Did you think they were stopping at Gaza? Of course not:
Twelve hours after Israeli settlers brutally attacked several Palestinians and established a new illegal outpost in their village, the Israeli military stepped in. But instead of detaining settlers or dismantling the illegal outpost, the soldiers targeted the Palestinian residents of Tayasir and a CNN team covering the incursion.
“Stop! Sit down! Sit down!” one of the Israelis shouted, his rifle aimed directly at us and the Palestinians we were speaking with. Seventy-three seconds later, one of the soldiers came up from behind CNN photojournalist Cyril Theophilos and put him in a chokehold, bringing him to the ground and damaging his camera.
Within minutes, we and several Palestinians in the area were detained by the soldiers.
The two hours we spent detained by them laid bare the settler ideology motivating many of the soldiers who operate in the occupied West Bank – and the ways in which soldiers frequently act in service of the settler movement. Their comments build on a large body of evidence documented by journalists, activists and Palestinians that show Israeli soldiers supporting or standing idly by as Israeli settlers attack Palestinians or encroach on their land.
One Israeli soldier, who identified himself as Meir, acknowledged that the settler outpost he was protecting in Tayasir is illegal under Israeli law, which deems established settlements legal in contravention of international law. “But this will be a legal settlement,” Meir said. “Slowly, slowly.” Asked if he is helping make that a reality, he responded quickly: “Of course … I help my people.”
Meir was describing the settler playbook: establish outposts on Palestinian land, count on protection or inaction from Israeli soldiers and eventually secure a government decree legalizing the outpost. The current Israeli government – the most right wing in the country’s history – has legalized dozens of such outposts since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Meir and another soldier – the one who assaulted Theophilos – repeatedly declared that all of the West Bank belongs to Israel and the Jewish people, echoing the language of far-right government ministers. They also described all Palestinians as terrorists and spoke of revenge.
The journalist they detained was Jeremy Diamond, a famous CNN foreign correspondent. They did not care that it was being filmed. They do not care what the world thinks of them anymore. It’s might makes right and with Donald Trump in the White House as their only ally in this new era, the believe they can do whatever they choose.
And it’s not just the West Bank, of course. They are currently leveling Lebanon and Iran.
It was so bad that even Jake Tapper said it was unacceptable. (Of course it was a colleague but still …)
As talks to end the partial government shutdown broke down on Capitol Hill Thursday evening, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was “going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation.”
Hours later, the Senate moved to fund most of the department, including TSA, though not immigration enforcement and border patrol. But House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday derided that measure as “a joke” and said he would put forth his own short-term spending bill that would fully fund the agency for eight weeks. Johnson noted Trump’s move would pay the TSA, and he asserted he had the president’s support.
Here’s what we currently know:
Where is the money coming from?
Two people familiar with the plans said DHS planned touse funding from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act, Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda package that he signed last summer. The executive action didn’t specify that, instead more broadly calling for the use of money with “a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations.”
The “big, beautiful bill” provided DHS with $10 billion that can be used to support the agency’s mission to safeguard US borders, Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, told CNN. He suspects the administration will tap into this pot of money to fund TSA employees’ pay — even though TSA is not mentioned anywhere in the legislation.
Notably, the bill gives the DHS secretary the power to deem what activities support safeguarding the border, said Rachel Snyderman, managing director of the economic program at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The provision doesn’t specify that the funds should be used by a particular division within DHS.
DHS is using other money from the package to pay certain employees during the shutdown. The package provided DHS with a $165 billion infusion, funneling $75 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $64 billion to Customs and Border Protection.
Paychecks for sworn law enforcement officers in ICE, CBP and the US Secret Service, as well as for US Coast Guard military personnel, are currently being funded by the bill, according to a senior administration official. Other positions that work on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and border security priorities, such as technology specialists and attorneys, are also being paid during the shutdown through the legislation, the official said.
Does Trump have the authority to do this?
In the executive action, Trump said any moves should follow the federal law that says, “Appropriations shall be applied only to the objects for which the appropriations were made except as otherwise provided by law.”
