All posts tagged "nuclear weapons"

'Terrible': JD Vance warns Iran could blow up supermarkets with nuclear suicide vests

Vice President JD Vance suggested that Iran had the desire to blow up grocery stores with nuclear suicide vests.

During a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Vance praised the U.S. military strikes on Iran for creating options for negotiations.

"What we have now that we didn't have when the president took over just a little over a year ago is the ability to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon," he explained. "Because when I say options, I think it's important the American people know, options, and it's options to ensure that Iran never has a nuclear weapon."

"You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on, for what? And they blow up the vest, and a couple of people get killed, and that's a terrible tragedy. What happens when what's on the vest, it's not something that can kill a couple of people but can kill many, many tens of thousands of people?" he added.

Vance reiterated a Trump administration talking point about preventing Iran from building or obtaining a nuclear weapon.

"That is the most important American national security objective that exists for any administration at any time is you don't want the worst people in the world to have a nuclear weapon."

Trump made a catastrophic miscalculation — and the worst ones are still ahead

Donald Trump has always been the king of the colossal miscalculation, and 99 percent of the time not because of errors in strategy — because that word doesn’t exist in Trump’s brain. In there, miscalculations occur because of grotesque arrogance.

He miscalculated the New York real estate market badly enough to go bankrupt six times. He miscalculated the casino business, his business partners, his wives, and his friends, the heinous Jeffrey Epstein among them.

And now he may have miscalculated his approach to an entire civilization. Let’s call it what it is: a fury of epic miscalculations.

Trump’s decision to launch Operation Epic Fury (You see what I did there?) against Iran may go down as the most contemptible miscalculation of his long career, possibly in U.S. history.

The New York Times has reported in detail on the alarming breadth and depth of the miscalculations behind this war with Iran. It shows Trump, whose career is defined by a belief that he is always the smartest man in the room, now leading a room full of people who appear to have no idea what they’re doing.

The group that cooked up “Epic Fury” isn’t a room of seasoned strategists. It’s a room of yes men, blindly led by the would-be author of The Art of Miscalculation.

The absolute worst of the worst is Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of “War,” an in-over-his-empty-head TV personality whose favorite words appear to be “warrior” and “kill.”

Hegseth has never commanded a large contingent of soldiers in combat and has never run anything remotely resembling the Pentagon’s global war machine.

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, has never negotiated a major international treaty or intervened in a war. He’s also serving as Trump’s National Security Adviser but he appears to have a third job: nodding yes every time Trump makes a boneheaded, critical miscalculation.

And who exactly is Energy Secretary Chris Wright? He spent his career in the oil industry making money first, second, and third. He is now out of his league. That became glaringly obvious when he said U.S. strikes against Iran would not cause long-term disruptions to global oil markets, according to the Times.

Collectively, Trump's advisers are the “Misanthropes of Miscalculation” — a brainless trust who clearly lack even a basic understanding of Iranian humanity and whose ignorance has led to disastrous assumptions.

Trump and his inner circle appear to have believed that a few airstrikes would somehow trigger the collapse of the Iranian government, and that the Iranian people would greet American bombs as celebratory liberation balloons.

Instead, Iran did what nations tend to do when attacked. It closed ranks, lashed out, and turned the war into a regional firestorm.

Iran has been ruled by religious fanatics for almost 50 years. That ideology is embedded in its political and social fabric. It doesn’t suddenly disappear because Trump thinks it should.

None of this should have been surprising.

Iran’s identity is built on resisting foreign intervention. The Islamic Republic has spent decades telling its people the United States is an imperial aggressor. With a bombs-away miscalculation, Trump handed them that narrative.

This is what happens when foreign policy is conducted by reckless people who treat history like something skimmed through CliffsNotes — if that.

To ignore the deep history of the region, its religious factions, and the extreme diversity of its people is to guarantee catastrophic miscalculation.

For nearly two weeks, the administration has struggled to explain what this war was supposed to accomplish. One day it was about nuclear weapons. The next, regime change. Then nukes again. Then “sending a message.” Then protecting Israel. Then an “imminent threat.”

