Last night, the Senate was barreling toward confirming Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence on a dramatically accelerated timetable: Hearing Wednesday, confirmation as early as Thursday. But the president, it seems, wasn’t pleased with the Senate’s prompt action on his nominee. This morning, he announced on Truth Social that he was “cancelling” Clayton’s hearing, offering a bizarre, incoherent shaggy-dog explanation involving supposed Democratic reneging on a FISA deal and the necessity of confirming Clayton’s replacement as U.S. attorney first.
Trump’s actual motivation couldn’t be plainer: The Senate was moving so quickly he was in danger of never getting to install hatchet man Bill Pulte as acting DNI at all. By gumming up his own nominee’s confirmation process, Trump ensures Pulte will take the reins at least for a bit. For totally benign reasons, we are sure. Happy Wednesday.
Mark Hertling and Ben Parker welcome back special guest Tom Nichols to Command Post today at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Tune in on Substack or YouTube.
It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green
by Andrew Egger
Of all Donald Trump’s little D.C. hobby projects that have caused scandal this year, the snit over his renovation of the National Mall’s reflecting pool has been the one I’ve cared about the least. But you’d need a heart of stone not to laugh at the snags they’re hitting this week: After months of castigating the “filthy, dirty” pool as a symbol of failed Democratic leadership (“Sleepy Joe doesn’t know what ‘CLEAN’ or proper maintenance is!”), and just days after the White House declared the mission of cleaning it up accomplished, the reflecting pool is once again resolutely algae-green.
National Park Service teams could be seen scurrying around Monday and Tuesday, brandishing pool skimmers and gallon jugs of 12 percent hydrogen peroxide solution in a ferocious attempt to restore the pool to its “American flag blue” glory. Hey, look on the bright side: It might not be quite what Trump wanted for the Fourth of July, but it’ll work great next year for St. Patrick’s Day!
It doesn’t really matter, of course—how much algae the duck pond on the mall contains is way, way down the list of important national concerns. But the boondoggle is such a striking metaphor for the failures of Trump’s second term that it’s worth taking at least a minute to soak in.
Here is how the president has approached basically all problems since retaking office last year:
Step 1: Announce your intent to solve some longstanding problem, like America’s trade deficit,1 or Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon, or the national debt, or an algae-ridden reflecting pool.
Step 2: Ignore all logistical challenges that made the problem difficult in the first place; proclaim confidently that the only reason previous attempts to solve them failed is because your predecessors were giant idiots.
Step 3: Try to solve the problem via the first idea you think of.
Step 4: Fail spectacularly and immediately.
It’s amazing how many times, in just a year and a half, Trump has followed this precise script.
How to fix the American economy? Simple: Throw a million tariffs on it. “For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” Trump thundered on “Liberation Day” in April 2025. “I don’t blame these other countries at all for this calamity. I blame former presidents and past leaders who weren’t doing their job.” He then spent months in a fever dream of tariff negotiations and renegotiations, setting and resetting rates with mad abandon and whipping the economy around like a rag doll, until the Supreme Court declared the whole mess unconstitutional earlier this year.
How to tackle the national debt? Simple: Just throw open the government books to some smart tech guys and let them figure out what to cut. Trump and Elon Musk, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last February, were doing “the exact same things that Democrat politicians promised the American people they would do for decades. President Trump is just the first president in our lifetimes to actually do it.” Musk then spent a few months rampaging through the government tearing the wiring out of the walls; a project that did major damage to vulnerable populations around the world and U.S. science research but made no appreciable dent in federal spending.
How to bring Iran’s mullahs to heel? Simple: Bomb the hell out of the country until they give you everything you want. “For 47 years, no president was willing to do what I’m doing, and they should have done it a long time ago,” Trump said of his war on Iran back in March. He then spent months watching economic pain pile up in America and waiting in vain for the Iranian capitulation to come, before finally getting sick of the thing and throwing in the towel this week.
It’s happened over and over again. And yet there’s a special pathos to seeing the same pattern play out in the reflecting pool specifically. Maybe it’s just the striking visual—it’s such a beautiful green! Or maybe it’s just the fact that, in this case, the fight Trump is losing happens to be one against a single-celled organism.
Each time this happens, Trump and Co. are compelled to deal with a certain amount of strain in the base. It’s not easy these days being the sort of Trump supporter who rushes in to trumpet every one of his actions as a masterstroke; he tends to leave you with a certain amount of rhetorical cleanup to do.
Here, too, the reflecting pool has provided a rich vein. A reporter Fox News sent to scope it out went viral this week for his dogged insistence all was going according to plan: “I’m here at the newly renovated reflecting pool,” he said. “It’s painted American flag blue.” He then turned to the obviously green water behind him: “The Democrats are gonna tell you, ‘Oh, there’s green algae, it looks so bad.’ But there’s pool guys cleaning it up right now. No other president would do that.”
And you know, in a certain sense, I guess he’s right.
If you haven’t seen our own Brendan Hartnett report from the reflecting pool, with a couple water bottles full of the green goo, check it out here.
Trump Is on the Side of the Iranian Regime
by William Kristol
Having lost the war in Iran, President Trump now wants us all to move on: “We were focused on Iran. That’s going to be in the back, in the rearview mirror.”
