Trump Blinks (Again)
Plus: The insanity of our Rage-Poster-in-Chief
Stuff you need to know this morning:
Trump nodded off again in the Oval Office, while his courtiers furiously insisted that he was merely “blinking.”
Iran responded to Trump’s one-page deal with the Farsi version of “get bent.” Trump blinked again. (More about that below.)
Meanwhile: “Iran war fuels sharpest inflation spike in nearly three years at 3.8 percent”- The Washington Post
The Administration’s war on the press is escalating. (1) “An FCC Commissioner Tells Disney the Agency Is on a Campaign to Censor It”; (2) “Trump’s Complaints About Iran War Leaks Prompt Aggressive DOJ Investigations” - WSJ
Trump’s recent push to pursue the leak investigations comes as the Justice Department had already stepped up investigations into sensitive reporting about the lead up to the Iran war.
The Wall Street Journal received grand jury subpoenas dated March 4 for records of Journal reporters.
As he “preps” for his high-stakes summit with China’s President Xi, Trump spent the night rage-posting, including an AI-generated image of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Nancy Pelosi floating in feces in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, with the caption: “DUMOCRATS LOVE SEWAGE”.1
Trump’s sewage post followed a nightlong social media meltdown —55 posts and reposts from 10:15 PM Monday night and 1:13 AM Tuesday morning — that is, frankly, too insane to summarize in any coherent way. Let’s just say that he is (1) obsessed with jailing Barack Obama,2 (2) fantasizing about putting his face on $100 bills3; and (3) totally fixated now on his $13 million reflecting pool vanity project.
Failed gubernatorial/senate candidate Kari Lake was named ambassador to Jamaica, which seems a condign fate, since Trump undoubtedly regards it as a “sh*t hole” country. (Her appointment follows her spectacular bollocks up of the Voice of America. “Kari Lake broke the law as CEO of Voice of America, judge rules as cuts are sensationally reversed” | The Independent.)
Happy Tuesday.
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None Dare Call it Insanity
Except, of course Matt Labash, who reminds us that these stories of lunacy are not simply distractions: Maybe the Madness of King Donald is the Main Event: “Is Trump Even Crazier After All These Years?”
And at the risk of stating the obvious: he’s f*&^ing nuts. No, really. I don’t mean that in any dressed-up Orwellian sense: “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” No sir. No struggle necessary, here. His is the kind of nuts that bites you in the beak, it’s so in-your-face. And when I say he’s crazy, I don’t say so figuratively, as people so often say it. But clinically, applying scientifically-verifiable criteria. Or to put it like the hantavirus epidemiologists might say when they get a few beers in them, he’s crazier than a shithouse rat.
Labash brings the receipts by the truckload. In theory, the president is a very busy man what with wars, rumors of wars, inflation, and frightful poll numbers.
Yet even with that crush of serious responsibilities, Trump still made time this past weekend to post or re-post incessantly on his failing social-media site, Truth Social, whose parent company lost $406 million in the first quarter of 2026….
Well, it’s no easy feat to count, considering how Truth Social is one of the ugliest, busiest sites on the internet, junked as it is with discount ads, pushing everything from “patriot” hats to toe-fungus ointments.
But if my count’s not off, in just one roughly 48-hour period, he “Truth’ed” (the site’s ironic name for the equivalent of “tweets”) his or others’ drivel out some 63 times. That’s an average of once every 46 minutes over two days. Which is extra impressive when considering that Trump, at some point, has to sleep — presumably while hanging upside down, at least two hours a night to maintain his “sanity.” And so that he’s well-rested enough to watch Brian Kilmeade spin his Trump-apologist magic on Fox & Friends the next morning.
Iran to Trump: Sod Off
For weeks now, Trump has been saying that the skirmish excursion war is over and that Iran was virtually begging to make a deal. Yesterday we got Iran’s response.
