Will Donald Trump, a president who has no sense of reverence, maintain unwavering support from white evangelicals as his support among Catholics slips?

Trump, the healer (Truth Social)

Did Donald Trump commit a political gaffe when he initiated a public quarrel with Pope Leo? The best source of information I've seen for addressing that question comes from a podcast at The New Republic (TNR). Greg Sargent, of TNR, conducts an interview with religion scholar Robert Jones that produces a wealth of information for assessing Trump's strategy of going after the leader of the Catholic Church. Let's take a look at a transcript of the Sargent-Jones conversation, which comes under the headline "Trump rages as Pope's harsh new rebuke lands surprise blow." A sub-headline reads "As the president's retaliation against Pope Leo goes off the rails, a scholar of religion explains why the pope's criticism of him could prove much more damaging than you might think" -- providing a number of clues to what lies ahead:

Greg Sargent: When Donald Trump viciously attacked the pope and then posted a picture depicting himself as a divine figure, it provoked a massive backlash from many in his own base. That was bad enough, but then Trump offered some rambling spin on it all that was so preposterous in its dishonesty, so insulting, that it quickly made things worse. We think this mess hints at deeper truths about how Trump approaches religious voters, particularly the right-wing evangelicals who are critical to his support. It also helps explain why the Trump coalition and the Trump project are so fragile right now. So we invited on Robert Jones, president of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of several books about religion and the American right, to make sense of all this for us. Robert, good to have you on.

Robert Jones: Thanks. Glad to be here.

Sargent: So Trump is angry because Pope Leo has repeatedly criticized the Iran war and especially Trump’s threat to obliterate Iranian civilization. In response, Trump unleashed this crazed rant describing the pope as “weak on crime,” adding this: “I don’t want a pope who thinks it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Trump also said, “I don’t want a pope who criticizes the president of the United States” because I’m doing what I was elected for. Robert, I wanted to get your general thoughts on that first.

Jones: Well, I’ll start with the last one. “I was doing what I was elected for”—Trump, of course, thinks that now that he’s been elected, he can be constrained by nothing but his own whims. That’s really what he’s reacting to here.

But in this case, he’s got the leader of a worldwide church who is also operating out of a 2,000-year-old theological tradition. Leo is not firing from the hip here. He really is digging pretty deep. And this criticism is not just about the war. It is weighing these decisions about state violence against Catholic moral teaching. Trump thinks that there should be no criticism of him whatsoever. This is the authoritarian playbook. That you should have no dissenters, and certainly no dissenters with influence or power.

In two short paragraphs, Jones sums up Trump's mindset perfectly. The president cannot handle anyone trying to constrain him -- whether it be Congress, the Judiciary, or lawful protesters on the streets of Minneapolis. And get this: Trump actually believes he was elected to launch an unprovoked attack on Iran, which likely will unsettle the global economy for months, maybe years. Does Trump think Americans will gladly put up with "pain at the pump," when history tells us they won't? The conversation then turns to Trump's lack of respect for religion in general -- even though many religious conservatives have inexplicably supported him:

Sargent: So Trump also posted this deranged image that portrayed him as a divine figure in a white robe, healing a sick man by placing his hand on the man’s forehead. This got MAGA figures angry.

Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “It’s more than blasphemy. It’s an anti-Christ spirit.” A Daily Wire reporter called it “outrageous blasphemy,” adding “he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness.” Christian MAGA activist Sean Fucht said: “This should be deleted immediately.” And former Republican spinner Ari Fleischer said “it’s inappropriate and embarrassing—it’s offensive.”

There was much more like that. Robert, can you just explain at the core why this image is seen as blasphemous?

Jones: Well, Trump is clearly displaying himself as Jesus. In the image he’s got on a white robe with a kind of red robe over it. You could find hundreds of images like that of Jesus dressed this way—this white robe, this red sash over the top. He’s got this glowing hand as he’s leaning over this person in their sickbed.

So this is also his depiction of supernatural divine healing power that he’s claiming for himself. One other thing is that this is not the first time Trump has done this. It was just after Easter last year that Trump actually posted an image of himself as the pope, dressed up in papal vestments. This is not the first time he’s posted things like this, assuming either the chair of the pope himself or the image of Jesus.

