Enough With the Nepo Candidates, Democrats

 

Michelle Cottle

Enough With the Nepo Candidates, Democrats

April 6, 2026

 

By Michelle Cottle

Ms. Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion.

 

The Democrat Terry McAuliffe has worn many political hats over the years: mega-fundraiser, top campaign hand for President Bill Clinton’s 1996 run, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, the 72nd governor of Virginia. Now he is soliciting campaign donations for his wife, Dorothy, who is running for Congress in what will be a Democrat-friendly House seat if Virginia voters approve a redistricting plan this month. Looking for a boost in the crowded primary, Ms. McAuliffe’s campaign is blasting out emails from Terry with the theme: I’ve been a party player for more than four decades, so please help my wife!

I wish Ms. McAuliffe well. But I’m rooting for her path to take her somewhere other than Congress.

Sure, she is plenty qualified. A former State Department official, Virginia’s former first lady has more experience in government and politics than many other first-time House candidates. I also have no reason to doubt she is a delightful person. But as the Democratic Party tries to shed its reputation as the defender of a self-serving political elite, I do think its candidates should avoid trumpeting their status as the beneficiaries of rank nepotism.

Better still, sitting Democratic officials might stop encouraging nepo candidates. Americans are in a salty, anti-establishment state of mind. Public confidence in the federal government and in political parties is in the basement. The results of early primary elections in North Carolina and Texas last month suggested an anti-incumbent mood. Younger Democratic voters and elected officials are agitating for generational change. Polling shows people disgusted with the political status quo. Voters are sending strong signals that they want fresh faces and fresh ideas. Yet Nancy Pelosi, the formidable speaker emerita, has already endorsed Ms. McAuliffe.

Nepo candidates are an enduring, nonpartisan reality of U.S. politics. But the Democratic Party risks more than just one House race by embracing them at this moment.

The American electorate has long had an awkward relationship with dynastic politics. In theory, voters hate the idea of inherited power. In practice, they are frequently drawn to familiar names and pedigrees. In many cases, the political torch gets passed from one generation to the next. (See the Kennedys, Bushes, Cheneys, Daleys, Romneys, Gores, Caseys, Sununus, Cuomos. …) In others, it moves sideways, between spouses (Dole, Dingell, Clinton, Matsui, Bono, Letlow …).

There have been plenty of stellar political scions who reinforced the idea that certain families have a real taste and talent for public service. But there is a dark side as well. Americans’ enduring obsession with the Kennedy clan felt unhealthy long before it saddled us with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. atop the public health system.

On occasion, voters get fed up with a specific dynasty. (Poor Jeb Bush!) And Americans’ predilection for nepo candidates doesn’t necessarily hold during periods of anti-establishment frustration. In some circumstances, a well-known familial brand can wind up hurting more than helping.

On this point, the McAuliffe brand isn’t exactly an inspirational, future-forward one. Mr. McAuliffe’s fame and fortune were bolstered by his close ties to the Clintons, and for many of the voters familiar with him, he is a relic of that era, which has refused to gracefully fade away. He is also the guy who, after finishing a term as governor in 2018, popped up to run again in 2021 — a rare occurrence in Virginia, which prohibits governors from pursuing consecutive terms — and got stomped by a Republican, Glenn Youngkin.

This isn’t to single out one family. Consider the disastrous attempt by Tammy Murphy, the wife of Phil Murphy, then the governor of New Jersey, to snag herself a U.S. Senate seat in 2024. Jumping into the Democratic primary in late 2023, Ms. Murphy was the darling of the state party machine. She quickly racked up endorsements from county officials who, under the state’s since-dismantled “county line” system, determined which candidates received the prime spot on the ballot. Friendly with big donors, she initially outraised her chief competitor, Andy Kim, then a representative.

Thankfully, voters were having none of it. Democrats preferred Mr. Kim’s upstart campaign and his pledge to take on the party machine. Ms. Murphy was decried as the pick of a sclerotic, reform-resistant establishment. Her poll numbers languished, and the backlash against her grew fierce enough that she bowed out of the race that March. Mr. Kim went on to win the June primary and then the general election.