Whatever the cause du jour is, Rubio usually says the opposite. Nobody knows what the hell is going on.

Meanwhile, the consequences have been exactly what any sober strategist would have feared, and what the miscalculator-in-chief apparently dismissed.

Iran responded not just by striking Israel and U.S. forces but by expanding the battlefield across the Middle East. American bases, embassies, and allies suddenly found themselves targets of Iranian missiles and drones.

Trump didn’t just miscalculate Iran. He miscalculated the entire region.

Did he think Iran would simply play dead? That it would not unleash retaliation across the Middle East? The assumption borders on strategic delusion.

And then there’s the global economy.

Iran’s threat to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow artery through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil flows, sent energy markets into panic.

The world, not just America, is now laughing at Trump’s promises to lower prices on “Day One” and end wars on “Day One.” Instead, he has delivered Day 11, and counting, of a war with costs far beyond Iran’s borders.

Trump promised there would be no American boots on the ground. But wars have an ominous way of ignoring false assurances, and already the language coming out of Washington has begun to shift.

The American public is rapidly losing patience. Polling shows a historic majority against this war, and it’s only going to get worse.

They see gas prices climbing. They see lives lost. They see incredible incompetence, and they are p—ed as hell. And they haven’t seen anything yet.

When Trump miscalculates this badly, he doesn’t reassess. He doubles down. He escalates. He looks for the next dramatic move that will prove he was right all along.

Every failure becomes someone else’s fault. Every setback demands a bigger gamble. If Trump’s past is any guide, the worst miscalculations are ahead.

John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”

Eight lies Trump told to take America to war

It should come as no surprise that Donald Trump has piled lie upon lie to justify his attack on Iran in violation of international law, constantly shifting his rationale as one lie collides with another.

The following litany of lies reveals how Trump is responsible for fueling a burgeoning war in the Middle East.

Lie #1

Trump has said consistently that he opposes and would never involve the US in regime change and nation building, calling it a “proven, absolute failure.”

Reality: Under Trump in 2025-26, the US has sought regime change in both Venezuela and Iran by attacking both nations and deposing their leaders.

Former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was captured and brought to the US to face criminal charges, Trump stating that the US would “run” the country until a stable government could be formed. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the US’s attack on Iran, with Trump urging the Iranian people to rise up and oust the theocratic regime.

Lie #2

After the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025, Trump said that the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities and completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

Reality: The bombing of the nuclear facilities did not destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. A US Defense Agency (DIA) report concluded that the strikes set back the program by three to six months. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Rafael Grossi said that Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile was largely unaccounted for.

Had the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities destroyed its nuclear enrichment program like Trump said, why in 2026 was the US attempting to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran? Wasn’t that what the 2025 bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities already accomplished?

Lie #3

Trump claimed that Iran was actively building nuclear weapons as a pretext for engaging in bad-faith negotiations, ultimately leading to the US’s attack on Iran.

Reality: Iran was never building nuclear weapons. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress in March 2025 that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated the agency had “not found any proof” of an effort by Iran to build a nuclear weapon. The false justification for attacking Iran mirrored the justification for the US’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 based on the falsehood that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Lie #4

Trump said the massive US military build-up in the Middle East was intended to pressure Iran to negotiate a nuclear agreement, with diplomacy preferred over force.

Reality: Trump’s purpose in authorizing the massive US military build-up in the Middle East was obvious: to employ it. Attacking Iran was not a spur-of-the-moment decision but rather a long thought-out plan featuring a large, coordinated military attack on Iran conceived long before it was executed. The US was not going to amass that kind of military power halfway across the globe without intending to use it.

Lie #5

Trump claimed that he preferred resolving the issue of Iran’s nuclear program through negotiations and diplomacy.

Reality: Trump never intended to negotiate in good faith but rather to use the “failed” negotiations as rationale for the attack on Iran. First, Trump gave negotiations a scant two months to reach settlement while in 2015, the US and an international coalition took 20 months to complete a successful nuclear agreement with Iran.

