Donald Trump’s Iran war is playing out like a Defense Department war game in which a neophyte is schooled in the stodgy and risk-averse reasons why a couple of generations of presidents and joint chiefs of staff have resisted demands to overthrow Iran’s clerical regime by force. Well, yes, we do have a super, super powerful military, the schoolers might say, and Iran is still using rusted-out jets we sold the Shah half a century ago, but here’s the thing …. and you go from there.

Weak and Cornered

The foolery reached new heights over the weekend as President Trump veritably begged other nations, including rival China, to rescue him from his self-own in the Strait of Hormuz.

In social media posts and news interviews, the president concocted new and implausible rationales on the fly for why other nations owed it to him to pitch in to thwart Iran’s stranglehold on the vital shipping channel.

The headlines are almost comical:

• WaPo: Trump urges world to help open Strait of Hormuz
• Politico: Trump demands ‘about 7′ countries join coalition to police Iran’s Strait of Hormuz
• WSJ: White House Tries to Build Coalition on Iran to Address Energy Crisis
• Bloomberg: Trump Floats Xi Summit Delay If China Doesn’t Help in Hormuz
• NYT: Nations Respond With Caution to Trump’s Call to Send Warships to Strait of Hormuz

While accurate, the headlines don’t quite do justice the mix of magical thinking, narcissistic indignation, and pseudo-economics Trump spent the weekend trafficking in:

Trump, who was reportedly warned in advance by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the eminently foreseeable Iranian response of closing the strait, is left to grovel on the international stage, though in classic Trump fashion he compensates for his weakness by berating, lashing out, and threatening other countries.

With oil executives warning the White House that oil prices are not likely to retreat anytime soon and the crisis is likely to worsen, it is slowly dawning on Trump that he has an election year nightmare on his hands.

Trump’s invitation for China to assert itself more vigorously in the Middle East and to take on more of the U.S. Navy’s century-plus duty of keeping shipping lanes free and open is a huge capitulation to the rival already eager to flex its own Navy. No U.S. interest is too valuable for Trump to forsake it for his own political expediency.

When Trapped, Trump Punches Down

Trump and his coterie lashed out on the home front, too, with news outlets being the easy and obvious target of his scorn.

• An especially peevish Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth railed against CNN Friday, saying he couldn’t wait for the tech oligarch David Ellison to take over its corporate parent.
• FCC chair Brendan Carr, always looking for a chance to curry favor with Trump, launched a new wide-ranging threat against the public broadcast licenses of news outlets who report “fake news” about the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran.
• Trump seized on Carr’s threat to accuse out-of-favor news outlets of “TREASON” in a social media post: “you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!” Given the way Trump runs the Justice Department from the White House and how DOJ has responded to past calls from Trump to pursue prosecutions, these are not idle threats from a lonely old man spending his Sunday evening on social media.

The authoritarian impulses, themselves noteworthy and with few historical precedents in the United States, are clearly the default fallback position in a global energy crisis, where gas prices are spiking and there are few viable options for Trump to take decisive action to fix the problems he created. With no easy way out that doesn’t involve a debilitating loss of face, Trump is left to punch down at other targets like the press to try to maintain his aura of power and invincibility.

Boasberg Quashes Subpoenas of the Fed

In a remarkably direct and uncluttered ruling, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., found that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro subpoenaed the Federal Reserve for the improper purpose of harassing and pressuring Chair Jay Powell into lowering interest rates or resigning.

In finding that the subpoenas were “pretextual,” Boasberg said the Trump DOJ “produced essentially zero evidence” of any crime by Powell and offered only “thin and unsubstantiated” justifications for the subpoenas:

In sum, the President spent years essentially asking if no one will rid him of this troublesome Fed Chair. He then suggested a specific line of investigation into him, which had been proposed by a political appointee with no role in law enforcement, who hinted that it could be a way to remove Powell. The President’s appointed prosecutor promptly complied. Those facts strongly imply that this investigation was launched for an improper purpose, as were the resulting subpoenas.

Trump reacted to the ruling with a predictable social media attack on Boasberg.

Trump DOJ Drops Flag Burner Case

The Trump DOJ moved to dismiss the criminal case against a veteran who burned an American flag in D.C. in protest of Trump’s executive order that purported to punish flag burning. The motion to dismiss was filed ahead of today’s deadline for the government to respond to the vindictive prosecution claim raised by the defendant.

The Secret Police Playbook

A really smart piece from two experts on the underlying dynamics that can turn a professional law enforcement organization into a secret police force, with a special focus on Trump’s transformation of ICE.

For Your Radar …

If the Trump administration’s threats to break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder have seemed more subdued lately, don’t be fooled. Proposals from institutions that want to take over management of the center’s research portfolio and various facilities were due Friday. It’s not clear when a final decision on NCAR’s fate will be made.

Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.

This story is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. 

While the news cycle has largely moved on from the horrific violence in Minneapolis that dominated our screens early this year, the danger has not disappeared. Our nation’s children still live in fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents abducting classmates, parents and teachers on schoolhouse grounds. Some kids are too afraid to leave the house, and others can’t focus on their schoolwork, sick with anxiety about whether their family will be there to greet them when they get home. 