At least Mr. McAuliffe is a former governor. Mr. Murphy was still in office when his wife ran; there was no way to separate his power from his wife’s candidacy.

The more political nepotism looks like a tool for manipulating the playing field, the more noxious it becomes — even when a revered political figure is involved. This year, as Representative Jim Clyburn noodled whether to run for an 18th term, he told The Washington Post that whenever he retired, he would love to see his House seat go to his daughter Jennifer. “You’re a daughter,” the South Carolina Democrat reasoned to a Post reporter. “What would you think of your dad if you decided to do something and your dad didn’t support you?”

No doubt, many grateful voters in his district would be happy to help Mr. Clyburn cement his legacy by backing his child. But when elected officials grease the path to power for family members, no matter how gently, that sends a negative message about their party’s principles and about the sense of entitlement among its leaders. Manipulation doesn’t become virtuous because the manipulators are otherwise respectable.

Too many elected officials see their posts as possessions to do with as they please. Just last month, Senator Steve Daines, Republican of Montana, waited to withdraw his name from this year’s primary election until just three minutes before the state’s filing deadline and didn’t post his announcement video until two minutes after the deadline, ensuring that his preferred successor — who had filed five minutes before Mr. Daines’s withdrawal — would have minimal competition. How’s that for slippery? Democrats and even some Republicans expressed dismay. Last year, Representative Chuy García, an Illinois Democrat, pulled a similar stunt. He got formally reprimanded by the House, thanks to a resolution introduced by a fellow Democrat, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, of Washington. So far, Senate Republicans have shown less enthusiasm for condemning Mr. Daines’s machinations.

Political players’ seeking to manipulate the game with cronyism or nepotism is no way to regain the public trust. No matter how any individual race plays out, the stench clings to much of the team.

Democrats appear on track to do well in this year’s midterm elections, propelled by growing anti-Trump sentiment. But they still have much rebuilding and rebranding ahead. They need to get serious about showing that they get what Americans want from them.

 

How Much Humiliation Can Vance Take?

 

How Much Humiliation Can Vance Take?

April 7, 2026

By Dana Milbank

Mr. Milbank is a columnist at the news site NOTUS.

At a closed-door Easter luncheon at the White House, President Trump decided to entertain the crowd by humiliating his understudy.

Mr. Trump demanded an update on Iran peace negotiations from Vice President JD Vance. “How’s that moving?” Mr. Trump asked, in a video of the event the White House seemed to have accidentally posted online.

“It’s going good, sir,” Mr. Vance replied from the audience. Mr. Trump cut off the rest of his response.

“Do you see it happening?” the president asked, about a successful end to the war.

“Uh,” the vice president replied. “We’re going to brief it to you.”

Then Mr. Trump delivered his punchline. “So, if it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance,” he said, to laughter. “If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”

Does Mr. Vance still not realize that the joke is on him? The interesting thing is not that he keeps debasing himself but that he gets less and less in return each time. As his political fortunes dim, his soul has become a depreciating asset.

Over and over in recent years, Mr. Vance struck devil’s bargains, first to gain a Senate seat and then to become Mr. Trump’s No. 2. He embraced the anti-immigrant stances he once called “reprehensible” and other dark elements of the MAGA movement in hopes of positioning himself as its next leader.

What once might have been a cruise to the 2028 Republican presidential nomination now looks more like a run through the Strait of Hormuz. Mr. Vance is experiencing a version of the pain experienced by other ambitious Republicans who embraced Mr. Trump only to see themselves used and (eventually) discarded by him.

The ethnonationalist right to which Mr. Vance tethered himself now appears to be faltering at home and abroad. The Iran war has exposed a rift in the MAGA movement, alienating those who believed Mr. Trump’s “I’m not going to start a war” promise — and then watched the “America first” president bomb Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Nigeria, Iraq and Venezuela while threatening Cuba and Greenland.

Mr. Vance had turned himself into a leading America first voice — he said in 2024 that war in Iran is “very much” against the national interest. Then Mr. Trump saddled him with the war.

Polling shows that Mr. Vance’s standing in public esteem is about as low as his boss’s, now the worst of his term. The vice president’s status as Mr. Trump’s heir in the MAGA movement is slipping, as measured by last month’s straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Secretary of State Marco Rubio surged to 35 percent from 3 percent last year, while Mr. Vance, though still leading, retreated to 53 percent from last year’s 61 percent.