The conversation then turns to Trump's effort to spin his way out of trouble -- the bipartisan kind that can come with comparing yourself to Christ:

Sargent: Well, Trump actually deleted the image of himself as a divine figure. Now let’s listen to how he tried to spin his way out of this.

Reporter (voiceover): Mr. President, did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?

Donald Trump (voiceover): Well, it wasn’t a depict—it was me. I did post it and I thought it was me as the doctor and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And only the fake news could come up with that one. So I had—I just heard about it. And I said, “How did they come up with that? It’s supposed to be me as a doctor.”

Were Jones and Sargent buying this one? No way. In fact, they treated it like the absurdity it is:

Sargent: Robert, apparently Trump thinks doctors have celestial light pouring forth from their palms and can heal people by touching them, as the picture showed. What did you make of his excuse?

Jones: He’s reaching deep for this one. The problem is that the image really didn’t allow much wiggle room. So the best he could say is, I’m a doctor, I’m at a bedside.

But there are angels in the air behind him. And as we said, these glowing palms. So he’s just trying to obfuscate and back away from it. And again, if he thought this was just an image of him as a doctor and did this innocently, why remove it? Just leave it up if you really believe in it. 

Whenever Trump engages religion, it comes off very tin ear, because he just has no sense of piety. It becomes very clear, whether it’s his misnaming a book of the Bible, walking across the street, clearing it with some violence and then holding up a Bible awkwardly in front of a church. These are all things that actual religious people wouldn’t do that way. But he just has no innate sense of that. 

That brings the conversation around to the different ways religious groups view Trump -- and Jones provides intriguing data on the subject:

Sargent: So Robert, I wonder if part of what we’re seeing here is that in Trump’s genuine understanding of the situation, evangelicals really do matter a lot more within his base than Catholics do. What does the data show on that? It confirms that, right? How would these different groups perceive this controversy generally?

Jones: That’s right. His strongest supporters have always been white evangelical Protestants. They have voted more than eight in 10 for him every time he has been on the ballot. Catholics are a much more complex story. His support among Catholics has actually been split pretty starkly along racial and ethnic lines.

He’s always had white non-Hispanic Catholics with him, but they vote about six in 10 for him, not 85 percent for him. The real difference is that inside the Catholic Church, Hispanic Catholics have actually voted Democratic, typically. In the last election, it was only about 43 percent of Hispanic Catholics that supported him, compared to 60 percent of white Catholics. There’s this racial tension inside the Catholic Church, and it’s just not a monolith in the way that it is among white evangelicals.

His statement that he could walk down the middle of the street and shoot somebody in the middle of the day and people would still vote for him—I think that’s actually largely true among white evangelicals today. In fact, he made that comment at an evangelical college in the first place. It’s not so true among Catholics.

Sargent: I want to ask you about that, because it seems like there may be a fundamental difference between how devout evangelicals and how devout Catholics perceive Trump. Evangelicals are much more prone to understand Trump as a flawed vessel sent to them by God to carry out his and their plans in the world. Whereas Catholics aren’t really at that place. Is that distinction correct?

Jones: That’s fair. Catholics have much more complex reasons for supporting Trump than white evangelicals do. His messianic appearances actually resonate much stronger with evangelicals than they do among Catholics. You can see that in the favorability numbers, too—Trump’s favorability among white evangelicals, even today, is 70 percent. It hardly ever wavers, no matter what happens.

But his favorability among even white Catholics who voted for him is only about 53 percent. It’s just barely in majority territory today.

From attacking Pope Leo as "terrible on foreign policy" to portraying himself as a Christ-like healing figure, Trump seems to take delight in defiling holy ground

 

Trump, the healer (Truth Social)

As an avowed Never-Trumper, I rarely am surprised by any ignorant thing our president says or does. But even I was taken aback by headlines this week that suggest Trump, his thuggish loyalists, or both had threatened Pope Leo. It's bad enough that Trump took reasonable criticism from Leo about the Iran war and turned it into a rather chippy quarrel, at least from the president's end of things. Any mentally balanced person would have simply let Leo's words go and kept any dispute on low simmer. But Trump, of course, is not mentally balanced, so he had to fire back and turn it into an intercontinental conflagration. 

