Ground Control to Major Don
The president’s planet is getting farther and farther from our own.
The United States, Reuters reports today, has used “virtually all” its stockpile of long-range precision missiles during five-plus months of conflict in Iran. But we probably won’t be needing them anyway—after all, you only need missiles when you get involved in wars, and our peace-loving president wouldn’t do a thing like that.
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Bill and Andrew will be live on YouTube and Substack at 10 a.m. EDT. Come hang out. Happy Tuesday.
President Spaceman
by Andrew Egger
It’s been stranger than usual, watching Donald Trump operate this week. The president has long lived on a different planet from the rest of us—a world defined by his own personal information bubble of yes-men and online fans shouting his praises. But it’s rarely been so clear just how far Trump’s planet is from our reality.
Take Iran. To hear the president tell it, America is forever on the verge of total victory. He is perpetually giving the mullahs one last, last, last chance to surrender before he turns their country into a parking lot—then inventing some pretext to call off the attack, pretending Iran has waved some secret white flag and is ready to make a deal.
Now, however, Iran is barely bothering even to participate in this charade. Which leaves the president performing a strange one-man play: After threatening to level Iran with “Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II,” Trump announced Saturday he would hold off because “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.” What did this deal involve? “The Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.” Talks on such a deal, he said, would get underway Monday.
We’ve seen this movie before: What Trump is describing is essentially the memorandum of understanding that he signed back in June, which has been out of force for weeks. This time, however, his assertions are even more fanciful: No such deal exists, and no talks are ongoing.
Iran said as much yesterday, insisting its only current direct negotiations are with Oman to work out joint control of the previously open strait—exactly the opposite, in other words, of what Trump claimed. This contradiction led to another tantrum from Trump, who called Iran “unbelievably duplicitous” in a post yesterday, but declined to resume his threats of devastating military action.
Meanwhile, another cargo ship reported being struck by a projectile in the strait overnight. It’s been two weeks since Trump issued a seeming ultimatum: For every ship Iran attacked in the strait, the United States would “bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT” near Tehran in Iran. Several such attacks by Iran later, Trump hasn’t followed through once. His planet and our own have taken different paths; one no longer exerts much gravity on the other.
Or take U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. As JVL described yesterday, the White House suffered an embarrassment this weekend after reaching the end of the line on its ridiculous Reflecting Pool saga. After contriving a government-wide effort to lie that the pool’s lining had been damaged by vandals, including ex-Olympian David Hearn, the administration quietly dropped the charges and admitted what had been obvious all along: The lining had been faultily installed.
But this was not obvious to everyone. Donald Trump spent yesterday spinning up a totally different tale: that Hearn was guilty, that a hostile judge in the case had been “really vicious,” and that his handpicked D.C. prosecutor had simply wilted under the pressure. Pirro “choked,” he complained to reporters. She had “folded like an umbrella.”
Pirro could never have done anything else; she wasn’t going to risk getting herself disbarred over hallucinated damage to the Reflecting Pool. But her position in the White House now dangles by a thread. Trump dressed her down in a phone call Saturday, then summoned her to the White House yesterday evening for more recriminations. Whether Pirro will survive the trip back to our planet remains to be seen.
Every time you look, Trump seems to have drifted further from our reality. Reading his Truth Social posts these days is like looking at a red-shift star. His poll numbers have never been worse, but don’t try to tell him that: “My REAL Polling Numbers,” he insisted yesterday, “are the best they have ever been.”
Other posts make clear how difficult it has become to understand the customs and behaviors of those who live on Trump’s planet. Why is he forever posting AI slop of himself? Why is he scolding random CEOs for not praising him enough in random Fox News hits? Why is he bragging about his Kim Jong-il–style wins at the club championships of golf courses he owns, saying things like “I am so honored in that, unlike the rest of the field, I’m given very little time to practice, because I’m focused on many other things” and boasting that “It’s called TALENT, and I have it, and they don’t!” Why is he reposting random Kim Strassel columns from early March arguing that the Iran War is going well? Why do space aliens from another reality do anything?
Trump has spent a decade trying to drag us along the path of his own suspended reality. But something has snapped; the real world has moved back onto its own course. Trump’s planet—where America is the hottest country in the world, Iran has been brought to its knees, vandals who destroyed the Reflecting Pool will be brought to justice, and he is extraordinarily popular and oh so good at golf—is so far from Earth it can no longer be seen with the naked eye. And as more and more people begin to wake up to this fact, the president is making no effort to reverse thrust. Already his world cannot be seen except through our most powerful telescopes; soon we may be unable to see him at all.
The GOP’s Blind Eye to Abuse
by William Kristol
Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, will most likely be reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning on a party-line vote. He’ll likely be confirmed later this week on another party-line vote by the full Senate. So the man who directed the Trump administration’s Jeffrey Epstein coverup, who flew to Florida to meet with Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell right after the notorious Trump birthday card to Epstein became public, and who a week later presided over her move to the low-level federal prison facility, will become attorney general of the United States.
There are major figures in both the Democratic and Republican parties who were closely tied to Jeffrey Epstein. The whole Epstein story sheds a terrible light on a not insignificant part of the American elite. But right now, it’s only the Republican party that’s voting to continue the coverup. It’s only the Republican party that’s voting to ensure that there will be no further federal investigation of the Epstein matter nor prosecution of—or even accountability for—other wrongdoers.
Which brings us to Representative Max Miller, the former Trump White House aide, now a Republican congressman from Ohio’s 7th congressional district. Miller has been unconvincingly, to say the least, defending himself against spousal and child abuse charges from his ex-wife, whom he married in 2022 at Donald Trump’s golf club in New Jersey. For now, at least, Miller says he’s not resigning from Congress, or even giving up on his re-election bid this year.
