Ask Us Anything
Your Iran War questions, money and partisanship, and recovering national credibility
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Donald Trump is focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz although the strait was open before he attacked Iran for reasons that are still unclear. Was it to distract the American people from the Epstein files? Does he want Iran’s oil although he said the U.S. has all the oil we need? Is he so afraid of the Iranian regime that he feels he has to destroy it? As Trump’s threats become more and more unhinged and desperate, what are the chances that JD Vance and enough members of Congress will pursue the 25th Amendment, section four to declare him unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office?
(Chris) I do not have a window into Trump’s mind, so I do not know exactly why he does anything. That said, I do not believe he began the war against Iran in order to distract from any domestic stories such as the Epstein files. I believe this even though Trump frequently engages in distraction tactics with the media, especially when it comes to the Epstein files.
Personally, I believe that Trump began turning his focus to military action overseas because he has been effectively bottled up by the courts, Congress, and low public opinion domestically. I thought that fellow substacker Gabe Fleisher made this case quite persuasively in his March 18 article, “Trump and the Quest for Control.” Of course, now Trump is bottled up in Iran—or saddled with a ceasefire that looks like surrender—instead of being freed by it.
When it comes to the 25th amendment, no, I don’t think there is any chance of that being invoked. You can read my article, “So, the 25th Amendment Then? Let’s Take A Look,” for a detailed explanation as to why. A short version I can give here is that Trump has an ultra-loyalist cabinet, and still has something like a 75-80% approval rating among Republicans. As such, don’t expect his cabinet members to engage in some sort of backroom coup to remove Trump and install Vance.
(Matt) Like Chris, I don’t have a window into Trump’s mind, and as I say often I am not trained in psychology, but we have seen Trump repeat the same behaviors so often that I feel like I can safely offer a perspective on what I think is happening. Trump acts out in ways that he believes make him look (and probably make him momentarily feel) strong and powerful. When his actions are poorly received by the public, or when he is confronted by a threatening circumstance like the release of the Epstein files, he will deflect attention by creating an even larger conflict somewhere else. The Iran War fits this pattern, in that it was an extreme act of unilateral aggression. So if Trump’s timing wasn’t meant to distract from the Epstein news, or any of his other failures that may have made him feel like he needed to assert his strength, people can be forgiven for believing that it was.
I agree with Chris that a foreign adversary must have looked appealing to Trump because he has been bottled up at home. In a way, this is a perverse expression of something we typically see with presidents, who find as their term goes on that they have more room to maneuver in international than domestic affairs. Most presidents, though, look to foreign policy to accomplish something. With Trump, it’s all about himself. If failure breeds the need to lash out in more spectacular ways, he is very likely to try imposing his will internationally. This suggests the possibility of a cascading series of threats and actions.
All of which naturally leads to the conclusion that if there were ever a moment to invoke the 25th Amendment or impeachment, this is it. Like Chris said, despite the evident dangers Trump poses to the country and the world, removing Trump from office would require an about-face by a political party that’s beholden to him. But that shouldn’t stop Democrats from aggressively demanding it.
I’ve read that what Donald Trump and Pete Hegeseth are doing are actually war crimes. Where are war crimes prosecuted—in the US or globally? If globally, why have there not been any suits filed against Trump and Hegeseth regarding actions they have taken?
(Chris) War crimes are prosecuted by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. However, the United States did not ratify the Rome Statute that established the court, and does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court. As such, there is no court of law anywhere in the world where United States government officials can be sued for international war crimes that would be recognized by courts in the United States.
What this means, in short, is that if anyone wants to prosecute United States government officials for war crimes, they need to actually seize said officials by force to do so. Good luck with that.
I’m reassured by Matt’s certainty that this administration will be the end of the Reagan Era and that something better is coming. But then I think about 2024. People knew what they were getting into then and they still voted for it. I can see a Democratic administration coming in 2028 when everyone has a Donald hangover, but what about after, when Democrats are the incumbents again? What makes you so sure that we will end the cycle of rejecting a rightwing agenda just to vote for it again?