Are the Trumpers so dense that they thought the pope would come out in favor of violence and war? Do they not understand that, as head of the Catholic church, the pope often is seen as "moral leader for the world"? Did they really think such a figure would support an unprovoked attack on Iran, especially its civilian population?

Finally, we have this question: Did the Trump administration actually threaten Pope Leo and perhaps the Catholic Church itself? Let's consider the evidence . . . 

First, we have this headline from NPR: "Pope Leo says he does not fear Trump as he pushes back in feud over Iran War. And the story includes this passage:

U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV pushed back Monday on President Trump's broadside against him over the U.S.-Israel war in Iran, telling reporters that the Vatican's appeals for peace and reconciliation are rooted in the Gospel, and that he doesn't fear the Trump administration.

"To put my message on the same plane as what the president has attempted to do here, I think is not understanding what the message of the Gospel is," Leo told The Associated Press aboard the papal plane en route to Algeria. "And I'm sorry to hear that but I will continue on what I believe is the mission of the church in the world today."

History's first U.S.-born pope stressed that he was not making a direct attack against Trump or anyone else with his general appeal for peace and criticisms of the "delusion of omnipotence" that is fueling the Iran war and other conflicts around the world.

In short, a pope's perspective on matters of war and peace is very different from that of a president. Do Trump and his associates not grasp that? Here is more from the NPR story:

"I will not enter into debate. The things that I say are certainly not meant as attacks on anyone. The message of the Gospel is very clear: 'Blessed are the peacemakers,'" Leo said.

"I will not shy away from announcing the message of the Gospel and inviting all people to look for ways of building bridges of peace and reconciliation, and looking for ways to avoid war any time that's possible."

Speaking to other reporters, he added: "I'm not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the Church works for.''

At the risk of coming across as a "Pope whisperer," here are the main points I think Leo was trying to make:

(1) He does not seek to attack or debate anyone, but . . . 

(2) He will not let Trump intimidate him into staying silent on matters of war and peace, and . . . 

(3) He does not think Trump made any serious attempt to avoid war, and that has led to suffering around the globe -- and that suffering probably will continue to grow.

What about other takes on our question "Did the Trump administration actually threaten Pope Leo and perhaps the Catholic Church itself"? Thom Hartmann, one of the leading progressive voices in the U.S.,  provides background at Raw America that strongly suggests the answer is yes. In fact, Hartmann's headline on the matter is not subtle: "Trump Attacked the Pope -- the Pope Hit Back." Hartmann writes:

This story is almost too extraordinary to believe, but it is documented and it matters. (I will highlight some of the most extraordinary passages.) After Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World address in January — arguing that diplomacy was being replaced by force and that “a zeal for war is spreading” — Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door meeting at the Pentagon. What was said inside that room has no precedent in American history.

Sources familiar with the meeting say Colby told the cardinal directly: “The United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.” A U.S. official present then invoked the Avignon papacy — the 14th-century episode in which the French monarchy forced the Catholic Church into submission, ordered an assault on Pope Boniface VIII, and relocated the papacy from Rome to southern France. Many inside the Vatican interpreted that historical reference as a direct threat to use military force against the Holy See. There are no public records of any previous meeting between American officials and Vatican representatives at the Pentagon, let alone one in which the United States suggested it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity.

Every American president since Eisenhower has understood that the moral authority of religious institutions, however imperfect, is one of the few forces in the world that can check the impulse toward endless war. What this administration did in that room wasn’t just a diplomatic blunder. It was a declaration that it recognizes no authority above its own, not law, not history, and not conscience.

The consequences were immediate. Pope Leo canceled his planned visit to the United States. And on July 4th — America’s 250th birthday — rather than celebrating with the administration that threatened him, he will visit Lampedusa, the tiny Mediterranean island where North African migrants wash ashore by the thousands. He did not choose that date by accident. The White House dismissed the entire account as “highly exaggerated and distorted,” insisting the meeting was “respectful and reasonable.” You can draw your own conclusions.