Still, Kogan said he didn’t think the maneuver was legal. But “that’s not going to stop them,” he added.
He pointed out that the administration used Pentagon research and development funds to pay the military during the fall shutdown.
Why did Trump wait so long?
That’s the key question.
“My question is: If he can do it, why didn’t he do it before?” Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that focuses on improving the federal government, told CNN. “This has been a problem for over a month now.”
The situation at certain airports, particularly in Atlanta and Houston, has become increasingly dire in recent weeks. Travelers have been forced to wait for hours to go through TSA security checkpoints, with the lines stretching outside the terminals.
Earlier this week, Trump ordered ICE agents be deployed at 14 major airports to assist TSA agents.
In other words, Trump could have usurped the law as he’s done in dozens of other instances to further his agenda but he didn’t do it this time because he thought it would hurt Democrats if the American people (and TSA) suffered. He only did it after the Senate agreed 100-0 go ahead and fund TSA and the Democrats and many Republicans in the House were ready to sign on when a few right wing extremists and the Speaker of the House refused.
The media need to make this clear to the American people.
Mindwar’s Jim Stewartson used No Kings Day to review what differentiates a garden-variety narcissist from a malignant narcissist. If you couldn’t recognize both before, you can now. And in the sleep you’re not getting.
The DSM-5 defines Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) by the following characteristics:
At 1-2 percent of the population, such people see others’ needs as a nuisance. “They have a perpetual need to be seen as the best, and to take the spotlight on every stage,” Stewartson explains. “They brag, exaggerate, and lie about themselves to get ahead—and have no shame about it.”
And then there are those with Antisocial Personality Disorder, about 2-3 percent of the population. ASPD (your basic sociopath) carries some overlapping symptoms:
Stewartson continues:
But when you combine ASPD with NPD, you may get what renowned psychologist Erich Fromm coined in 1964 a malignant narcissist—a different creature altogether. This is a narcissist who is also sadistic, paranoid, and sociopathic. It is a person who is compelled, through the dynamics of their own psychology to increase their power forever—and to change the world around them to match their internal reality.
Fromm wrote:
A particular instance of narcissism which lies on the borderline between sanity and insanity can be found in some men who have reached an extraordinary degree of power. The Egyptian Pharaohs, the Roman Caesars, the Borgias, Hitler, Stalin, Trujillo—they all show certain similar features… It is a madness that tends to grow in the lifetime of the afflicted person.The more he tries to be god, the more he isolates himself from the human race; this isolation makes him more frightened, everybody becomes his enemy, and in order to stand the resulting fright he has to increase his power, his ruthlessness, and his narcissism. This Caesarian madness would be nothing but plain insanity were it not for one factor: by his power Caesar has bent reality to his narcissistic fantasies.
The nature of the malignant narcissist is that they have no limits. Because they assign their inflated self-worth to immutable characteristics—status, race, gender, etc.—they see their supremacy as absolute.
Handing a live grenade to a toddler
Or as we’ve said here for years, they have no bottom. There is no self-regulation. They will do anything to win and maintain their delusion, suggests Fromm:
…when his narcissism is wounded, he feels threatened in his whole existence… only the destruction of the critic—or oneself—can save one from the threat to one’s narcissistic security. —Erich Fromm
Ultimately, every malignant narcissist wants to take the world with him when he dies. But very few have the power to do it.
Americans twice handed that power to Donald John Trump, a knot of personaility disorders Fromm would instantly recognize. We might as well have handed a live grenade to a toddler.
Stewartson references a story I saw the other day but thought so typical of Trump that I did not comment on it:
On Wednesday, Donald Trump had a Cabinet meeting in which he bragged about a non-existent negotiation with Sharpie for four minutes, and uncorked one of the most incomprehensible screeds ever heard in the White House—an epic, winding journey through the mind of a malignant narcissist who has lost his ability to regulate his behavior.
In the middle of a war, with his entire Cabinet around him, including the “War Secretary” and the Secretary of State, Trump desperately tried to burnish his self-image in the eyes of his sycophants and followers by exhibiting his dominance in the areas of property management, building materials, and lawsuits.