So Mr. Vance is responding as he always has whenever ambition calls: He’s humiliating himself.

The vice president is scheduled to go to Hungary on Tuesday to campaign for the country’s authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban, a Kremlin-allied white nationalist who proclaims that Europeans “do not want to become peoples of mixed race.”

It’s not clear how much Mr. Orban would benefit from the visit. After 16 years in power, his party is trailing in polls despite Mr. Trump’s “complete and total endorsement” in next Sunday’s vote, a February visit from Mr. Rubio, and a reported proposal from Russia to bolster Mr. Orban by staging a fake assassination attempt.

Mr. Vance may hope that the visit will distract from his Iran problem and lift his flagging fortunes in the MAGA movement. Trump supporters lionize Mr. Orban, whose party rewrote Hungary’s Constitution to create an “illiberal democracy” and constantly feuds with the European Union over his anti-immigrant policies.

For an ordinary democratic leader, stumping for Mr. Orban would require a certain amount of nose-holding. But Mr. Vance is no ordinary democratic leader.

He is vice president to a man he once referred to as “cultural heroin” and feared could be “America’s Hitler.” He’s transitioned from public intellectual to social-media troll, using profanity to attack critics and accurate news reporting.

He has more than once dismissed criticism of fellow Republicans caught engaging in racist rants that included bigotry against Indians — even though his wife and children are of Indian descent. He has fueled conspiracy theories, most notably with his claim that people in his home state, Ohio, “have had their pets abducted and eaten” by Haitian immigrants.

For all his moral flexibility, though, there’s probably nothing Mr. Vance can say to make Hungarians feel better. Their economy has been stagnating as Mr. Orban’s family and friends became rich.

Whether Mr. Orban wins or loses, his authoritarianism seems to have run its course and led Hungary to a bad place. Other right-wing nationalists have suffered recent setbacks at the polls in France and, last year, in the Netherlands. Far-right parties in Germany and elsewhere have begun distancing themselves from Mr. Trump over a war that has made the president even more disliked among American voters.

While anonymous White House officials let it be known that the vice president was skeptical about the war in the lead-up to the invasion, Mr. Trump has cut off that route of escape, saying Mr. Vance was “maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic.” Mr. Vance is reduced to maintaining that war is OK now because “we have a smart president whereas in the past we’ve had dumb presidents.”

Whatever one thinks of the president’s intellect, there is no doubt that we have a smart vice president. That makes it all the more tragic that he hasn’t used his office to be something more than Mr. Trump’s punchline.

HEATHER

 

April 7, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson

Apr 08, 2026

At 5:06 this morning, President Donald J. Trump posted on social media: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

Trump has painted himself into a corner in his impulsive war against Iran. His job approval is dismal and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil travels, is sending the cost of oil soaring, squeezing the global economy. Always in his life he has had someone to fix his mistakes—his father, Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, the “adults in the room” in his first administration who distracted him from catastrophic errors, and so on—but no one was willing to bail him out of the global disaster of his war on Iran.

So he threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” an open threat to push his current embrace of war crimes all the way to genocide. No one knew if he was gearing up for a ground invasion of Iran in a war that has never received congressional authorization, or a massive bombing campaign, or even the use of nuclear weapons.

Or if he was making yet another empty threat.

Within the announcement were signs that perhaps it was bluster designed to let him claim victory and walk away. Despite his claim, there has been no “regime change” in Iran: the regime is very much still in place, although it has changed leadership in the wake of the bombing deaths of previous leaders. The new leaders appear to be more radical than their predecessors.

There was also the unmistakable echo of television advertising in his announcement. Either “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” or “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

At 6:32 this evening, we learned that the horrifying announcement of the morning was, indeed, cover for Trump to declare victory and get out of the crisis he has caused in the Middle East.

Trump posted: “Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE! The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East.

