Cromwell

J.D. and Marco Rubio have a lot in common. Both of them are ambitious and want to be president; both are opportunistic and have changed their ideologies dramatically over the years; both were once fierce Trump critics but went over to the dark side several years ago; and both purport to see the world through religious, not materialistic, eyes. Will they end up running against each other in the one-man primary?

Trump will want to run a competition similar to his reality TV show, but I don’t think Marco has the heart for it. J.D. has more of a hold on the base than he does and is the heir apparent; we are also told that they are friends. Anyway, what could Marco say to distinguish himself from J.D.? They’re both part of the same rotten administration, and they will both be required to defend every bit of its wretched record.

If J.D. gets meaningful opposition, and I suspect he will, it will come from outside the administration.

I once again ask you to assume that Trump plans to follow the Constitution and permit a free and fair presidential election that doesn’t include him as a candidate. How will he handle this state of affairs?

He can’t tolerate someone else being the focus of attention, and he loves competition and cliffhangers, so the answer is fairly obvious. First, he will make “jokes” about running for a third term as long as possible in order to keep up the suspense and paralyze all of the potential campaigns. At the last reasonable moment, he will concede that he isn’t running but insist that all of the candidates suck up to him in order to win the one-man primary. Only at the very end of the process will he reveal his endorsement. He will then dominate the convention and, in all likelihood, the last few months of the campaign.

That will be his plan, anyway. It won’t work if an insurgent wins the nomination, which is a legitimate possibility. That would drive him absolutely nuts.

Assume that you are a GOP presidential wannabe and that Trump will permit a fair election in 2028. J.D. is the heir apparent. How do you get past him?

The first step is to win over the Reaganite wing of the party–the Nikki Haley voters. They represent about 40 percent of the GOP electorate. You can do this by taking traditional GOP positions on supporting NATO, Ukraine, and Taiwan. Promise to restrain China instead of making it a partner. Criticize some of the administration’s more outrageous tariffs. Support Trump on securing the border but promise to limit deportations to serious criminals. All of that should lock up the Haley vote.

Next, you need to peel off about a quarter of the MAGA base. You can do this in small chunks. The racist vote is yours for the taking. You can win over opponents of Israel by attacking the Iran war and the Vance deal. J.D. will probably equivocate on tax increases on the rich to shore up Social Security; be a populist here and support them. Appeal to barstool reactionaries by taking the Trump line, not the hard pro-life position, on abortion. Finally, go after J.D. on AI and data centers. His ties to tech barons will not help him with that issue.

Two other factors beyond your control could also help you. If Trump is viewed as a failure by the electorate in 2028, Vance will wear his unpopularity. In addition, you may be able to win primaries just with the Haley vote if more candidates pile in to split the base. Don’t count on either of those things, however; hope is not a strategy.

In a sense, you could say that Trump’s policy towards Ukraine has been a success; he has passed the responsibility for arming and financing the Ukrainian government to the EU without causing disruptions that changed the trajectory of the war. But was that really his objective?

The problem with “America First” is that it ultimately forces the rest of the world to become independent of you. What Trump really wanted was to impose his will on both Ukraine and the EU in the manner of an organized crime boss, not simply to reduce American costs. The Ukrainian government is already showing far less inclination to suck up to him, and the EU will follow. Then what?

The loss of American influence, of course.

Nobody doubts J.D.’s credentials as a committed conservative Catholic. But the GOP’s reactionary wing also includes such brash, noisy pagans as Bronze Age Pervert and the Tate brothers. Will J.D. repudiate these unlikely allies in 2028?

No. Trump didn’t, and J.D. won’t, either. He goes quiet when their names are mentioned because he thinks their votes are essential to win in 2028. Look for him to keep them on board by projecting lots of false humility about his values, by talking a lot about testosterone, and by using apocalyptic language about the feminized left.

It seems clear that the Iranians are doing their best to drive a wedge between America and our erstwhile Israeli allies during the negotiations. Should we be alarmed by that?

If you’re Bibi, absolutely–losing Trump’s support could cost you the upcoming election. If you’re Nikki Haley or Lindsey Graham, yes–you act as if Israel is America’s 51st state. But for the rest of us, no–the traditional justifications for an Israeli exception to America First disappeared decades ago.

I haven’t read J.D.’s new book yet–I have absolutely no interest in giving him any of my money–but I’ve read enough interviews and reviews to know what it is about. J.D. is making the argument that America is too interested in material gain and individual satisfaction and not enough in community and traditional morality. To put it in my terms, J.D. is portraying himself as a CD. Will this fly?

There are two serious obstacles. First, the GOP basically drove the CDs out of its ranks after the failures of George W. Bush; it is now the party of toxic empathy, not compassionate conservatism. Second, J.D. is way too opportunistic and ambitious to write off the large segment of his party that revels in cruelty to its opponents; as a result, he uses MAGA, not Christian, language when he speaks to the base. It would, therefore, be a serious mistake to take him at his word when he engages with the center-left; that is just one of his political personas.

