be good cop to Trump’s bad," their mutual "goal" is to "make empire great again."

"The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said on Saturday that Trump is still intent on acquiring Greenland," Hasan observes. "'I think the desire from the U.S. president is exactly the same,' Frederiksen told reporters in Munich, on the same day Rubio gave his speech at the conference. 'He's very serious about this.' Yes, he is."

Hasan continues, "Astonishingly, Trump has refused to rule out the use of military force against Denmark, a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) ally. He has dismissed concerns about international borders and national sovereignty. And, this weekend, he sent his secretary of state to a conference in Europe that was supposed to be about collective security to deliver a speech that amounted to: America must dominate. Trump must lead. And Europe must get onboard — or else."

At two major gatherings in Europe this year — the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland in January and the 2026 Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany in February — tensions between the Trump Administration and Europe were a recurring theme. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, during his WEF speech, lamented that a "rupture" has occurred in relations between the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies. And similarly, when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke at the Munich event, he told attendees, "A divide has opened up between Europe and the United States. The United States' claim to leadership has been challenged, and possibly lost."

According to Axios reporters Courtenay Brown and Neil Irwin, European leaders are responding to tensions between the Trump Administration and Europe by taking aggressive new steps to promote the euro.

"European leaders are trying to carve out a bigger global role for their currency in a Trump-shaped world order," Brown and Irwin report in an article published on February 17. "If they are successful, it could chip away at America's biggest economic advantage: the outsize demand for dollars and U.S. debt. Other dollar alternatives look less likely, since the world generally distrusts China. Squeezed by Russia, China, and an increasingly belligerent United States, Europe is reacting by bolstering its common efforts in both national security and monetary affairs."

The Axios journalists add, "Even if the euro's shift doesn't dethrone the dollar as the global reserve currency, its broader influence could narrow America's margin of financial power."

The European Central Bank (ECB), according to Brown and Irwin, is "launching a permanent facility that allows eligible global central banks to borrow euros when needed — a move that, ECB President Christine Lagarde said during her Munich Security Conference speech, "reinforces the role of the euro."

"For years," the Axios reporters note, "European policymakers — including Lagarde — warned of a world more vulnerable to shocks than before the pandemic. That risk intensified when President Trump returned to office and imposed the steepest tariffs in over a century, while wielding trade threats as geopolitical leverage…. Trade concerns, along with other factors like worries of eroding Fed (U.S. Federal Reserve) independence, have spooked global investors. The dollar is down roughly 9 percent over the past year — a decline that has pushed the euro to its highest level against the dollar in about three years…. The bottom line: Europe is trying to persuade the rest of the world of the euro's attractiveness in ways that could gradually reshape the balance of power in global finance."

Tensions between the Trump Administration and its longtime allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) were on full display during the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland in January and the 2026 Munich Security Conference, which concluded on Sunday, February 15.

During his WEF speech, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned that a "rupture" has occurred between the United States and his NATO allies. And similarly, one of retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling's main takeaways from the Munich gathering is that the U.S./Europe alliance is severely damaged.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on February 17, Herling — who served as commander of U.S. Army Europe under former President Barack Obama — laments that Trump is throwing away a valuable national security/military asset: Europe.

"The Trump Administration's two representatives at the Munich Security Conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, gave very different remarks, but the underlying substance was the same: This administration does not understand, does not value, and will not invest in America's European alliances," Hertling explains. "Although the two men struck different tones and used different words, the unified message was conveyed as much by what they said as by who they were and what they didn't say."

Hertling recalls that when he attended the 2012 Munich Security Conference as then-commander of U.S. Army Europe, the "American delegation reflected the bipartisan weight the United States once brought to the table."

"Sen. John McCain was there with other senators and representatives from both parties, as were then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and senior national security leaders from across the (Obama) Administration," Hertling notes. "Their messages differed in emphasis but were unified in tone: The United States viewed NATO not as a burden to be managed, but as a strategic advantage to be strengthened."