Trump boasted endlessly about his ballroom, Jerome Powell, the renovation of the Fed, and whatever else slipped into his stream of… consciousness, for seven straight minutes while his Cabinet tried to figure out when he wanted them to laugh.
Last night, I watched the first two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again. The writers had a lot of Trump to work with in the interim between the original series cancellation in 2018 and when they began production in 2023. Also, we see ICE mirrored in the series by Wilson Fisk’s (The Kingpin) ultraviolent Anti-Vigilante Task Force (AVTF). In those first two episodes, we see the same look in the eyes of several of Fisk’s staff that we see in Trump’s Cabinet bootlicks. Those who are not themselves amoral degenerates realize that they work for one. They must quickly calculate how they are expected to react to his ramblings for fear of having their skulls crushed, at least figuratively.
The Kingpin in one scene does the pose Trump put on his coin. The show is in places too close to reality for comfort. Except for Trump’s physical cowardice.
Saturday’s No Kings 3 rallies drew an estimated 8 million-plus Americans into the streets in a show of defiance against a rogue president who sets a lot of stock by bigness. Indivisible and a coalition of activists groups scheduled roughly 3,300 separate events in cities large and small from coast to coast, as well as others in a dozen countries. The last No Kings protest in October drew 7 million. If the numbers did not make it clear, the message to the needy malignant narcissist was, Donald Trump, WE DON’T LIKE YOU; GO AWAY.
The Guardian reports on the flagship event in Minneapolis-St. Paul where an estimated 200,000 gathered around the state capitol:
Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, riled up the crowd with remarks about the role of the ultra-rich in politics. Bruce Springsteen sang his song about the death and destruction brought by ICE to the state, Streets of Minneapolis, leading the crowd in chants of “Ice out now!”
The state’s governor, Tim Walz, introduced Springsteen, saying it was clear America needed “no damn kings” but it needed the Boss. Walz commended the state’s people for standing up for each other and for immigrants when Trump sent in thousands of federal agents, who killed Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Their names were featured heavily in No Kings protest signs in the city. Jane Fonda even read a statement from Good’s wife, Brenda.
Gov. Walz: Don't ever mistake our kindness for weakness. We demand justice for Renee Goode and Alex Pretti. We demand justice for every single person who was hurt or traumatized.
More than two-thirds of participants who RSVP’d for No Kings events were “outside of major urban centers”, including Republican-controlled areas and bellwether counties, said Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, at a press conference on Thursday.
Over eight million Americans took to the streets today, which makes No Kings 3 the biggest single day of protest in the history of our country. #NoKings
The New York Times reports that Trump’s brutal, rights-violating crackdown on immigrants in cities like Minneapolis was not the only motivator for Americans who took to the streets on Satrurday. The unprovoked war he launched against Iran on Feb. 28 has activated more younger voters:
One large rally was held across the street from the University of Iowa, where the youth outreach group Voters of Tomorrow signed students up to join its organizing efforts.
Katy Gates, 22, an organizer, said the crowd was “a lot younger, more diverse and more energetic” than those at previous “No Kings” demonstrations. She attributed the change, in part, to the war.
“Our generation has grown up with this idea of endless war in the Middle East,” Ms. Gates said. “And the idea of getting into yet another is something that people are rightfully really angry about.”
The protest downtown here in the Cesspool of Sin was estimated at about 11,000, making it larger than the 2017 Women’s March crowd. Significantly, past protests drew from all across the region and from Upstate South Carolina. On Saturday, however, there were other protests organized across the region, meaning the larger crowd likely attracted more locals than ever before. One neighbor told me last week that she and her husband planned to attend. She’d never been to a protest in her life. Her husband’s last protest was in Chicago, and he’d had to run from police.
More important than those rally numbers is what comes next. Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin speaking at the St. Paul rally announced the national strike Trump opponents have long sought (Raw Story):
“The next major national action of this movement is not just going to be another protest,” Levin said. “It is a tactical escalation… It is an economic show of force, inspired by Minnesota’s own day of truth and action.”
Levin then outlined what the event would entail.