Second, Trump knew the US’s “red line” negotiating position — that Iran could enrich no uranium after having enriched it for decades for domestic nuclear power — would never be accepted. Third, the US attacked Iran half way through Trump’s stated two-month negotiating window, a diplomatic solution never meant to be given a chance.

Lie #6

Trump claimed the US attacked Iran because it was a threat to America and the American people.

Reality: Iran poses absolutely no threat to America. First, it has no nuclear weapons’ capability and lacks the long-range missiles to reach the US mainland. Second, if it ever developed such missiles, attacking the country with the most powerful military in the world would ensure Iran’s annihilation.

Lie #7

Trump claimed US citizens are safer today due to the attack on Iran.

Reality: Since Iran posed no threat to the US, the attack on Iran didn’t make US citizens any safer. Instead, it could make them less safe through Iranian retaliatory bombing of US military bases and through potential terrorist activity in the US within Iranian-supportive sleeper cells.

Lie #8

Trump claimed the timing of the attack on Iran was necessary to eliminate “imminent threats” from a nation on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.

Reality: The timing had nothing to do with eliminating “imminent threats” which didn’t exist and everything to do with the looming 2026 mid-term elections. Trump’s purpose was two-fold: to try and score a huge foreign policy victory that he could ride all the way to the Nov. 4 election and to deflect focus on the economic woes he has created for the American people through his failed policies.

Trump’s lies that Iran was enriching uranium to build nuclear weapons and that it posed a serious threat to America provided the false justification for the US’s attack on Iran. That perfidious duplicity launched a series of horrific events with no end in sight.

Thanks to Trump’s lies, the US attacked Iran, resulting in the heartbreaking killing of more than 100 Iranian children whose elementary school was bombed. American soldiers have been killed by Iranian retaliatory strikes on US bases, and putting American “boots on the ground” in Iran is being contemplated. The outbreak of a region-wide war has already begun as civilian deaths have been reported in countries across the Middle East.

Thanks to Trump, a diplomatic settlement between the US and Iran that could have avoided all of the bloodshed and destruction was never given a chance. This is Trump’s war, and he bears responsibility for all of the human suffering that it is bringing.

Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor.

This sweeping Trump assault has us headed for a hellscape of unimaginable dimensions

The first days of a bombing campaign almost always look successful. Targets are hit. Explosions dominate headlines. Leaders declare strength. But wars are judged by what follows: retaliation, escalation, unintended consequences that unfold in days, weeks, months, and years.

For example, Israeli sources said on Saturday that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the initial bombings. But if he is dead, who comes next? His death after 35 years in power would likely trigger a prolonged, ugly and tumultuous struggle.

Further back, remember George W. Bush and his rush to declare “Mission Accomplished," shortly after the attack on Iraq in 2003?

That pattern of not thinking and planning ahead for what comes next mirrors Donald Trump’s life of losing. His deals and grand ideas often look triumphant at the start. Later, collapse, chaos, and damage become clear.

Trump’s decision to join Israel in bombing Iran is shocking the world. It feels reckless and ego-driven — both for Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu — undertaken without fully reckoning with the grave consequences such action could unleash.

Yes, Iran is dangerous. Yes, it should never have nuclear weapons. Yes, the regime’s mass killing of protesters is abominable. But behind the curtain of cruelty is an entrenched military and ruthless theocratic leadership capable of spreading unimaginable horror throughout the Middle East.

It’s already begun.

But let’s start in the U.S., with a president who campaigned in 2024 on ending wars through dealmaking.

Trump has ended nothing. He has built nothing. He has stabilized nothing. That assessment isn’t limited to what’s happening now. It reflects how he has carried himself throughout his life. He is not a winner. He is a loser. He does not create peace. He creates chaos.

Now he has detonated that chaos in the most volatile region on Earth. Why now? For what purpose? For how long?

Trump repeatedly claimed that last year’s U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities “obliterated” them. Obliterated. He has insisted on that word, dismissing experts who said otherwise.