In 2026, however, that "strategic advantage," Hertling laments, is being thrown away by the Trump Administration.

"The U.S. military presence in Europe is often framed as a favor to allies," the former U.S. Army Europe commander argues. "In reality, it's one of the most advantageous force postures the United States maintains anywhere in the world — a relatively small footprint that delivers outsized strategic returns. From bases in Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, American forces sit an ocean closer to potential crises in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eurasia. In Germany alone, Ramstein Air Base serves as a global air mobility hub and power projection platform; Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, home to a critical Level III trauma center, anchors combat casualty care for multiple theaters as well as health care for all the U.S. embassies in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East…. The claim that America's European alliances are all charity isn't just wrong in the sense that we get nothing out of it. It's also wrong in the sense that we're just giving and our allies are just receiving."

Conservative columnist and historian Max Boot explained on Monday that President Donald Trump has “become toxic” even among right-wing movements in Europe analogous to his MAGA movement in the United States.

“I've been covering Trump's unprecedented interference in foreign elections, and what strikes me most is how brazen it's become,” Boot wrote for The Washington Post. “We're not talking about subtle diplomatic preferences here—Trump is issuing formal endorsements in other countries' elections as if they were Republican primaries back home.”

After listing the foreign politicians to receive Trump’s endorsement — including Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, the UK’s Boris Johnson, Giuseppe Conte in Italy, Javier Milei in Argentia, Karol Nawrocki in Poland, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Viktor Orban in Hungary and Sanae Takaichi in Japan — Boot wrote that the first problem is that it continues “Trump’s unfortunate habit of personalizing relations with other countries: He rewards leaders he likes and punishes those he dislikes.” Not only does this risk “making an enemy of the political opposition in their countries,” as happened when Trump “all but endorsed Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre” only for Poilievre to lose to Liberal Party leader Mark Carney, but it also could boomerang against Trump in areas where he is very unpopular.

“Now Trump is inviting a similar backlash in Europe, where he has become toxic with his tariffs, his attacks on European digital regulations and immigration policies, his attempt to take over Greenland, and his insults about European soldiers supposedly shirking combat in Afghanistan,” Boot wrote. “A poll released last month by the European Council on Foreign Relations found that only 16 percent of Europeans now consider the U.S. an ally. In Denmark, 84 percent have an unfavorable view of the United States.”

Boot added that “Vice President JD Vance was booed at the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies in Milan, even though Italy has a Trump-friendly prime minister” in Giorgia Meloni. Meloni even joined the rest of Europe in rebuking Trump last month for his Greenland threats, a fact which further demonstrates even the European far right does not necessarily want to be associated with the American president.

“A Politico poll in December found that in France and Germany, only a third of the people who support right-wing parties have a favorable view of Trump,” Boot wrote. “Little wonder that far-right leaders in Europe denounced Trump’s attempted takeover of Greenland and sought to distance themselves from the American leader.”

He concluded, “A president who zealously guards America’s sovereignty should show more respect for the sovereignty of other countries.”

Boot is not alone in raising the alarm about Trump’s meddling in other nations’ politics. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Susan B. Rogers has repeatedly met with far right parties in Europe and characterized efforts to marginalize extremists as anti-free speech, prompting criticisms from the British publication The Guardian. Vice President JD Vance has encouraged Germany to allow the neo-Nazi Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) Party to have a greater role in its political life, which was roundly denounced throughout Germany.

If Americans during President Donald Trump’s first term were exhausted by his “controversy and chaos,” they now appear to be similarly distressed by his “backtracking and blowing things up,” according to a report by Politico.

In the second year of his second term, President Trump “intensified the volatility” from year one “with a succession of whiplash-inducing policy swings, several of which have almost immediately withered in the face of Republican opposition and public outcry.”

For example, the Trump administration just withdrew thousands of federal law enforcement officers from Minneapolis, following the two violent deaths of U.S. citizens and after “clashes with protesters turned the tide of public opinion against the president’s immigration crackdown.”

