My last column was published on March 12 and focused on the Department of Justice (DOJ), whose secretary, Pam Bondi, has since been fired – primarily for her handling of the Epstein files, but also for failing to deliver on threats of vengeance against the president’s enemies. Earlier in March, the secretary of the unfunded Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, met the same fate for a series of controversies involving an advertising campaign, ICE, and CBP. Like Bondi, she mistook loyalty to the president for job security.
More change will come at the cabinet level, especially considering the chaos and poor planning around the current war with Iran, which has destabilized the global economic order and painfully illustrated at home the high costs to consumers of such actions. The president’s popularity level has never been lower.
Public reaction prompted the president to try to smooth things over with voters by assuring them that this was not a war and that he had not started it. From a long piece of New York Times reporting by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan titled “How Trump took the U.S. to War with Iran,” we are given ringside seats to the exhortation from Benjamin Netanyahu on February 11 to join Israel in decimating Iran. As Trump polled cabinet members involved in the decision and in the discussions that ensued that day and later, the vice president, who was traveling at the time, was the only cautionary voice. What the article makes clear is that the decision was reckless and impulsive– to “decapitate” Iranian leadership and bomb them into submission -- and led to the uncomfortable position the president finds himself – and the world -- in today. Next week, Congress will take up the War Powers Act, even as last weekend’s 21-hour negotiations led by Vice President Vance failed.
In a New York Times editorial yesterday, titled “Four Ways Trump’s War Is Weakening America,” the editorial board made four points: the first is “the increased influence that Iran has secured over the global economy by weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz;” the second is “America’s military standing around the world;” the third is “America’s alliances-- Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada and most of Western Europe refused to support the United States in this war;” and the fourth is “America’s moral authority.”
“Mr. Trump has undercut those [freedom and democratic] values for his entire political career and perhaps never more than in the past week, when he made odious threats to erase Iranian civilization. His secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, made a series of bloodthirsty remarks, including a threat to offer “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”
The Times editorial concludes with a recommendation for the president to discard his go-it-alone stance and “involve Congress and seek help from America’s allies to minimize the damage from his war.”
With the Department of Homeland Security, including agencies unrelated to ICE or CBP, still unfunded, Congress has a job on its hands that it has not taken seriously for over a month. Just as bipartisanship is desirable in the Iranian situation, so too should new approaches to finding agreement on DHS funding be at the top of the list.
At Trump’s left hand in all his meetings with the press is the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who cannot help but smack his lips when he reports what the military has accomplished daily in Iran, just as he reported the number of boats and humans we were blowing up in the waters of Venezuela. Even though our stockpiles are weakening because of the volume and variety of explosive devices being used in Iran, Hegseth continues to exemplify all that is distasteful to many of us, including the Chrisrian Nationalist religious fervor for which Pope Leo XIV has chastised him. Eventually, Trump will look for someone to blame and fire, despite their loyalty. To the remaining members of the U.S. military, I suspect that day cannot come soon enough.
Currently, efforts to invoke the 25th Amendment seem implausible. Trump has his eye on the midterms, but the next two events that could further destabilize him and the situation are the two Supreme Court decisions — on birthright citizenship and tariffs -- that may undercut long-term goals he has set and will cause more reckless behavior on a global scale. He has left Ukraine to build up more European support, while removing sanctions from Russia during the current oil crisis. His strategy for dealing with China is also reckless and underestimates China’s aspirations. He appears to have no North Korea strategy, and he also appears to have grown bored with discussions around the fate of the Gaza Strip and indifferent to economic disorder at home.
The net effect is the growing sense that America, under this president, is not, and cannot be, a reliable ally or a source of just and reasonable guidance in a world in urgent need of it. There is no comfort in the fact that our president has put himself, and thereby all of us, in a no-win situation by presuming upon instincts that amount to a combination of meanness and whim. We absolutely need better that.