“On May 1, on May Day, we are saying, ‘No business as usual,’” he said. “No work, no school, no shopping. We’re going to show up and say we’re putting workers over billionaires and kings.”
So what’s next after today’s historic No Kings Day protests?We’re glad you asked: nokings.org/whats-next #NoKings
The Achilles heel of these protests is that the energy they generate dissipates rapidly in the intervening months without sustained daily or weekly local actions. It will be interesting to learn how Indivisible and its partners plan to maintain Saturday’s momentum for the May Day national strike five weeks out. Presumably, they will piggyback on traditional May Day rallies. And fortunately, May Day this year falls on a Friday.
But even a noticeable, one-day “economic show of force” large enough to get significant attention won’t be enough. But, baby steps. Ladder of engagement. To be continued.
Update: Brian Tyler Cohen’s No Kings speech. Good message. Great energy. “This can’t stop here. This is not the destination. This is the on ramp.”
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made And crowns for convoy put into his purse: We would not die in that man’s company That fears his fellowship to die with us
— from Henry V, by William Shakespeare
Five to one, baby, one in five:
OK-it wasn’t exactly the St. Crispin’s Day speech, but close enough.
On his MSNOW show this morning, Ali Velshi highlighted a fascinating bit of civil rights history, recounted in this PBS article:
Imagine climbing up 83 steps. Perhaps that doesn’t seem like such a big deal—but that’s likely because you’d be walking. What would you do, though, if you couldn’t?
That was the premise behind the Capitol Crawl, a now-iconic protest to demand the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA was a landmark civil rights bill aimed at providing basic amenities and protections to some 40 million mentally and physically disabled citizens. Today we take many of the ADA’s changes to society—curb cuts in sidewalks and closed captioning on entertainment, to name just two examples—for granted. But the act’s passage, in 1990, was anything but guaranteed.
By spring of that year, the ADA had been trapped in legislative limbo for months. Despite the strong support of then-President George H.W. Bush, the act was languishing in Congress, caught in the deliberations of House subcommittees. Many U.S. Representatives balked at the expense and complication posed by the ADA’s requirements.
Enter ADAPT—American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit—a grassroots disability rights organization that had been staging protests across the country even before its official founding in 1983. On March 12, 1990, ADAPT led a procession of more than 500 marchers, including other disability activists and lobbyists, from the White House to the west side of the U.S. Capitol. There, in the kind of guerrilla civic action for which the organization had become known, scores of marchers dropped to the ground and began the long journey up the hard marble stairs leading to the “People’s House.” They climbed backwards or on their hands and knees, step-by-painstaking-step. “As I’m seeing the people around me,” recalled Anita Cameron, one of the ADAPT activists who made her way up that day, “I’m like, ‘whoa, we are doing it. We are really doing it. We’re, like, crawling into history.’”
Rolled up in their pockets, protestors carried copies of the Declaration of Independence. Once they finally summitted the stairs, ADAPT reps delivered those scrolls to members of Congress as a reminder of the ADA’s importance. And while media coverage of the event wasn’t extensive, but the publicity that was garnered by the Crawl was impactful. “The pictures were striking,” said The New York Times several days later, “just as they were intended to be: Children paralyzed from the waist down crawling up the steps of the Capitol.” Six months later, following the bill’s now-remarkably swift passage through the House, President George H. W. Bush signed the ADA into law.
“We did it to show that we disabled people, as second class citizens, needed change. And the vehicle for how it was going to change was the ADA,” Cameron told American Experience, reflecting on the Capitol Crawl’s significance. “But I think a lot of people forget that the ADA was the floor. It was not the ceiling. So it was the beginning of rights for us, but it was not the end.”
One of the youngest participants in the Capitol Crawl was 8 year-old Jennifer Keelan:
(engage shame mode) For the life of me, I don’t remember hearing about this action at the time; Velshi’s retrospective today was my first awareness (and let me tell you-it certainly turned on the waterworks). How could I have missed it? It really bothered me; I turned it over in my mind. It wasn’t like I wasn’t aware of world events (I was working in radio…I announced news stories gathered off the AP wire as part of my weekday morning show, for god’s sake).