I am not a geopolitical savant, but I think it is safe to say that this does not look like the “unconditional surrender” that Trump once demanded. Phillips O’Brien provides a quick summary of Iran’s FU:
Immediate and Permanent Ceasefire: Iran demanded an immediate end to the war “on all fronts,” specifically insisting that any deal must include the cessation of Israeli strikes in Lebanon against Hezbollah.
Management of the Strait of Hormuz: Iran emphasized its “sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz. The response maintained that all commercial vessels must coordinate with the Iranian Navy.
Lifting of Sanctions and Blockade: The immediate lifting of all U.S. sanctions, the removal of the U.S. naval blockade currently in place, and the termination of the ban on Iranian oil sales.
War Reparations: The proposal included a demand for financial compensation (reparations) from the United States and its allies for damages sustained during the conflict.
Nuclear Counter-Offer:
Moratorium: Iran suggested a significantly shorter moratorium on nuclear enrichment than the 20-year period requested by the U.S.
Uranium Stockpile: Instead of the total transfer of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) to the U.S. or a third party, Iran proposed exporting only a portion and diluting the remainder.
Facility Status: Iran flatly refused the U.S. demand to dismantle its nuclear facilities, offering instead to keep them under monitored status.
Guarantee of Non-Aggression: The text underlined the necessity of a formal guarantee that no further military aggression would be taken against Iranian territory.
O’Brien’s bottom-line: the Iranian response “was in essence a full rejection.” Trump bleated out his usual threats, but far, it’s just another TACO Tuesday.
All this is a sign that in essence nothing has changed for more than six weeks. Iran is not crumbling, Trump is stuck, the Strait is closed, and the two sides are locked in a contest to stare down each other. The Iranian government is just being more honest about where things stand than the US Government.
**
BONUS: Ukraine is done sucking up to Trump. “Ukraine’s Vibe Shift” - by Foreign Office by M.Weiss
Volodymyr Zelensky, once a figure of televised contempt in the Oval Office, is done cadging for American support or acquiescing to the abuse routinely meted out to him by the American president. Via the NYT:
With the negotiations now on life support, Mr. Zelensky has publicly criticized the United States in ways that would have been unthinkable last year, when Ukraine was waging a delicate fight against the Trump administration’s push for a quick peace that favored Russia.
Since the war in Iran started, U.S. negotiators have had “no time for Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky has complained. An American decision to suspend sanctions on some Russian oil in the hopes of easing economic tensions from the war in Iran gives the Kremlin “a sense of impunity,” he protested. In pushing Ukraine to trade territory for peace, the Trump administration “still chooses a strategy of putting more pressure on the Ukrainian side” than on Russia, he grumbled.
The reason for this new tack in honest diplomacy is that Ukraine doesn’t need the United States as much as it used to; and for that, we have Trump’s mercenary and coercive policymaking to thank. Even without a distracting war in the Middle East, America has bullied itself into obsolescence.
Happy to inspire
“I Should Have Done This a Long Time Ago” - by Andy Parker
I’m leaving X.
I’d been considering it for months. The doom loop, the trolls, the way I could feel my own focus and mood get worse the longer I stayed. What finally pushed me over the edge was reading about journalist Charlie Sykes getting locked out of his account last week — and reading him admit, with the relief of a man who’d just put down a heavy bag, that he should have done it years ago. If a guy with 350,000 followers and a fifteen-year archive could find liberation in being shoved out the door, maybe I could find some on my way out of it on my own two feet.
ICYMI: Livestream with Matt Lewis
Lewis & Sykes: The 'Clown With a Flamethrower' on the International Stage
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Tuesday dogs
Flashback. baby Eli and Old Pete really were best buddies from the start.
Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States:
The president reposting “Catturd”:
NOT A PARODY. Trump posted:
He is a sick man. He shows us every day just how sick he is and I feel sadness for our country.
Consider this your periodic, though too-late, reminder that Trump is less than a Presidential term younger than Biden, and that his mental health is far worse.