To which our response should be: Forget it.
Donald Trump launched and carried out this reckless and foolish war. It was his decision, his choice. His war has had real human costs and substantial economic costs for this nation and for the world. And our defeat will have very real and substantial geopolitical and strategic consequences. These are all Trump’s responsibility, and the responsibility of his Republican party, which voted over and over again in Congress to support his war. It is proper to hang both the war and the defeat around all their necks. And it is right to remind voters that one reason to elect a Democratic Congress in 2027 and 2028 is to stop, or at least impede, Trump from doing similarly irresponsible and dangerous things over the next two years.
We should also remind Americans that Trump’s Iran war is not just a geopolitical defeat. It is also a moral failure.
As Elliott Abrams points out:
The American agreement with Iran completely abandons the Iranian people.
In December and January, Iranians took to the streets again in huge numbers . . . This was a major challenge to the regime. It responded with mass murder . . .
In response, President Trump posted on Truth Social, “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY!!!”
But the deal that the United States has now entered with Iran abandons that position and the Iranian people. . . . On Sunday, in an interview announcing the deal with the regime, Trump said, “As far as regime change, I never cared about regime change. This is the third group we’ve dealt with, and this is the most rational group yet.”
Yesterday at the G7 meeting in France, Trump went even further in the direction of sucking up to the murderers of the Iranian people: “We’re dealing with people that I think are very rational people. They are nice to deal with. They are strong people, smart people. . . . They’re, you know, looking to help their country.”
So Trump has not just lost a war to the Iranian regime. He has now become an apologist for it. He was defeated by terror-sponsoring murderous rulers, and now he is apologizing for them. His strategic collapse has been accompanied by moral collapse.
If we were to let Donald Trump and his enablers put all this in the rearview mirror, if there is to be no memory and no accountability for what has been done, then it wouldn’t be just Trump’s collapse. It would be a moral and political collapse on our part, as well.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Get Ready for the Bari-fication of CNN… Even as her controversial makeover of CBS continues, reports suggest she has her sights on the biggest name in cable news, writes CATHY YOUNG.
There’s ‘No Excuse’ for John Bolton… GABRIEL SCHOENFELD revisits the charges against the former national security advisor as he reportedly prepares to plead guilty.
This Land Is Your Land? This Land Is My Land… The American Revolution began as a land grab. Our politics still revolve around the same hunger, argues MICHAEL ALBERTUS.
The Vice President Is Looking Pretty Stupid… SAM FORSTAG and MICHAEL WEISS join TIM MILLER on the flagship pod to break down why JD Vance has been set up to sell the Iran “deal.”
Quick Hits
IRAN’S PERMANENT LEVERAGE: If leaks about the content of the Trump administration’s memorandum of understanding with Iran are correct, Iran’s clerical regime will be making out like bandits in exchange for a face-saving end to the war for Donald Trump. But they may not be willing to keep the peace for long. That’s because we’ve handed them a remarkably powerful new geopolitical weapon: Iran knows it can now close the Strait of Hormuz at will. CNN reports that the U.S. intelligence community shares this assessment:
Regardless of the framework agreement that is due to be formally signed on Friday to open the key waterway as a prelude to nuclear talks, Iran proved it can shut off access to the strait during the current conflict and US intelligence assessments suggest that could happen again.
“We have now handed Iran de facto control over the strait—a weapon more powerful than any nuke,” one of the sources familiar with the US intelligence assessments told CNN, emphasizing how the war has fundamentally altered Tehran’s thinking about leveraging similar tactics in the future.
Iran has similarly learned it can leverage targeted strikes against the energy infrastructure of Gulf countries as an asymmetric capability after doing so to great effect during the war, another tool it can use to its advantage going forward, a second source familiar with the assessments said.
Surprising? No. Grim? Extremely. Read the whole thing.
CHARM RE-OFFENSIVE: Europe spent 2025 mercilessly buttering up Donald Trump, a strategy that appeared to blow up in the early days of the Iran war: When allies failed to rush immediately into Trump’s attack on Iran, a furious president made some of his loudest anti-NATO spluttering yet. But with that war apparently behind us at this week’s G7 conference, Europe is back to the charm offensive again. Here’s the New York Times:
Europe’s alliance with the United States may still be on the rocks, but on the first full day of a Group of 7 summit meeting at this Alpine spa town in France, the leaders showed they remained ready to behave politely toward Mr. Trump.
For all the sharp elbows of the last year, they appear to have concluded that the best way to deal with a disruptive president is to court him, particularly since they still hope to engage the United States on thorny issues like the war in Ukraine.
“We’re on the same team,” Mr. Merz said of the president on social media, wishing him a belated happy 80th birthday.
How nice is that? Kumbaya, at least until the next threat to invade Greenland arrives. Read the whole thing.
Cheap Shots
This one, of course, was a problem in Trump’s mind only.
They're going about the algae problem all wrong. They are photosynthetic organisms that need sunlight to survive. So, all they need to do is cover the reflecting pool with a giant tarp.
"Or maybe it’s just the fact that, in this case, the fight Trump is losing happens to be one against a single-celled organism."
Andrew, you deserve a bonus for that descriptive sentence alone!!!