In an update, Hartmann provides more alarming details, focusing on a Truth Social post that launched Trump's assault on a religious institution:

In a 334-word broadside, Trump branded Pope Leo XIV — the first American-born pope in history — as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” accused him without any basis of supporting Iranian nuclear weapons, and claimed credit for Leo’s election to the papacy, writing that if he wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.

Trump then said he preferred the pope’s older brother, a self-described MAGA supporter from Florida: “I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA.” Leo did not take the bait quietly. Aboard the papal flight to Algiers at the start of an 11-day trip to Africa, the pope told reporters plainly: “I have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do.” Asked about Truth Social specifically, Leo offered a pointed aside about the name of the platform itself: “It’s ironic — the name of the site itself. Say no more.”

I do believe Leo just took a dig at Trump and his massive ego. Long live the Pope:

The pontiff vowed to continue speaking out against the war. “Too many people are suffering in the world today,” he said. “Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pushed back on Trump directly. Archbishop Paul Coakley said he was “disheartened” by the president’s words, and reminded the country that Leo is “not his rival” and “not a politician” but “the Vicar of Christ.”

With U.S. Catholic bishops involved, that takes the sparring to a whole new level, on Trump's home turf. And polling suggests Trump made a tactical error by needlessly confronting the Pope, Hartmann writes:

When a sitting American president attacks the leader of the world’s largest Christian denomination for opposing a war, and the bishops push back publicly, we’re not watching a political spat. We’re watching the moral authority of a faith tradition refuse to be conscripted into justifying bloodshed, and that’s a line that matters, whatever your own beliefs happen to be.

The polling on this fight is brutal for Trump. A March NBC survey found 42 percent of Americans view Leo favorably and just 8 percent unfavorably. Trump’s numbers: 41 percent favorable, 53 percent unfavorable.

The Trump vs. Leo dustup included an element that seemed to put a spotlight on Trump's all-encompassing narcissism. It was another case of Trump being unable to leave matters alone. Hartmann writes:

Less than an hour after attacking the pope, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself depicted as Jesus Christ, healing a man in a hospital bed while surrounded by American flags, bald eagles, and monuments.

The backlash from within his own movement was immediate and sharp.

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called it “more than blasphemy” and said it carried “an Antichrist spirit.” MAGA podcaster Michael Knowles told his 1.4 million followers the president should “delete the picture, no matter the intent.” Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham called it “OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy” and demanded he take it down and “ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God.” Far-right influencer Milo Yiannopoulos blamed a White House faith adviser for the president’s behavior and wrote, simply, “Pray for his soul. Pray for us all.”

The image went up on Orthodox Easter Sunday.

The use of messianic imagery to sanctify political power isn’t new, every authoritarian movement of the 20th century eventually wrapped itself in God and flag. It’s how leaders signal to their followers that their authority isn’t just political, it’s divine. When even the MAGA faithful are saying “this has gone too far,” that tells you something important about where this is headed.

Viktor Orban, the authoritarian Trump and MAGAs see as a heroic visionary goes down to a landslide loss -- but the "Orbanisation of America" continues apace"

Hungarians celebrate the end of the Orban era (Reuters)

In a result that many political observers see as a win for Western democracy and a loss for authoritarianism, Hungary''s incumbent prime minister Viktor Orban conceded defeat yesterday to upstart Peter Magyar. Ironically, the outcome also was seen as a defeat for both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. From a jointly published report at the DPA press agency of Germany and Yahoo! News, under the headline "Orban concedes defeat as Hungary's opposition set for landslide win": 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has conceded defeat in parliamentary elections to opposition leader Péter Magyar, bringing an end to his 16 years in power.

"Whatever happens, we will serve the homeland even in opposition," the right-wing populist told supporters in Budapest on Sunday night.

"The task is clear: now that the burden of government work is no longer on our shoulders, we must strengthen our own community."

Magyar’s centre-right Tisza Party was set for a landslide win over Orbán’s Fidesz, an official tally showed.