(Matt) I’m not sure that we will—but I’m certain that we can. The moment we are in provides an opportunity if Democrats can seize it. And if history is a guide, there is a fairly good chance they will, because while it may be slow to happen, parties are invested in winning and will respond as circumstances change around them.
The way we break out of the anti-incumbent cycle we have been in for years will be for Democrats to regain trifecta control of the federal government, make big institutional changes so they can govern, and deliver for the public. They were able to do one of these—win control of Congress and the White House—in 2020, but their margins were tiny and they had neither the numbers nor the mandate to make dramatic changes to institutional impediments like the Senate filibuster that would have facilitated large-scale policy changes. For that matter, they didn’t have the votes for very big policy measures either.
That’s not to say the Biden administration didn’t have remarkable legislative successes—it did. But for voters to reward a party they need to see tangible and immediate results that make life measurably more manageable and equitable (and, in fairness to Biden, he was caught up in the post-COVID inflation surge that bedeviled incumbents around the world in 2024). Historically, opportunities for non-incremental legislative change only happen in what I would call revolutionary moments like after the Civil War and in the wake of the Great Depression.
The last time we saw a moment like this was following Ronald Reagan’s election. Reagan, like FDR, had room to move politics in a new direction because he could successfully repudiate the regime that had come before it. I believe the damage Trump is doing is of a piece with these moments, which gives Democrats a huge opening to run against Trump and MAGA Republicans (that’s the easy part), offer a bold and dramatic new direction (this is much harder and will be hashed out during the presidential primary campaign), win a mandate for that direction, and implement big institutional and policy changes. Only then will voters consider rewarding Democrats rather than seek out a right-wing alternative in a never-ending pattern of frustration with a government that doesn’t deliver for them.
By the way, if you’re interested in reading more about what I mean by institutional change and why I think it needs to precede policy change, I discuss it in my Project Democracy series.
Two Democrats voted to confirm Markwayne Mullin as Homeland Security secretary. Do you have any reassuring words that Big Money’s influence is, somewhat, controllable?
(Chris) I don’t think there is any evidence that Big Money had anything to do with this. If you look at the roll call vote on Mullin’s confirmation, you will see that 96 senators voted with their party. That makes this an extremely normal, run-of-the-mill partisan vote.
If you look at the four senators who did not do so, one was Rand Paul who was personally offended by Mullin, one was John Fetterman who often votes with Republicans, one was Ruben Gallego who wasn’t present in the Senate that day, and the other was Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Sen. Heinrich is a pretty solidly progressive senator who just considers Mullin a personal friend, as he said in his statement. That’s all that happened here.
During my over two decades in politics, I have noticed that when any Democratic member of Congress, or even any semi-prominent center-left commenter, disagrees with the majority of Democrats about anything, they are always accused of being bought and paid for by someone. This is usually done without any corroborating evidence whatsoever.
Collectively, we need to get past the instinct that any intra-party disagreement is just evidence of corruption and the influence of Big Money. It’s a conspiratorial mindset that ignores obvious realities, like that basically every member of a political party disagrees with the majority of that party about something. I bet you disagree with Democrats about some things, and it isn’t because you were bought off.
Having just read Matt’s update on the “Republican Death Spiral,” I am wondering how do we, as US citizens, apologize to people all over the world who are being harmed by Trump’s frenetic actions? There’s no easy fix for having started a war which is causing physical, financial and environmental harm—these repercussions will be with us for a long time.
(Matt) There is indeed no easy fix. Part of the lasting damage Trump has done to America is reputational, and it will not be easy to correct. Some of it may be beyond repair. I recall when Joe Biden personally tried to assure allied leaders that Trump was an aberration and America could be trusted from here on out because he would never return to power. A future president will not be able to offer those assurances. If we are serious about repudiating this moment in our history and showing the world we mean it, there will need to be meaningful accountability: investigations into every corrupt and illegal action committed by Trump and everyone in his administration, followed by trials and imprisonment for convictions. Frankly, this level of accountability will be needed for more than assuring the world that we atone for Trump. It will be a critically important part of healing domestically from this tragedy as well.