“We received a 10 point proposal from Iran,” Trump continued, “and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also representing the Countries of the Middle East, it is an Honor to have this Longterm problem close to resolution. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Michael Rios of CNN reported that Iran’s media is claiming it has achieved a great victory, forcing the U.S. to agree in principle to its 10-point plan, which includes the end of sanctions against Iran, the removal of all U.S. combat forces from bases in the region, and Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz. If these terms are correct, they leave the United States significantly worse off than it was before the war and leave Iran significantly stronger.

Trump called Rios’s story a fraud, and immediately sought to reassert his strength. He posted, “Authorities are looking to determine whether or not a crime was committed on the issuance of the Fake CNN World Statement,” and said that “CNN is being ordered to immediately withdraw this Statement with full apologies for their, as usual, terrible ‘reporting.’”

Political commentator Ben Rhodes summed up the situation: “In the best case scenario, Trump struck a deal to reopen a Strait that was open before the pointless war he started, with [Iran] demonstrating its control over the Strait and potentially extracting fees plus sanctions relief. Thousands of innocents—including hundreds of children—dead in Lebanon and Iran for no reason. U.S. troops killed and wounded. U.S. embassies and bases in the Middle East badly damaged. U.S. standing in the world obliterated. U.S. munitions badly depleted. Hundreds of billions spent. Prices up everywhere. More global economic fallout to come. Putin strengthened and enriched. Just a catastrophic situation even in the best of circumstances. A profoundly shameful episode in American history no matter what happens next.”

And then, a minute after midnight, Trump posted:

“A big day for World Peace! Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough! Likewise, so has everyone else! The United States of America will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz. There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process. We’ll be loading up with supplies of all kinds, and just ‘hangin’ around’ in order to make sure that everything goes well. I feel confident that it will. Just like we are experiencing in the U.S., this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Journalist Aaron Rupar of Public Notice wrote: “Trump went from making insane genocidal threats this morning to hyping the ‘golden age’ of Iran hours later, and he received no concessions in between. He’s an absolute basket case who needs to be removed from power before he follows through on one of his mass murder fantasies.”

The American people spent the whole day wondering if their mad king would destroy the world, only to find out he was terrorizing them in order to protect his ego after starting a disastrous war. Throughout the day, Democratic members of Congress have called for Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to recall the Senate and for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to recall the House of Representatives from break to end the war in Iran and start the process of removing Trump from office.

Trump’s threat that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” was not just a reference to Iran. If he had destroyed Iran in our names, unhampered by the Republican Congress members who have vowed to defend the U.S. Constitution, it would also have been an epitaph for the United States of America.

KRUGMAN

 

Ignorance and Ignominy

Our Hormuz humiliation was not an accident

Paul Krugman Apr 8

So the world’s greatest military power went to war with a poor, medievalist theocracy. It was an incredibly uneven match. Here’s are the GDPs of Iran and the United States in 2024:

Yet Iran won. The Iranian regime has emerged far stronger than it was before, controlling the Strait of Hormuz and having demonstrated its ability to inflict damage on both its neighbors and the world economy. The U.S. has emerged far weaker, having demonstrated the limitations of its military technology, its strategic ineptitude and, when push comes to shove, its cowardice.

We’ve also destroyed our moral credibility: Trump may have TACOed at the last minute, but he threatened to commit gigantic war crimes — and for all practical purposes our political and civil institutions gave him permission to do so.

How did this happen? Naturally, the Iranian Minister of War credited divine intervention, declaring that “God deserves all the glory.” His nation, he said, fought with the “protection of divine providence. A massive effort with miraculous protection.”

Well, theocrats gonna theocrat.

But I lied. That wasn’t a quote from an Iranian official. That’s what Pete Hegseth, our self-proclaimed Secretary of War, said while claiming that one of the worst strategic defeats in American history was a great victory.

There will be many analyses by military and strategic experts of the Iran debacle. But let’s not lose sight of the larger picture: We were led to disaster by the boastful ignorance of men like Trump and Hegseth — boastful ignorance made even worse by claims that God supports whatever they want to do.

With men like that running America, major disasters were just a matter of time. I’d like to think that they have been chastened by this debacle, that they have learned something. But I don’t believe that for a minute.

God help us.