With around 67% of polling stations counted, Orbán’s Fidesz party had secured 38.08% of the vote, according to the election commission, while his challenger Magyar’s centre-right Tisza led with 53.27%.

Election analysts said Tisza was ahead in enough constituencies to secure a comfortable parliamentary majority.

"Thank you, Hungary!" Magyar posted on X, adding that he already had spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron by phone. 

Orban has instituted policies in Hungary that closely mirror what Trump has done in the United States. In fact, Trump has cited Hungary as a model for the U.S., as the European Council on Foreign Relations states in an article titled "The Orbanisation of America: Hungary's lessons for Donald Trump." From the DPA/Yahoo! News article:

The election, seen as Hungary’s most significant since the democratic transition of 1989–90, drew record turnout, with 77.8% of eligible voters casting ballots shortly before polls closed.

During his time in office, 62-year-old Orbán has been accused of building a semi-authoritarian system, curbing media and judicial independence, cracking down on LGBTQ rights, steering the country into conflict with the European Union and aligning it more closely with Russia. He was a celebrity in the eyes of many conservatives in US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.

Within the EU, he repeatedly used vetoes to block key aid for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, contributing to tensions with Brussels, which froze billions of euros in funds over rule-of-law concerns.

Attacking media and judicial independence. Cracking down on minority rights.Promoting conflict with European allies. Aligning with Russia. Trampling the rule of law. That sounds familiar because it's straight from Trump's playbook, which he largely borrowed from Orban. Here is more from DPA/Yahoo! News:

Magyar, a 45-year-old former Fidesz insider who broke with Orbán two years ago, built a broad-based political movement in a short period, positioning himself as an agent of change. He pitched his message relentlessly across the country, reaching beyond his base in major cities to smaller towns and villages.

He campaigned on tackling corruption and mismanagement and pledged to repair Hungary’s relations with the EU and its Western allies.

I encourage our Legal Schnauzer readers to let that last paragraph sink in, Magyar promised to tackle corruption and mismanagement and pledged to repair Hungary's relations with the EU and its Western allies. Hungarian voters, weary of Orban's authoritarian impulses, rewarded Magyar with a resounding victory. He ran exactly the kind of campaign we need from Democrats in the U.S. -- and we desperately need to rid ourselves of a budding despot. But here's the thing: We cannot afford to wait until 2028 to get rid of Trump. To rebuild from the damage he has wrought already will be a long, hard road, so we cannot let Trump and his band of dysfunctional incompetents make it worse. As I've already noted in a previous plost, Trump, his acolytes, and their GOP enablers must be ejected now -- through impeachment, the 25th Amendment, or some type of military intervention. Heck, I'm open to a creative ejection technique that's never been used before -- as long as it's effective and begins our nation's healing process.

A good first step toward getting our country back on the right track would be for all Americans to read "The Orbanisation of America" article noted above. Here is the summary that begins the piece, which is written by Jeremy Shapiro and Zsuzsanna Vegh. I will highlight the sentences that sound the most  Trumpian, reflecting where he has gone and where he wants to go:

Summary

• Viktor Orban has seized control of nearly all the levers of power in Hungary since he became prime minister in 2010, effectively turning the country into an electoral autocracy.
• Republicans in the US have noticed Orban’s success. Orban’s Fidesz party and the Republicans have lately strengthened their links significantly; Republicans appear to have learned from the former’s march through Hungarian institutions.
• In the four years since President Donald Trump left office (in 2000, returning in 2024), veterans of his administration have thought hard about how to make a new administration more effective than the last. Many believe that a similar seizure of control of the instruments of US governance is necessary.

If Trump wins the presidency, Republicans will likely adapt many of Orban’s techniques to the US context to end what they view as liberal control of the “administrative state” and civil society.

This new form of US governance could have profound implications not only for European foreign policy, including the robustness of NATO’s collective defence, but also EU and domestic European democracy as a Trump White House seeks to lead and champion like-minded allies across the world.