There is the Greenland gambit, which appears to be paused, at least for now. There were the “Liberation Day” tariffs he announced in April, only to partially, but quickly, lower them “within days following tremors in global bond markets.”

Trump threatened to decertify Canadian aircraft, then dropped the threat. He declared he would drop credit card interest rates to ten percent, then dropped that, too, and in a rare move, asked Congress for legislation to do so. His push to create 50-year mortgages appears to have subsided.

He paused millions of dollars in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funding for state programs, then reversed course about a day later.

“The whiplash has real implications,” Chrissie Juliano, the executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, told Politico. “It’s incredibly disruptive, even if you can get back to continuing the work, you know, two days later.”

Domestically and internationally, Trump’s “unpredictability” has become a “feature, not a bug.”

“In many matters, especially negotiations with other countries, his mercurial opacity is often an attempt to gain leverage, but his threats seemingly lead just as often to backtracking as blowing things up, be they Iranian missile depots, Venezuelan drug boats or the transatlantic alliance,” Politico reported.

The risks are real.

“Even proposals that don’t ultimately move forward have consequences,” a financial industry insider, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly without fear of blowback from the White House, told Politico. “Markets react. Issuers reassess risk. When policymakers float price controls, it creates uncertainty that can translate into tighter underwriting and reduced access — particularly for higher-risk or lower-income consumers.”

Trump’s poll numbers are now at the lowest point of his second term, Republican pollster Whit Ayres told Politico.

“There’s a sense that this is a pretty chaotic administration and seems to remind people of the pandemic period in the first term,” Ayres said.

When a president’s approval rating is above 50 percent, the party in the White House loses House seats in the midterms, “but not that many,” Ayres noted. “When the president’s job approval is below, the average loss of seats is 32.”

Ayres “said that Trump’s approval numbers largely mirror those from his first term, when the public over four years grew exhausted by constant controversy and chaos.”

“Joe Biden’s fundamental message in 2020 was to restore normalcy,” Ayres said. “And that seemed to be persuasive to enough people to get him elected.”

As the head of the fifth-largest economy in the world, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calf.) had a conversation with the leaders of the U.K. over climate measures they could coordinate on. Now, President Donald Trump is furious.

Last week, Trump revoked a landmark ruling that greenhouse gases endanger public health. While science might verify one thing, the Trump government will rule on belief.

Trump spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, where Politico asked him about the meeting between the U.K. and Newsom.

“The U.K.’s got enough trouble without getting involved with Gavin Newscum,” Trump told Politico, using his nickname for Newsom. “Gavin is a loser. Everything he’s touched turns to garbage. His state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster.”

Trump added that it was “inappropriate” for Newsom to strike such agreements and “inappropriate for them to be dealing with him.”

Moments after, Newsom signed a memorandum of understanding in London with those same U.K. leaders, saying that California would cooperate on clean energy technologies, which is a huge business in Europe and the U.K., in particular. Trump hates windmills. That could have come from his fight with officials in Scotland, where an offshore wind farm was being built near his Trump Turnberry golf club.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband intends to coordinate with California and British energy firms to boost collaboration on clean energy research.

Trump has been in an ongoing conflict with many European leaders, so seeing Newsom travel the region getting a warm welcome appears to be triggering the president. Newsom has promised leaders that all of Trump's policies are "temporary." While Newsom hasn't announced whether he intends to run for president, there is considerable speculation about his candidacy in 2028.

The U.S. has withdrawn from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but California remains committed to the goal of net-zero emissions.

“People are leaving,” Trump said of California. “The worst thing that the U.K. can do is get involved in Gavin. If they did to the U.K. what he did to California, this will not be a very successful venture.”

Trump appeared to believe there was a business deal between the two rather than an educational and research collaboration.

Trump then needled Newsom on the funding of the high-speed rail project between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The long-delayed project had federal funding on its way, until Trump killed it.