I contemplated further. In 1990, I was 34. Over the previous 2 years, I had shed 75 pounds, and had walked, jogged, biked and cross-country skied myself into the best physical shape of my adult life. So I wasn’t thinking twice about everyday physical activities like walking up and down stairs, stepping on or off curbs, or simply walking, for that matter. Consequently, like most able-bodied people, I didn’t stop and think about what it was like to be one of those folks who find such everyday physical activities a genuine challenge (if not insurmountable).
But nowadays, as I am “one of those folks” (stairs and curbs are a challenge, and I can’t walk far without some kind of assistive device)…I “get” it. Hence the waterworks when Ali Velshi ran the clip of Jennifer Keelan reaching that top step; I instantly grokked that it was thanks to the courage of activists like that little girl and her cohorts that I have the dedicated access to parking, transit and buildings that I take for granted as a (now) disabled person (pushing 70).
I also connected the dots between 88 year-old Jane Fonda and 8 year-old Jennifer Keelan:
They aren’t/weren’t too tired to keep pushing for change.
It’s in that spirit that I tip my hat to everyone hitting the streets today to exercise their First Amendment rights and (peacefully) push for change, and humbly offer this mixtape to perk them up should they feel…tired.
Bruce Springsteen – “Streets of Minneapolis”
Billy Bragg – “City of Heroes”
The Beatles – “Revolution“
Frank Zappa – “Trouble Every Day”
Elvis Costello – “Night Rally”
Green Day – “American Idiot”
The Clash – “Clampdown”
Woody Guthrie – “All You Fascists Bound to Lose”
Bob Marley & the Wailers – “Get Up, Stand Up”
The Doors – “Five to One”
Graham Nash – “Chicago“
The Style Council – “The Whole Point of No Return”
Tracy Chapman – “Talkin’ About a Revolution”
John Lennon – “Power to the People”
Sly & the Family Stone – “Stand!”
Heaven 17 – “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang”
Public Enemy – “Fight the Power”
Gil Scott-Heron – “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
Trump: "In 14 months, we've lifted 3.3 million American off of food stamps. That's a record. And Biden and his allies wrecked our country." pic.twitter.com/mBDcbFE09x
He “lifted” all those people from food stamps by cutting their aid and leaving them without food. But sure. He did that.
The big picture: The pinch of high prices for food, energy, housing and more has driven seismic shifts in public opinion over the last four years. Since the onset of the Iran war, the cost of living looks likely to get worse, not better, at least in the near term.
Energy prices are surging, interest rates are on the rise, and the stock market is looking wobbly — a triple whammy for U.S. households.
By the numbers: The national average for a gallon of gasoline is poised to surpass $4, up from about $3 a month ago — and is set to rise further the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked.
Even before the latest energy shock, electricity prices were up 4.8% over the last year, and piped natural gas up 10.9%.
Higher energy prices will also likely show up in more expensive airfares and in shipping costs that could ripple through all sorts of goods.
Grocery prices are up 3.9% over the last year, and Iran’s blockade is throttling the global supply of fertilizer, which could create new pressures on food prices come harvest season.
He thinks his happy talk will tide people over until everything turns around because he’s always right about everything. Sure. That’ll happen.
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict (90%) and say the U.S. made the wrong decision in striking Iran (88%).
In contrast, about seven-in-ten Republicans and Republican leaners approve of how Trump is handling the conflict (69%) and think the U.S. made the right decision (71%).
Still, sizable shares of Republicans take the opposing views.
Republican-leaning independents, in particular, are divided. For instance, roughly half (52%) approve of Trump’s handling of the conflict, while 45% disapprove.
Or is it the stupid Republicans?
Still, they aren’t unanimous, especially among those GOP leaning Indies. They need them to win.
This isn’t really a huge endorsement either…
No wonder Trump says he wants to “move on” from Iran and take on Cuba, which will be much easier — at least in the beginning.
While Trump’s decision to join Israel in attacking Iran has rallied war hawks and his older supporters, it has alienated many of the young men who swung toward the GOP in 2024. That split is resonating among not only the rank-and-file, but also conservative media influencers and some corners of the White House.