The full article is well worth your time. We highly recommend it. We will have more in upcoming posts about the "Orbanisation of America." This clearly is where Trump wants to take us, and we must refuse to go. Hungarians have ousted Orban; now we must oust Trump, holding him and his enablers accountable for the damage they have done, starting with their destruction of the White House's East Wing. We hope you will stay tuned because this is one of the most important stories of Trump's horrific second term. We now know the roadmap he is using, and it deserves to be crumpled up and tossed in the trash.

Political world is stunned by Melania Trump's press statement on matters related to Epstein; a seasoned journalist seeks clarity beyond the first lady's facade

Melania Trump makes an entrance (AP)

Political observers are in WTF mode, trying to figure out what prompted First Lady Melania Trump to make a press statement yesterday about the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Social media is awash with speculation, mostly of this variety: "She must be expecting some bad news to break soon and wants to get ahead of it." That might prove to be the case, but no one seems to know with any certainty at the moment -- although journalist Holly Baxter takes an honorable stab at it in a jointly published article at the UK Independent and Yahoo! News. First, Baxter sets the scene for a public appearance that was well outside the norm for a reclusive first lady:

Just when you thought Donald Trump had bombed enough of the Middle East to blow the Epstein files right out of public memory, his wife presented a statement. And what a statement it was.

With no explanatory preamble, Melania Trump spoke from the White House podium about how she is “not Epstein’s victim,” was not introduced to her husband by Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, and how she “never visited his private island.”

“I was never involved in any capacity,” she added. “I was not a participant.”

She acknowledged the existence of a friendly email between herself and Maxwell, but said it was a normal, lighthearted communication between acquaintances who once ran in the same social circles and sometimes attended the “same parties.” Attempts to paint her as a friend of Epstein’s are “mean-spirited” and “politically motivated” lies, she added, as a blind was raised behind her and light poured in. 

This moment, however was not just Melania talking about Melania. She made a point of addressing the true Epstein victims, saying she hoped they would be able to get their stories out to the public via testimony before Congress. Baxter writes:

It was a short statement — just over five minutes long — and seemingly apropos of nothing. At the very end, the first lady called for the women who have already publicly identified themselves as Epstein victims to be able to testify in Congress.

“Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public, if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the congressional record,” she said, eyes fixed almost entirely on the lectern in front of her. “Then and only then will we have the truth. Thank you.” At that, she immediately turned and walked away.

One senses that Baxter, as she watched the scene unfold, was thinking to herself, "I never dreamed that I would be covering such an event this afternoon." Baxter made it clear this was not the Melania Trump the public usually sees -- when it gets to see her at all:

Statements by the first lady are rare in the first place, and rarer still statements that happen with little warning and little background. Her name is sometimes connected to initiatives that champion women and children’s rights — such as the Take It Down Act, which bans AI-generated ‘revenge porn’ and was given a slightly odd shout-out at Karoline Leavitt’s press conference about the Iran war ceasefire on Wednesday — and to home decor projects and garden renovations.

But it’s also well-known that she would like to be seen as a Jackie Kennedy type, stylish and quietly supportive, rather than heavily involved in the political day-to-day.

With that, Baxter took a crack at making a reasonable judgment about the first lady's intentions:

It is for us to guess, then, what prompted Melania’s statement this afternoon. One impression from the pronouncement would be that she’s possibly attempting to get ahead of a story she believes will soon be published in a media outlet. The timing of it sure seems inconvenient for her husband, whose campaign in Iran has been derisively nicknamed “Operation Epstein Fury” by his critics.

Epstein is the one story that did stick to Teflon Don, one that was dividing the MAGA faithful and hammering his approval rating long before the bombers set off for Tehran. To resurrect it now — just as it looks like the ceasefire might hold and the extremely unpopular Iran war might wrap up — is certainly, well, a choice. It seems there must have been some urgency to the matter.

Perhaps the strangest part of it all is not the content, but the fact of the denial itself. In Trumpworld, the usual strategy when faced with uncomfortable associations is not to address them head-on but to drown them out: to “flood the zone” with spectacle and rage bait. Direct, preemptive specificity (“I was not introduced by X,” “I never went to Y”) feels uncharacteristically restrained — as though drafted with an audience of investigators, rather than voters, in mind.

