Month: June 2025

Trump has reconvened his meeting of world strongmen at the new Executive Branch club. As usual, Putin is the first to arrive.

T: Vlad the Impaler! Good to see you, man!

P: It’s good to be back. It was a long four years with Biden.

T: Tell me about it.

P: I have to say, I’m impressed with what you’ve been doing to your opposition, Donald. Last time, you didn’t listen much to my advice about cracking down, but this time, you look like a real strongman. I’m proud of you.

T: Thanks, Vlad. There’s plenty more where that came from.

P: Now you just have to do a bit more to help me with the war.

T: Can’t you just declare victory and call it a day?

P: I want a real victory. I want a parade in Kyiv. You owe me that.

T: I don’t like the optics. We need to find a better compromise than that. I may have to threaten you to get us there.

P: I won’t take your threats seriously. Everyone knows you hate the Ukrainian leadership as much as I do. I’m willing to be patient to get everything I want. That’s what Russians do.

(Kim enters the room)

T: Rocket man! How’s it going, little bro?

K: OK, but you haven’t called me. What’s going on?

T: I’m busy, you know. Running the world and sticking it to my enemies. It’s a full time job, and then some.

K: I suppose so. I don’t have opposition, so I wouldn’t know.

T: Let’s make some time to talk deals. I have a great proposal to make peace with you, and you don’t even have to give up your nukes.

K: Does it involve a Trump hotel, by any chance? Maybe some crypto?

T: We’ll have to talk about that later.

(Erdogan enters the room)

T: Turkish delight! Love what you did with the opposition guy.

E: To my friends, everything. To my foes, the law. You know that as well as anyone.

T: Yes, I’ve learned. No more Mister Nice Guy. That’s the way it has to be. We need a unified country, period. One nation, one voice.

E: You got that right. Democracy doesn’t mean the voters have the right to be irresponsible.

(Xi arrives)

T: Xi! How’s my favorite Chinaman?

X: I’ve been better. Dealing with the fallout from your tariffs has been a problem.

T: You should call me! We can make great deals together! Everything will be on the table!

X: Everything? Including Taiwan?

T: Call me, and you’ll find out.

X: Where’s Duterte?

T: He couldn’t make it. But that leads me to today’s program.

(Trump addresses the entire crowd)

T: Listen up, folks! Duterte can’t be here, because he’s out of power, and in jail. But we have a new member–Nayib Bukele!

P: Good choice, man! I love that tropical gulag thing. It’s sort of Siberia in reverse.

B: That’s the idea, to be sure.

T: And for our special entertainment tonight, Bibi Netanyahu is going to play us video of Israeli air strikes on civilians in Gaza!

E: You always do this to me, Donald. I’m out of here.

The official position of the Israeli government is that the war is directed solely at Iran’s nuclear and military assets. Regime change, we are told, is not on the table. Iranian missile strikes, however, are resulting in retaliation, which can easily lead to mission creep. If the Israelis seek to broaden the war, what are their options?

Bibi could decide to use his nukes to annihilate the population, of course. But in the absence of a genuine existential threat to Israel, which clearly does not exist at the present time, even he would be reluctant to take that step.

The Israelis can also further damage the Iranian economy by attacking oil facilities. Some of that has already occurred. The problem there is that the interests of much of the outside world, including American consumers, would be damaged by dramatically higher oil prices, which in turn would lead to more attempts from the international community to stop the war. As a result, I don’t think we will see a significant increase in oil facility attacks in the near future.

Finally, the Israeli government could decide to go for regime change. In the absence of an invasion, which is highly unlikely, this would require attacks on the highest levels of government, including the Supreme Leader, and on elements of the security apparatus. The Israelis, however, have no carrots to offer to the Iranian opposition, which is in any event unlikely to treat Netanyahu as a modern-day Abraham Lincoln. Any serious attempt at regime change would have to include significant economic incentives for normalization, which would have to come primarily from Donald Trump.

Based on logic and our experience with Trump’s previous steel and aluminum tariffs, the latest tariffs will save a handful of jobs at an exorbitant cost to the economy as a whole. The U-turn on the sale of US Steel to Nippon Steel, on the other hand, is mostly welcome. Biden’s attempt to block the sale was just an unsuccessful pander to the union; the new agreement permits the deal to go forward while preserving some unnecessary federal government influence in the operation of the business.

The government influence part isn’t exactly a great way to encourage foreigners to invest in American businesses, but Trump, as a reactionary, has a soft spot in his heart for the steel industry, so it probably won’t serve as a precedent for many future investments. Let’s hope not.

William McKinley, the tariff man, is more in fashion today, but Trump still resembles Andrew Jackson in some important ways; he is more contemptuous than ever of cultural and economic elites, foreigners, and the judicial system.

With that in mind, there is another Jackson analogy that fits the mass deportation scheme pretty well–the Trail of Tears. Trump would probably view that as a badge of honor, but not many others would.

First it was Tik Tok, saved by Trump after he had advocated banning it. Then there was TACO time on tariffs. Now we have a U-turn on illegal immigrants in agriculture and hotels. How should we react to these wild changes in position?

Ross Douthat would say that Trump’s flexibility on tactics is one of his greatest assets. In reality, making sudden U-turns puts the president at the center of the discussion and reminds you that he is the boss. Capriciousness is his point, because it projects strength and enforces humility in others; that’s good news for him, but not for anyone else.