So why are American bombs once again falling on Iranian soil? You don’t obliterate something and then have to obliterate it again.

There has been no publicly presented evidence that bombing Iran is in America’s best interest. None. No imminent attack disclosed. No ticking-clock intelligence, laid before Congress.

And what of Congress? Article I of the Constitution is clear: Congress has the power to declare war. Trump didn’t seek it. He didn’t secure it. He didn’t build bipartisan consensus. He simply acted. Congress represents the voice of the American people. We, and our elected officials, should decide whether to put American troops in harm’s way.

Trump failed to rally NATO. After years of threatening to weaken the alliance, flirting with abandoning European partners, even floating the absurd notion of invading Greenland, he has left the United States diplomatically diminished.

Rather than assembling a coalition, he has tethered America’s fate to another leader who thrives on confrontation: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has long viewed Iran as Israel’s existential enemy. Iran harbors deep hostility toward Israel and Netanyahu. Netanyahu is polarizing in the Middle East, controversial at home. Trump is viewed globally as erratic, incapable of restraint.

Two unpredictable leaders do not create stability. They do not project peace. And if these two have rid Iran of the equally unpredictable Khamenei, God knows what lies ahead.

This is a sweeping assault with no clearly articulated endgame against an adversary as hardened as it is brutal. If Khamenei is dead, his revolutionary forces will surely retaliate to an extreme.

There has been no serious explanation of what victory looks like, only assurances that bombing will continue. Escalation feels inevitable. Regional war is plausible.

Experts have warned for weeks that a full-scale attack on Iran could ignite the Middle East.

Iran is not isolated. It has a network of proxies: Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen. They are all capable of striking American assets and allies. Retaliation could be relentless, U.S. troops potential targets.

Shipping lanes could be disrupted. The Strait of Hormuz, through which flows a significant share of the world’s oil, could become a choke point. Energy markets would convulse. Inflation would spike. A fragile global economy, rattled by Trump’s erratic tariff obsession, could tip toward crisis.

And then there’s Russia, which was blunt in response to the bombing, saying it was an “unprovoked act of armed aggression.”

Moscow has deepened ties with Tehran. Iran has supplied Russia with drones. Russia has offered diplomatic cover. By attacking Iran in a sustained way, Trump risks entangling the U.S. in a broader dynamic that could spiral beyond control.

When military powers circle the same battlefield, miscalculation is a real probability.

Even within U.S. military leadership, alarm bells have been ringing. Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine has warned that a full-scale confrontation with Iran would come with “acute risks,” along with being extraordinarily costly and unpredictable.

This is not Venezuela. Iran is no pushover. It is one of the most volatile regimes in the world, rivaling North Korea.

And now we have added another unpredictable actor — the habitual liar that is the President of the United States.

This is the man who has failed at virtually every major endeavor he has led, too many to list. He is not a steady leader. He is a coddled billionaire who has never faced meaningful consequences for his mistakes.

Trump, who thrives on confusion, lies, and chaos, has not clearly articulated objectives, sought congressional authorization, or built a multinational framework. And we are supposed to trust him?

We are headed for a hellscape of unimaginable dimensions.

What unfolds next could reshape the global order: regional war, confrontation with major powers, economic shockwaves hitting American families, gas stations and grocery stores, terror retaliation, cyberattacks … the “acute risks” falling like dominos.

Trump falsely bills himself as the man who would keep America out of endless wars. He foams at the mouth for a Nobel. He launched a farcical “Board of Peace.” Yet he has now lit the fuse in one of the world’s most combustible regions.

Unlike his past failures, his latest bomb is far worse than a bankruptcy. Far, far worse.

John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”

This Trump obsession has caused only harm — and remains a danger to the whole world

Whenever Donald Trump mucks around in any serious international situation, as the world’s self-anointed savior, odds are things will only get worse. Iran is a good example.

In 2015, the US was part of an international coalition that reached agreement with Iran that imposed restrictions on its civilian nuclear enrichment program in exchange for sanctions’ relief. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was agreed to by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — as well as Germany and the EU, and supported by over 100 nations.