We all remember the image of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, abducted alongside his father when they arrived home one day, the boy still wearing his Spiderman backpack and favorite bunny ear hat. Unfortunately, Liam’s story is far from unique. Thousands of children have been abducted and incarcerated in squalid detention centers without a clue as to what their or their families’ futures hold. Their absence is a constant reminder to their classmates, friends, and neighbors that their communities’ children are still in danger. What happens to our communities when our public spaces aren’t safe, our neighborhoods aren’t safe, and now we know our schools aren’t safe either?

Safe spaces should be safe for everyone. That’s why we, along with our partners at Innovation Law Lab, National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers filed an emergency motion in our federal lawsuit, PCUN v. Noem last month to demand an immediate end to ICE violence in places like schools and hospitals. These so-called sensitive locations used to be off-limits to ICE’s brutal tactics, keeping our sacred community spaces safe for all our neighbors. But now, nowhere is free from danger. We’re seeking reinstatement of these protections.

This excerpt is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. 

In late February 2020, residents of the small tourist town of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, woke to learn that a mysterious right-wing group called VDARE had purchased a beautiful nineteenth-century castle overlooking their town. The castle meant everything to Berkeley Springs. Images of it appeared on town promotional materials, and the outsiders business and restaurants owners relied on for tourist revenue always noticed the gorgeous sandstone building as they drove past Berkeley Springs State Park on Route 522.

With fewer than a thousand residents, gossip reverberated quickly through Berkeley Springs, and Peter and Lydia Brimelow, the castle’s new proprietors, soon became its subject. The Brimelows had a great deal of money for Morgan County, West Virginia, as well as inscrutable benefactors and a fair share of infamy. My employer at the time, the Southern Poverty Law Center, labeled them “white nationalist[s],” and VDARE’s website wrote credulously about the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that mass shooters have used to justify their beliefs. There were other reasons for gossip, too, including the nearly four-decade age gap between Peter and Lydia.

My new book, Strange People on the Hill, covers a five-year period in Berkeley Springs — from the end of 2019 through the day after the 2024 election, when VDARE’s presence caused neighbors to turn on one another, taking sides across ideological divides. The following excerpt begins on the night of December 8, 2023, after my colleague Hannah Gais and I managed to gain entry to the castle for the first time. We did so by purchasing tickets to a local Christmas party. For years, I reported on the Brimelows, and they posted disparaging remarks about me and my family on their website. That night was the first — and last — time we met in person.

President Donald Trump rose to prominence in part because of voter perception of his business and economic acumen, and his populist appeals to a coalition of mostly white, working-class voters who’ve long felt locked out of economic mobility by Democratic policies perceived as elitist and out-of-touch. Nevermind that Trump was born to rich parents and is himself a billionaire. During the 2024 election, Trump and the GOP walloped the Biden administration for rising inflation and economic volatility caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The president’s rhetorical approach to kitchen table issues like employment, wages, and energy prices helped to expand and diversify his winning electorate that year, making him the second person in U.S. history to be voted to two non-consecutive presidential terms.

President Trump won a key victory on Friday in a case that tested his efforts to stage explicitly political terrorism prosecutions of activists who oppose him.

On Wednesday, fresh off his various hockey exploits, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel rolled out a unique partnership with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. 

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

In the past week alone, I have had two members of my conservative Christian, Trump-supporting family let me know they think the president has gone too far with this Iran business.

This was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s line at the end of a rant about CNN in today’s Pentagon press conference. David Ellison, of course, is the failson progeny of Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who is now in the midst of building a private sector pro-Trump state media operation which brings together Paramount, CBS, (soon) CNN, HBO and much more. CNN is already a done deal, though the takeover itself is still in process. None of this is secret. But seldom do we see it spelled out quite so clearly as Hegseth did yesterday. And it brings home what we talk about here again and again: in the Trump universe, only independent media organizations can actually be … well, independent, not be puppeteered either by Trump and his stooges or big corporate owners who want to keep on Trump’s good side.

That’s where organization’s like TPM come in. We depend solely on you. More than 90% of our funding comes from TPM readers. That means that as long as you’re satisfied with us, we’re good. It doesn’t matter what Trump thinks or the CEO or Comcast or Proctor & Gamble or Paramount or anyone else. That’s why it’s so important that if you think what we do is important that you subscribe and become a TPM member. If you’re not a member please click right here and join us.

Thank you for supporting our work and the expanded work your membership will make possible in the coming year.

As I’ve thought about the suddenness with which this war started, and the abject lack of thought that went into it, I wonder the following:

Was it the irreproducible chance at a decapitation strike that triggered this whole mess?

My thinking is this:

The US and Israel aren’t actually prepared for the war in Iran, though they are getting there. At that moment, they get an unbelievable piece of intelligence: all the top people in the Iranian government are going to get together, in person, in a non-hardened location. Clearly none of these folks saw “Star Trek: Into Darkness,” or they would have known better.