And then there is the matter of tone. Melania Trump has spent the better part of a decade cultivating an air of distance, from both the press and the worst political impulses of her husband. Today’s appearance punctured that carefully maintained remove, if only briefly. It wasn’t delivered with emotion, of course — there was none of that; the entire statement was delivered without so much as a flicker of an eyebrow — but it was delivered with intent.

You don’t step up to a lectern, quite obviously reading word-for-word from a prepared statement, to deny something this specific without a very big reason.

Amid chaos and confusion, the U.S. Israel, and Iran try to figure out what ceasefire deal means; Trump and Hegseth are involved, but that hardly is reassuring

(Getty Images, Axios)

Americans who have been paying attention during Donald Trump's second term probably are never surprised when the administration's incompetence rears its ugly head. Surprise only comes if Team Trump completes a task with honesty, efficiency, and clarity. If you give me several years, I might think of such a completed task, but right now I'm coming up empty. It already seems clear the ceasefire in the Iran war will not be that task. An account at Axios about the peace process carries this unassuring headline: "Iran ceasefire clouded by confusion, contradictions." At the Axios PM newsletter, Barak Ravid writes:

The U.S., Israel and Iran agree that a ceasefire is in effect — but they're contradicting each other and themselves on what's been agreed on and what happens next.

• Those differences will have to be reconciled in negotiations, starting Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistan.
• One thing everyone agrees on: There's no guarantee the war is over.

Axios makes it clear that Trump is actively involved in the peace process, so chaos should be expected. After all, creating chaos seems to be Trump's No. 1 "talent," if you want to call it that. Ravid writes:

President Trump's key condition for a ceasefire was reopening the Strait of Hormuz. But it's unclear how open it actually is. Iran halted ships there yesterday after fresh Israeli attacks against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, per Iranian state media.

• Iran and the Pakistani mediators say the ceasefire applies to Lebanon. The U.S. and Israel disagree. Attacks also took place during the ceasefire's first 12 hours against oil facilities in Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait.

• Pakistan's prime minister warned such actions "undermine the spirit of the peace process."

Pete Hegseth, U.S. secretary of war, tried to downplay signs of confusion. But Hegseth never has been known as a voice of clarity. Ravid writes:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a press conference today that Iran's attacks continued because of Iranian communications issues.

• Hegseth said: "It takes time for a ceasefire to take hold. We think it will."

• Both sides say they can quickly resume fighting:

  • Hegseth said today: "We will be hanging around to make sure Iran complies. ... We are prepared to restart in a moment's notice."

• Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement: "We are with our hand on the trigger, ready to respond to any attack with more force."

  Attention now shifts to Saturday's negotiations, with Vice President JD Vance leading the U.S. team.

  • The sides are far apart on several core issues, including money to rebuild Iranian buildings and infrastructure, the fate of Iran's nuclear program, and ending the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hours after reports that U.S. commanders were preparing to disobey presidential orders, Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire in Iran war

Iran war draws protesters in Chicago (Chicago Sun-Times)

About noon CDT yesterday, reports began surfacing that a retired general said U.S. commanders were preparing to disobey President Donald Trump's unlawful orders to demolish Iran's civil infrastructure.  About six hours later, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran, backing down from threats of imminent devastation. 

The big question: Were those two events connected, and if so, what impact might that have on Trump's decision-making going forward?

Trump has developed a reputation as a TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), and that appears to be what's happening now. But we will have to wait for at least two weeks to see how things play out. This much looks certain: Retired General Mark Hertling is playing a central role in trying to steer Trump clear of his threats to ensure that Iran's "whole civilization would die" if it did not adhere to a U.S. deadline to end the war. From an article yesterday at the UK Mirror under the headline "Trump humiliated as ex-general claims commanders  preparing to disobey Iran war orders": 

A former United States general has made the claim that military commanders are preparing to disobey their commander in chief, President Donald Trump, in relation to the current war in Iran.

Over the past days, rhetoric from both Trump and official channels within the Iranian regime have Trump issuing a deadline for the "demolition" of Iran, including power plants and other civilian infrastructure, which experts say would be illegal under international law.