“How has he done with the railroad?” Trump asked. “How has he done with the various things he’s building?”

On Instagram, the show "Puppet Regime" is using puppet theater to satirize political figures, from U.S. President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chinese President Xi Jinping. "Puppet Regime," however, wasn't created by professional comedians, but by the Eurasia Group — a geopolitical risk consultancy outfit founded by political scientist Ian Bremmer in 1998.

In an article published by the New York Times on February 16, reporter Kim Córdova emphasizes that "Puppet Regime" has a goal beyond being funny and entertaining: a desire to "defang authoritarian world leaders."

"If geopolitical consultants producing a puppet show conjures an image of Henry Kissinger with a sock on his hand squeaking an explanation of realpolitik," Córdova explains, "then you get it…. At its heart, 'Puppet Regime' follows the three principles that guide Eurasia Group: 'What the hell is happening in the world? How do we understand it? And how do we explain it?,' Bremmer said."

The Times reporter adds, "'Puppet Regime' follows in the satirical footsteps of other TV puppets, political and otherwise, including 'The Muppet Show,' 'Kukly' in Russia, 'Les Guignols' in France and 'Spitting Image' in Britain."

Comedian Rob Smigel, a former "Saturday Night Live" writer, told the Times that puppets work well in political satire because they give viewers, "a separation from reality that allows you to take bigger leaps."

Bremmer, according to Córdova, "is quick to brush off suggestions that 'Puppet Regime' might distract from Eurasia Group's core business or cause clients or world leaders to take their work less seriously."

Bremmer told the Times, "None of the heads of state that I meet with have a problem with it. None of the CEOs."

During the Cold War, the MAD theory — mutually assured destruction — argued that the United States and the Soviet Union had a mutual interest in avoiding a nuclear conflict. And proponents of MAD often argued that the nuclear weapons of the 1970s and 1980s were much more powerful than the nuclear bombs the U.S., under President Harry Truman, used against the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

The Soviet Union ceased to exist in the early 1990s, replaced by the non-communist Russia Federation. But the fear of nuclear confrontations remains.

In an editorial published on February 16, the New York Times' editorial board lays out some reasons why "the world is entering a dangerous new nuclear age" — from the expiration of the NEW Start Treaty to the divide between the United States and longtime North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies in Europe.

"This month, the New START treaty between the United States and Russia — the last major restraint on the world's two largest nuclear arsenals — expired," the Times' editorial board explains. "In its place, the Trump Administration is substituting a policy of vague threats and dangerous brinkmanship that portends an unconstrained arms race not seen since the height of the Cold War. President Trump's approach to this new, unbound era is alarming in both its words and its mechanics. Rather than preserving the stability that has held for half a century, the administration is weighing the deployment of more nuclear weapons and, perhaps most recklessly, the resumption of underground nuclear testing…. The administration seems to think that when it comes to nuclear weapons, more is better."

The Times writers add, "With New START gone, the Navy is studying whether to reopen disabled launch tubes on Ohio-class submarines and load additional warheads on its intercontinental ballistic missiles. The moves could more than double today's deployed arsenal."

Trump's "disdain for American allies," according to the Times, has "encouraged them to consider expanding their own nuclear promises."

"European leaders have begun to discuss whether France, which has nuclear weapons, should vow to protect other parts of Western Europe from Russia, given the sudden unreliability of the United States," the editorial board argues. "'As long as bad powers have nuclear weapons,' Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden told The Atlantic, 'democracies also need to be able to play.' A larger nuclear umbrella for any country increases the chances that a misunderstanding or mistake will lead to devastation."

The board continues, "Especially disturbing is the (Trump) Administration's signal that it may resume underground nuclear testing…. We must be clear about what this means: The United States has not conducted an explosive nuclear test since 1992…. The president of the United States currently possesses the sole, unchecked authority to launch a nuclear war. In an era of rising tension and decaying treaties, leaving the fate of the world to the judgment of a single person — whoever it is — is a risk no democracy should tolerate."