But on Sunday, Republican senator Bernie Moreno, father of Miller’s ex-wife, finally spoke up, supporting his daughter’s account of the abuse and saying that his former son-in-law isn’t fit to serve in Congress. A few other Republican senators volunteered yesterday that they believe their colleague. And President Trump apparently phoned Miller last night to raise the possibility of him ending his re-election bid because his seat may be in jeopardy. Miller would need to withdraw before Wednesday in order for a special primary election to be scheduled to replace him on the ballot.
But Trump has had nothing critical to say about Miller’s actual behavior. Rather, he expressed empathy for him. And Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan last week said of Miller, “I know Max is a good man.” Jordan apparently stands by that judgment.
Meanwhile, we’ve heard nothing from the conspicuously pious speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. As for the other Republicans from Miller’s home state, Politico reported the following last night:
Notably still silent was GOP Sen. Jon Husted, Ohio’s other senator, who while leaving the Capitol Monday did not respond to reporters’ questions about whether Miller should resign. Other Republicans in the Ohio House delegation are also staying quiet for now. Almost every House Republican from the state either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment on Moreno’s statement.
So some Republicans like Max Miller. Some are concerned because they think he may lose the seat. Some are concerned because the daughter of a fellow senator is involved. But if Miller had abused someone who wasn’t the daughter of a senator, and if there were no electoral repercussions, would any of them have spoken up to condemn his behavior?
No.
It would be unfair to say the Republican party is pro-abuse. But it might be fair to say they seem to be anti-anti-abuse. They seem happy to turn a blind eye to abuse. They certainly don’t seem to get too upset about the abuse of women.
But we shouldn’t be surprised. It is, after all, Donald Trump’s party.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Don’t Believe Todd Blanche About Trump’s Slush Fund From Hell… The attorney general nominee did not kill off Trump’s egregiously corrupt fund, even if he duped Sens. Cornyn and Tillis into thinking he had, warns PHILIP ROTNER.
Is Jeanine Pirro About To Be Fired? On Bulwark Takes, TIM MILLER and SAM STEIN give their takes on Trump’s chaotic press conference in the Oval Office on Monday, where Trump defended Rep. Max Miller.
What the Hell Happened to Sean Duffy’s Road-Trip TV Show? Three months after it was announced, the secretary of transportation’s summer show—funded by companies he regulates—hasn’t aired a single episode, WILL SOMMER reports in False Flag.
RFK Jr.’s CNN Meltdown Was Even Worse Than You Think… On Bulwark Takes, WILL SALETAN dismantles RFK Jr.’s disastrous CNN interview, exposing one false claim after another on COVID, vaccines, Anthony Fauci, Donald Trump, and the media.
The Attack We Knew Was Coming… Effectively defending against cyber threats against critical infrastructure requires a long-term commitment of political will, writes MARK HERTLING.
Quick Hits
FRESH IDEAS WANTED: The Trump administration is in difficulties. Neither of its tried and re-tried strategies for dealing with Iran—pressuring them with sanctions and bombs or sweet-talking them by stopping the sanctions and bombs—seem to be getting anywhere. Some fresh brainstorming is in order. Why not crowdsource it?
“We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” reads the email sent by a CENTCOM intel officer to “a broad group of military analysts” last week, per a new report from CNN:
The crowdsourcing-style query, which military officials said was unusual over email, is one sign of the limited — and potentially unpalatable —options available to Trump to force Iran into a deal on his terms. Hoping to find an alternative, the official at CENTCOM kicked off the brainstorming session via email to see if anyone had a better idea. The second source said CENTCOM is looking at everything, acknowledging it needs to reevaluate the strategy.
We at The Bulwark often crowdsource, as well: for story ideas, tips, even the best ways to increase our subscriber count (SUBSCRIBE!). Fortunately for us, lives, the price of oil, and America’s standing across the globe aren’t on the line.
As for CENTCOM’s search for Iran answers, Bill offered one. Hey, no bad ideas in a brainstorm!
BAD BOSS ALERT: Max Miller isn’t the only Republican House member with a developing personal scandal. The House Ethics Committee on Monday released the results of their investigation of Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.), finding that he violated the House code of conduct “by failing to adhere to the spirit of rules prohibiting sexual harassment of and unwanted advancement to House staffers.” The report continues:
Representative Edwards engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers. While Representative Edwards denied that any of his conduct was intended as a sexual or romantic advance, his pattern of behavior would lead a reasonable observer to interpret it as such, including providing the young women with lavish and recurrent gifts, making comments regarding their appearance and dress, inviting them to intimate dinners and vacations, sending notes regarding his effusive affection, and inviting them to other activities as a way to spend time together.
The committee’s report, which you can read here, “found no evidence,” it said, that Edwards had ever propositioned any of his staffers. He was, however, “aware that his excessive attention toward the young women had led to rumors and innuendo in the office.” Is it too much to ask for just a few more normal people in elected office?
Cheap Shots
Shocked he's about to fire another woman for trying to do what he asked but Hegseth and Kash are still around...
Whether consciously or unconsciously, the message to men is clear, "You can be shitty, drunk all the time, incapable of performing your job, unreliable to those you lead, abusive, even criminal. Just don't be a pussy. .
Even after a decade of this, we shouldn’t become numb to the fact that the president acts insane and routinely believes things that aren’t true.
If anything, it should sadden us more that there are still Americans who live in his alternate reality.