The generational divide was on stark display at CPAC, the annual conservative base-rallying gathering, where some young MAGA loyalists expressed deep frustration and even anger at the Trump administration’s choice to reignite conflict in the Middle East. One month into the war, Trump’s shaky ground with young men threatens to fracture an already-fragile GOP coalition ahead of a hostile midterm in November.
At the conference in north Texas, some attendees carried around Iranian flags, pledging loyalty to the U.S. mission overseas, while others donned America First hats and preached about the need for anti-interventionism.
“Trump and Republicans in general are going to have major issues in the midterms, in 2028, if we can’t wrap this up in a relatively quick amount of time,” said 21-year-old Andrew Belcher, president of the Ohio College Republicans. He added that Trump is doing “relatively poorly” with hyper online young men who are influenced heavily by media figures like Tucker Carlson and other isolationists in the GOP.
As I’ve said, I don’t think he really cares much about his base anymore. He’s prefer not to have the Dems win in November but he thinks he can persuade people to believe it was stolen no matter how large the victory. And he’s sure that in the end history will remember this era the way he wants it to so … whatever. Right now he just wants to build his monuments. But the rest of the party has different needs…
“He thinks everything is transactional, he can deal with the deal one step at a time and see how things unfold, but war is fast, uncontrollable, unpredictable and deadly,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a Princeton history professor and the editor of a book of essays about Mr. Trump’s first term.
“He’s doing the same techniques he always does — threatening people, insulting people, seizing attention to what he wants to say — he’s learning that it doesn’t always work,” he added. “He’s doing the art of the deal in a way that’s just creating chaos.”
That’s from this article in the NY Times about Trump’s war. (gift link) It’s actually much too kind but it is interesting. He’s in so far over his head that it’s breaking him.
He loves the violence though. Just loves it:
“We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time — Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,” he wrote in a Truth Social post this month. “They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!”
And his henchmen love to see it:
“President Trump is acting like a wartime president should — decisive, unafraid to use his constitutional authority and focused on protecting Americans rather than getting bogged down in the kind of endless and rudderless conflicts we saw under his predecessors,” said Mike Davis, who leads the Article III Project, a conservative advocacy group, and was an early supporter of Mr. Trump’s war.
“Presidents don’t need permission to defend the country, and the media and Democrats will do anything to delegitimize Operation Epic Fury,” he said. “President Trump’s legacy won’t be judged on process or polls, but on whether he succeeds in neutralizing the Iran threat and making Americans safer.”
Trump: "We have a thing called a war, or as they would rather say, a military operation. It's for legal reasons. Because as a military operation, I don't need any approvals. As a war you're supposed to get approval from Congress. Something like that. So I call it a military… pic.twitter.com/RN8To9mdfx
Trump knows what he’s doing is illegal.He says it right up front. But he’s immune from all accountability as long as he has 33 Republican sycophants in the U.S. Senate he won’t be impeached and the law can no longer touch him.
NATE SWANSON spent nearly two decades in the U.S. government, including most recently as a State Department representative on the Trump administration’s Iran negotiating team and previously as the National Security Council’s director for Iran in the Biden administration. Days before the U.S. bombed Iran, Swanson published a piece predicting that Iran would do exactly what it has done should the U.S. attack.
That’s expertise President DONALD TRUMP had available to him — until Swanson, a BARACK OBAMA holdover, was “forced out” of his post after a critical tweet from conservative podcaster LAURA LOOMER, Swanson said. Loomer did not return comment and a White House official, speaking on background, noted that Swanson did not serve on the National Security Council in the Trump administration.
In his piece for Foreign Affairs published Feb. 24, Swanson wrote that Iran would not capitulate after a bombing campaign, but rather escalate and “target global oil flows and international shipping, sending energy prices up and creating a serious political liability for Trump.” And indeed, Iran has made scattershot attacks on energy targets and others across the region, as well as throttling passage through the Strait of Hormuz by threatening attacks on ships.