Late on Monday, retired general Mark Hertling appeared on the US news channel MS Now's Deadline: White House podcast, where he alleged that those in charge of delivering on Trump's orders are considering how to defy him.

Gen. Hertling outlined how he trained for 40 years as a soldier and as a commander of US troops and set out the lawful basis for following orders from the very top of the US government.

"You're primarily loyal to the Constitution. You are also loyal to your superiors if they give... lawful orders," he said.

"If they start giving unlawful orders you find a way to push back and make sure they adjust their approach.

"But you are also loyal to the soldiers who are under your command."

Hertling explained how those three loyalties are sometimes conflicting and expressed how military chiefs will be seriously considering their positions in relation to Trump's threats to Iran's civilian infrastructure, which is against one of the key pillars of the post-WWII Geneva Conventions, of which the US is a signatory.

"They will be saying to themselves, 'I cannot obey an unlawful order, I cannot order things I know are absolutely wrong.'"

A few hours after Hertling's words hit the global press, Trump announced a change of heart regarding the deadline he had set for Iran. The Associated Press reported under the headline "US and Iran agree to a 2-week ceasefire as Trump seizes diplomatic offramp": 

U.S. President Donald Trump pulled back on his threats to launch devastating strikes on Iran late Tuesday, swerving to de-escalate the war less than two hours before the deadline he set for Tehran to capitulate to a deal.

Trump said he was holding off on his threatened attacks on Iranian bridges and power plants, as the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. He said Iran has proposed a “workable” 10-point peace plan that could help end the war launched by the U.S. and Israel in February.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it has accepted the ceasefire and that it would negotiate with the United States in Islamabad beginning Friday. Neither Iran nor the United States said when the ceasefire would begin, and attacks took place in Israel, Iran and across the Gulf region early Wednesday.

What will happen over the next two weeks? That is unknown, but this is known: Trump has created a dilemma for US. military officers, as spelled out in a report at the UK Guardian: 

Donald Trump’s threats to carry out mass bombing of civilian infrastructure in Iran present US military officers with a dilemma: disobey orders or help commit war crimes. . . . 

“We are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously,” Trump said in prepared remarks that were amplified by the state department’s social media accounts.

There is little debate among legal experts that such an attack on the life-supporting infrastructure for 93 million Iranians would constitute a war crime.

“Such rhetorical statements – if followed through – would amount to the most serious war crimes – and thus the president’s statements place service members in a profoundly challenging situation,” two former judge advocate general (JAG) officers, Margaret Donovan and Rachel VanLandingham wrote on the website Just Security on Monday.

“As former uniformed military lawyers who advised targeting operations, we know the president’s words run counter to decades of legal training of military personnel and risk placing our warfighters on a path of no return.”

They noted that Trump’s boast that he would bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages,” and the order by his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, to show “no quarter, no mercy” were not just “plainly illegal” but they also represented a rupture from the moral and legal principles that US military personnel have been “trained to follow their entire careers.”

Charli Carpenter, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said there were many historical examples of service members questioning orders, refusing to obey, passively disobeying or even intervening to stop war crimes.

She cited as an example US soldiers who refused to take part in the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, including a helicopter pilot who threatened to shoot the perpetrators.

In his court martial, the officer who ordered his men to gun down hundreds of Vietnamese villagers, 2nd Lt William Calley, argued that he was only obeying orders, but the court ruled that was no defence as such orders were “palpably illegal”.

The question is whether officers who potentially carry out orders to bomb Iranian power stations and bridges could argue that they did not know it was “palpably illegal”.

When Democratic members of Congress published a video message in November telling US service members “you can refuse illegal orders, you must refuse illegal orders”, Trump went on Truth Social to accuse them of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH”.

“There are many factors that make it hard to say ‘no’ or stand up to stop war crimes, especially where there are grey areas in the law,” Carpenter said.

“What the law requires of enlisted troops is to disobey only ‘manifestly unlawful’ orders – orders so egregiously unlawful that a person of ordinary understanding would know they were wrong.

“However, this skill and moral judgment is not drilled into troops in the same way they are taught to follow the chain of command and go along with their small units, and troops can also be court-martialed for insubordination if they guess wrong.”