Since Putin has become dependent on the Iranians as a supplier of drones for the Ukraine war, you would have expected him to react more strongly to the Israeli strikes. Instead, he mildly condemned them and offered to mediate. Somehow, I don’t think Bibi will find that offer very enticing.

What’s going on here? Putin is too stretched in Ukraine to offer meaningful assistance with troops or conventional weapons, and a threat to use nukes to protect Iran would be dismissed at this point as a bluff. The Russians, Iranians, Israelis, and Americans consequently recognize he has no leverage in this conflict.

Putin has already lost influence in Central Asia and Syria as a result of his war. Now he might be losing Iran, too, and NATO is closer to his borders. Is Ukraine worth it? I guess he thinks it is.

Our great farmers and hotel owners are being hurt by the immigration raids, according to Trump. Changes are supposedly coming, although it is unclear when that will occur.

All I can say is, who knew?

I have previously commented on the incongruity of the Israeli exception to “America First.” It appears that some prominent members of MAGA have noticed, too; they’re putting pressure on Trump to avoid another war in the Middle East.

The left, much reviled by MAGA luminaries, will agree with them on this point; why, after the painful experience of the Biden years, should America risk war to help keep Bibi in power? The ensuing battle for Trump’s heart and mind, such as they are, will consequently pit members of the Haley wing of the GOP against both the Democrats and the isolationist elements of MAGA.

Who wins? For now, Trump seems to be using the Israeli strikes as an argument for the Iranians to make a deal, which covers the gaps within the GOP. It’s a reasonable position, but it probably won’t work. If it doesn’t, I expect Trump to concurrently stiff Bibi and brand his left-wing opponents as antisemitic. That makes no sense, of course, but it works for him.

I don’t think the Israeli strikes will bring on the big one, as they were clearly limited to some nuclear facilities and top commanders and scientists. It may set the Iranian program back for a short time, but it won’t eliminate it. In other words, without active American assistance, it is just another Bibi grass cutting operation, albeit one with far more risks than usual.

As a result, I suspect and hope that the inevitable Iranian retaliation will not be directed at American assets. If that is correct, the war can be contained, because the odious Iranian regime will not be forced to fight for its survival, and Trump (correctly) doesn’t want to be Bibi’s lawn guy.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Trump doesn’t feel in any way bound by lower court orders. He will only obey the Supreme Court. That is his way of proving to the public that he acknowledges at least some limits on his authority, while, as a practical matter, rejecting the rule of law.

Of course, no other party in this country has the right to ignore orders from lower courts, so this new “standard” actually proves that he believes he is above the law. How will the Supreme Court respond to this insult to the system? We figure to get lots of opportunities to find out in the near future.

Not for the first time–otherwise, I would be working in Vegas or on Wall Street–one of my predictions has gone awry. The Israelis have just attacked Iran at the same time they are escalating in Gaza. I understand their perception that they have a brief window to degrade the Iranian nuclear program, but the Gaza part of the equation doesn’t make sense to me.

The Iranians will retaliate. America will intervene to protect Israel, as it did when Biden was in office. Will that defensive effort ultimately turn into a perpetual American lawn mowing campaign, as Bibi undoubtedly hopes? If I had to guess, I would say no, but that remains to be seen.

Personally, I think Trump’s immigration raids are stupid and inhumane. But they were the centerpiece of the man’s campaign, the majority of Americans approve of them, and they don’t violate any laws. So what is the point of rioting to show your opposition to them?

Violent demonstrations aren’t going to force Trump to back down. In fact, they provide images to the American public that buttress his claim that only he can save us from the apocalypse. They also provide the pretext for the militarization of law enforcement, a trend that could well be extended to extinguish American liberal democracy in the near future.

What we have now is theater. What could follow is far worse. The demonstrators would be wise to keep that in mind.

In “Echo in the Canyon,” Tom Petty says he can’t see anything in Mozart that is better than Brian Wilson. An overstatement? Yes, but not a ridiculous one.

When I was growing up, I had little use for the Beach Boys, because I thought their vision of sun, beaches, surfers, hot women, and convertibles was irrelevant to the everyday life of the vast majority of Americans, including me. Today, I enjoy those songs for precisely the same reason.

There has been considerable discussion over the last year or so comparing American tech company leaders to Russian oligarchs. Are they similar?

The Russian economy is based on access to natural resources and government spending, both of which are controlled by Putin’s neo-feudal state. The wealth of Russian oligarchs, as a result, is completely dependent on support for Putin. American tech leaders, on the other hand, created their own sources of wealth. Their goals are much more limited; they want low taxes and a light regulatory touch, particularly on antitrust issues, from Washington for the businesses they created. They are also asking for a degree of assistance from Trump with unfriendly international regulatory regimes. Finally, they want to be free from arbitrary decisions from Trump on tariffs and immigration. Sucking up to a president determined to show he is the boss of everything, even though he isn’t, seems like a good way to get to Point B.

It’s not the same thing at all.

On the ex-KGB man named Putin.

He invaded Ukraine, you’re darned tootin’.

He claims to want peace

But the war hasn’t ceased

‘Cause he gains less by talkin’ than shootin’.