No One Is Intimidated by Trump Anymore

 

No One Is Intimidated by Trump Anymore

From Iran to the Supreme Court, the president’s attempts to bully both his adversaries and allies are proving increasingly fruitless.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A quiet fell upon the Supreme Court chamber on Wednesday as Donald Trump arrived and sat in the public gallery with his soon-to-be-dismissed attorney general, Pam Bondi, and White House counsel David Warrington. He was purportedly there, in a presidential first, to witness oral arguments for Trump v. Barbara, a case concerning Trump’s executive order to limit birthright citizenship. In reality, his appearance was the culmination of a weeks-long intimidation effort targeting the justices, during which he lambasted his own appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, as “an embarrassment to their families” and insisted that only “Dumb Judges” would disagree with his position. Now he’d come to the court to stare down any robed figure who might dare oppose him.

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Yet none of the Supreme Court justices appeared to even notice, much less care, as they entered the room and sat, never so much as acknowledging Trump’s presence. If the president intimidated anyone, it may have been his own solicitor general, D. John Sauer, whose raspy voice wavered as he began to make specious arguments about the intentions of those who had crafted the Fourteenth Amendment. Evidently, Chief Justice John Roberts was far from convinced. When Sauer contended, “We’re in a new world now … where eight billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who’s a U.S. citizen,” Roberts rejoined, “Well, it’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution.” Laughter echoed throughout the chamber.

And there sat Trump. His glare had evidently failed to do the trick. As the justices questioned the ACLU’s Cecilia Wang, the attorney representing the opposition to Trump’s gambit to gut birthright citizenship, he walked out. It was the latest example of what has become a clear trend in his second term as president: No one of consequence is intimidated by him.

Attempts at intimidation—sometimes successful, often failed—have always been part of Trump’s modus operandi, dating back to early in his real estate career. The tale of 100 Central Park South is a telling example. After buying the rent-stabilized building in 1981, Trump menaced the tenants to get them out so that he might raze and replace it. His tactics included threatening them with eviction, ignoring a rat infestation, and shutting off the heat and hot water. Though at one point Trump paid out over half a million dollars to the tenants and agreed to government monitoring, the fight dragged on for decades.

Much of Trump’s intimidation strategy as a businessman—threatening lawsuits and using the media to level attacks—was influenced by his friendship with Roy Cohn, the notoriously pugilistic attorney and Communist-hunter. And Trump often doubles down on this strategy when he’s on the losing end of a fight. After his failed attempt to buy an NFL team in 1981, he bought the New Jersey Generals of the upstart rival USFL in 1983. He tried to use the team and the media coverage he’d garnered as leverage to buy an NFL team in 1984—and failed again. (He would later admit that he had no interest in owning a team filled with “low class, all third-rate players.”) Trump also sued the NFL, claiming it was an illegal monopoly. Here, he won: A jury ultimately awarded him the massive sum of one U.S. dollar. The USFL, bleeding money and exhausted from Trump’s constant feuds, folded in 1986.

But then Trump realized that he could control his public image even more by becoming part of the media. In 2004, he became the host of The Apprentice, a reality-TV competition show that sold the fantasy that Trump was a successful businessman rather than simply the spoiled scion of a real estate empire established by his much savvier father. Falsely claiming to be “the largest real estate developer in New York,” Trump relished the opportunity to intimidate contestants who had not been born with a silver spoon and the filial resources to survive multiple failures. In season 3, he asked contestant Michael Tarshi if he was stupid, called him “lazy,” and said that the difference between them was that Trump works hard. In a 2013 episode of Celebrity Apprentice, Trump remarked to the former Playmate Brande Roderick that “it must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.”

Over the course of 15 seasons, plus another eight for its celebrity spin-off, The Apprentice projected exactly the image of Trump that he desired—an image that endures in the minds of many millions of Americans to this day. Sitting in his leather wingback chair at the head of a shiny wood table, spotlighted in the show’s otherwise dimly lit “boardroom,” he cut a physically and mentally imposing figure. Before The Apprentice, Trump had been a loud and obnoxious playboy, no doubt; arrogant, yes, but not quite imperious. The show made him into a kingly figure: all-powerful and all-knowing. (“Nobody outthinks me,” he said in one episode. “Nobody.”)