In an interview with POLITICO this week, Swanson predicted that the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran will not go well because both sides are “irrationally confident” in their positions. Neither side seems willing to find an offramp at this point, he said.
“I think the war is probably going to go on longer than anyone anticipated,” he said.
We spoke with Swanson this week about his predictions — and what he thinks comes next in the war with Iran.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Trump keeps saying Iran’s response has surprised him — that no one told him Iran would retaliate against regional energy infrastructure. How does that kind of comment from the president sit with you?
Obviously, it’s not true. There are many people in the government who told him that there was high risk involved. He just chose not to listen to them. And as someone who was forced out of the government and wrote pretty much exactly what was fairly obviously going to happen, that doesn’t sit super well.
What is your current take on the state of the war today?
I think both sides are probably irrationally confident in their standing, and so I think that’s a little worrisome. So I think the war is probably going to go on longer than anyone anticipated.
Trump continues to believe that military success is leading to Iranian political capitulation, which isn’t happening.
Let’s remember that Iran has a vote and Iran is dead set on resisting and defying expectations. I also think they’re kind of irrationally confident without an off-ramp.
I think we’re going to be stuck in this conflict longer and with likely escalations to come. I think the problem is the president is not going to get any off-ramp, and I think we’ll probably go through some of these ground operations he’s considering.
So you’re not convinced by these negotiation talks right now?
One, Iran has rejected them. It’s the same thing that Iran rejected for previous iterations. They’re feeling confident. They feel like they should be making the demands, not the U.S., and obviously the U.S. isn’t adhering to that. So I don’t think either side is ready to compromise.
You negotiated with the Iranians last year, representing the Trump administration posture at the time. What do you think are the most notable changes from either side since then?
On Iran’s side, I think there’s a real hardening coming out of the June war. They didn’t know what to make of Trump before that. I think they have hardened and shown less flexibility. So they haven’t really seriously engaged, it’s more performative than serious. That’s where Iran has shifted a lot since last June.
In the U.S, I think the shift came earlier. And I think they didn’t know what they wanted out of a deal and I think the U.S. became more beholden to our domestic politics on this, and listening to outside influence so no enrichment, etc.
If you were still there at the NSC, what advice would you give to the president today?
You’re not gonna be able to control the off-ramp. Iran is not going to capitulate, so the idea that you’re gonna be able to unilaterally set the off-ramp isn’t going to happen. Either you’re going to have to escalate or you’re going to have to compromise. And so those are just the two options.
Trump: "They have to open up the Strait of Trump– I mean, Hormuz. Excuse me. Such a terrible mistake. The fake news will say, 'He accidentally said–' No. There's no accidents from me." pic.twitter.com/3dTavHHuGM
He just goes out of his way to be offensive these days:
President Donald Trump is toying with renaming one of the world’s most critical shipping routes after—who else—himself.
Speaking at an investor forum in Miami on Friday night, Trump casually referred to the Strait of Hormuz as the “Strait of Trump,” before quickly correcting himself, then insisting it wasn’t a slip.
“Excuse me, I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake,” he told the crowd.
“The Fake News will say, ‘He accidentally said.’ No, there’s no accidents with me.”
The remark drew laughs in the room, but behind the scenes, it’s not entirely a joke.
Trump has reportedly privately floated renaming the waterway the “Strait of America,” or even after himself, if the U.S. succeeds in wresting control of it from Iran, according to The New York Post.
One administration official reportedly told the Post that the U.S. is “taking the Strait back” and suggested that if America ends up policing it, “why should we call it Hormuz?”
This branding of the world with his disgusting name — which should be a name that joins the pantheon of names that no person would ever willingly claim — is the strongest sign of his fundamental personality disorder which is getting worse every day.
Unfortunately, he’s sullying the name of our country right along with his own.
If your portfolio is taking a beating, there’s always the YMCA :
Young man, there’s no need to feel down, I said Young man, pick yourself off the ground, I said Young man, ’cause you’re in a new town There’s no need to be unhappy Young man, there’s a place you can go, I said Young man, when you’re short on your dough you can Stay there and I’m sure you will find Many ways to have a good time