Trump wanted to improve the look of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He gave a company with previous connections to him a no-bid contract to make the water appear to be a brighter blue. Instead, the water is full of algae; the material added to the bottom is coming off; and the pool will probably have to be drained. Trump blames vandals for this state of affairs.

It’s another perfect metaphor for Trump 2.0. He wrecks everything he touches–even things he genuinely wants to improve. He’s the opposite of King Midas.

J.D., a conservative Catholic convert, is naturally a sincere and passionate opponent of abortion. His boss, on the other hand, sees the issue as a potential hand grenade, and does his best to avoid saying or doing anything about it. J.D. swallowed his scruples to become part of the ticket. What will he do if he becomes the leading man?

This will be a tough one for him. If he continues the Trumpian line, he will be accused of being an opportunist and a hypocrite, and he will open up a line of attack from the religious right element of the base. If he doesn’t, he risks inflaming the majority opinion against him and losing the general election. How will he square the circle?

I think he will say that our current experience, to say nothing of Prohibition, tells us that legislation alone will not eliminate a practice with majority support; the real task is to win over hearts and minds. As a result, he will speak against abortion at every opportunity, but he won’t attempt to take legislative or administrative action against it until it becomes clear that the public supports him on the issue.

In addition to the vast amount of money Trump has cost American consumers, his war has added tens of billions of dollars to the federal deficit. His plan is to put those costs on the national credit card.

What would happen if the GOP had to raise taxes to pay for the war? Would Republican voters be as tolerant of Trump and his military adventures if they had to write large checks immediately to pay for them?

I have my doubts.

J.D. took a swipe at the Israeli far right during his press conference on Thursday, arguing that it had no friends in the world except Trump, so it should trust him and shut up. Will that comment hurt him in 2028?

No. J.D. undoubtedly won some points with rabid Trump admirers–a large portion of the base–and with the America First purist wing of MAGA. He can afford to alienate Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, and the relatively small number of supporters of the Israeli exception to America First; most of them voted for Haley in 2024, anyway.

The contrast could not be starker; Putin is still grinding away in Ukraine after more than four years, while Trump cut and ran after four months. What does that tell us about the two men?

If you despise Trump, his Iran fiasco proves yet again that he is a self-absorbed bully who retreats and betrays his allies any time he meets serious resistance. If you’re a Trump admirer, you say that, unlike Putin, he is a flexible pragmatist who knows how to cut his losses and spin them as victories.

In this case, I would say that both statements are true.

Some right-wing pundits and politicians who don’t have the nerve to blame Trump for the bad Iran deal are taking out their frustrations on J.D. Is that fair?

No. The deal accurately reflects the conditions on the ground. Trump launched a war with the clearly erroneous belief that the Iranian regime could be bombed into submission. He was wrong; the regime blocked the Strait of Hormuz; the economic pain imposed by the regime on the rest of the world was too great to endure; and Trump caved. He lost the war, not J.D.

Not that he will ever admit it.

Trump has now promised to respect Iranian “sovereignty,” which effectively means he is no longer interested in regime change, the initial objective of the war. If you take this paper commitment seriously, which, in light of Trump’s history, you probably shouldn’t, it represents a permanent betrayal of the Iranian people and a glaring admission that the premise of the war was faulty.

Regime change in Iran was possible, but only through a large-scale ground invasion or the use of nuclear weapons; conventional bombing is not enough. Have the Israelis learned this lesson? Probably not. If they have, they don’t have large enough ground forces to make it happen, so if they genuinely believe Iran is an existential threat (they probably don’t), then nukes are the obvious answer.

Obama wasn’t counting on it, but he clearly hoped that he could turn his nuclear agreement into a broader political detente by giving the Iranian regime a vested economic interest in peace. Is Trump trying the same thing with his vague promises of a reconstruction fund? It would be consistent with his usual modus operandi.

Trump criticized the Obama deal for failing to deal with Iran’s missile program and its proxies. The MOU says nothing about either.

Trump complained that the Obama deal transferred cash to the Iranians. The MOU contemplates immediate oil sanction waivers, an ultimate dismantling of the entire sanction regime, and the creation of an enormous reconstruction fund.

Trump said the timeframe on the Obama deal was too short. The MOU does not prescribe any timeframes or limits on future enrichment, leaving those issues for the Phase II negotiations. It is highly likely, based on the information to date, that the new timeframe will be consistent with the old one if an agreement is ultimately reached.

Trump demanded that the nuclear material be delivered to the US for destruction. The Obama deal’s requirement that it be sent to Russia worked. The MOU leaves the method up to further negotiation.

There was no war in Lebanon at the time of the Obama deal, so there was nothing to address. The MOU purports to end the fighting even though the combatants aren’t parties to it. Good luck with that.

There was no issue with the Strait of Hormuz at the time the Obama deal was executed. Trump effectively created one with his war. The MOU resolves the problem in the short run but leaves open the possibility that Iran will obtain more control than it possessed prior to the war.

Based on the foregoing, there is no reasonable argument that the MOU is a better document than the Obama deal, or that the war accomplished anything positive; the most important new development is Iran’s ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.