Hollow as it was, this omniscient-bully act played well on TV—which proved just as true in politics as in entertainment. In his 2016 run for president, Trump dispatched the Republican field by publicly belittling his opponents at every turn, then tried to do the same to Hillary Clinton. In their second debate, following the emergence of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, Trump brought along several of Bill Clinton’s accusers and sat them in the audience to intimidate his Democratic opponent. But that’s largely forgotten today because of what happened later that evening: He stalked Clinton around the stage as she spoke, his chin raised high, attempting to loom over her.

This imperial glare became his signature as president, or one of them. An even odder mannerism is his aggressive handshake, which, like a country club test of masculinity, often involves tugging the person’s hand toward him and refusing to let go. It has led to some rather awkward situations. There was the famed “Handshake Showdown” with the newly elected Emmanuel Macron, during which Trump sought, rather literally, to exert pressure on the French leader; more such handshakes would occur between the men over the years. Other world leaders have been subjected to this puerile charade, as well. There was the extra-long lock with the late Shinzo Abe of Japan, several deeply analyzed grips with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and more recently his tug-of-war shake with the president of Paraguay, Santiago Peña.

These efforts seem silly, but Trump’s intimidation shtick can sometimes work, which is of course why he does it. During his first term, he continually pressed NATO allies to increase their defense funding. Recently they agreed to raise their military spending to 5 percent of their national income—a significant increase. His tariff threats may have been ridiculous and ultimately prove damaging, but they did lead to a series of deals as nations tried to avoid his wrath. While many educational institutions have fought back against his attempts to limit free speech on college campuses, some weak-willed and shortsighted universities, including Columbia, capitulated to him. Some of the country’s biggest law firms proved similarly weak-kneed.

More often than not, though, Trump’s intimidation act falls flat. This is largely because, despite the fact that so many alpha males see him as the top alpha—an image he continually promotes through nonsensical memes refashioning his flabby, overweight body as some sort of iron-fisted muscleman—in the end he’s all bark, no bite. Or, as some put it, Trump Always Chickens Out.

We see his true colors when it counts. During his infamous meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018, Trump not only failed to confront the Russian dictator about his nation’s interference in our elections, but he practically kowtowed to him, stating that he trusted Putin more than our own intelligence agencies. In his second term, Trump’s been louder and more demanding than ever, with rarely a day going by without him spewing vitriol and threatening someone or some nation. But it’s hardly made a dent. He’s repeatedly threatened Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates, even ordering his Justice Department to open a bogus investigation to put the screws on the Federal Reserve chair. But the Fed has refused to do his bidding. Trump tried to bully Denmark into ceding Greenland, yet that just made that nation more determined than ever to protect the territory. He’s also tried to bully Canada, repeatedly calling Trudeau a “governor” and threatening the current prime minister, Mark Carney, with closing the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. And he’s gotten bupkis.

No one’s buying Trump’s routine any longer, but this is not to say that he isn’t still dangerous. He is, very much so—not because he’s an iron-willed titan but because he’s a foolhardy buffoon. He’s never been tough enough to admit defeat, like a real man would, so he’ll go to great lengths to deny his losses and cover up for his failures.

We’ve seen this in his war with Iran. As the U.S. fails to meet Trump’s stated objectives there, he’ll continue moving the goalposts. Though he initially promised the Iranian people freedom, he’s abandoned that promise of late, suggesting that somehow that goal was already achieved, even though the Iranians remain under the thumb of a vicious theocracy. So, no regime change after all. What about “ensuring” Iran will never get a nuclear weapon? Iran still has its stockpile of enriched uranium. Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz, where maritime traffic flowed freely until the U.S. and Israel bombing campaign began on February 28, remains closed, and the global economic repercussions continue to worsen—indeed, the damage may be permanent.

Trump has given Iran a deadline of Tuesday night to reopen the strait. Otherwise, he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday, “you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH!” At the White House on Monday he added, “The entire country could be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.” But Iran’s leaders aren’t scared of Trump, and why should they be? He’s been giving such ultimatums and deadlines for weeks, to no avail. Iran has learned what’s now finally dawning on Americans, including even some Republicans in Congress: Trump’s will never matches his bluster, and his attempts at intimidation are merely the hallmarks of a weak, insecure, and overcompensating coward.