According to the Obama White House, the agreement “blocks every possible pathway Iran could use to build a nuclear bomb while ensuring -- through a comprehensive, intrusive, and unprecedented verification and transparency regime -- that Iran’s nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful moving forward.”

For three years the agreement worked as intended, with regular monitoring and verification of Iranian compliance by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Every indication suggested that the agreement would remain in force, given the power of the broad international coalition that negotiated it and the consequences if Iran failed to comply.

Then in 2018, President Donald Trump blew up the agreement, pulling the US out.

Renewing US sanctions, Trump claimed JCPOA was a “terrible agreement” — i.e. because Barack Obama helped negotiate it — and Trump said he would negotiate a much better deal.

Of course, Trump never negotiated a better deal, like the better deal he never negotiated after pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Accord. With US sanctions renewed despite Iran's compliance with the agreement, Tehran unsurprisingly balked at continuing to cooperate, and the JCPOA fell apart.

Had Trump not pulled the US out, the JCPOA could very well have remained in existence today, as President Joe Biden would have maintained US involvement from 2021-2025. Instead, there has been no regular IAEA monitoring of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Iran has contended that it has no intention of building nuclear weapons, and US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard concurred last year. However, the situation has remained precarious.

What would not have occurred had the JCPOA remained in place with US membership?

First, Trump would have had no rationale for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025, in violation of international law. The US would still be part of the international coalition that was ensuring Iran’s nuclear compliance.

Second, Trump would not be threatening more military action if it Iran doesn't come to the negotiating table, using as pretext the lie that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. By pulling the US out of the JCPOA in 2018, Trump has created the very real possibility of yet another illegal US invasion.

With Iran staring down the barrel of a gun, Trump will try and accomplish what was successfully negotiated in 2015, then destroyed by him in 2018. For that, Trump deserves nothing but scorn — no matter where his reckless, irresponsible saber rattling leads.

In addition, since Trump reimposed heavy US sanctions in 2018, the Iranian economy has contracted severely. The sanctions have contributed to soaring inflation and unemployment, a collapsing currency, less accessible and affordable health care, and millions driven to poverty.

The sanctions have played a central role in the economic crisis that helped trigger the current violent protests and the Iranian government’s brutal response. Trump is threatening military action against the government stemming from protests by citizens whose economic woes he helped create.

In dealing with Iran, Trump has leaned heavily into the narcissism, megalomania, duplicity, and power-addiction that define him. By peevishly pulling the US out of the JCPOA, he turned a situation that had been dealt with successfully by the powerful international coalition into an international crisis.

Results also include the possibility of a broader Middle Eastern conflict.

Trump’s high-stakes involvements in the Russian-Ukrainian and Israeli-Palestinian wars have produced similarly disastrous results. By siding with Vladimir Putin and limiting US support to Ukraine, Trump strengthened Putin’s hand tremendously. Russia has continued the killing and devastation in Ukraine with impunity and is now practically assured to be rewarded handsomely for invading a sovereign democratic nation.

By siding with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump supported Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people with military aid and refusing to condemn atrocities. Trump ensured that there will never be a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so long as Netanyahu is in power and that the horrific suffering of the Palestinian people will only worsen.

At the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, narrator Nick Carraway comments on how chaos created by Daisy and Tom led to the deaths of Gatsby, Myrtle, and George Wilson.

Nick says, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness … and let other people clean up the mess that they made.”

It will take the American people and freedom-loving nations of the world years to clean up the mess Trump is making. It will be left to history to reflect on the incalculable human damage that Trump has inflicted, and he is only getting started.

Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor.

Demented Trump could end the world. Here's how we can save it

Most Americans probably don’t know that the U.S. President has the absolute legal power to launch a potentially humanity-ending nuclear first strike against anyone anywhere at any moment without the permission or even advice of anyone at all — not Congress, not military leaders, not his cabinet, not anyone else.

An angry, impulsive or simply demented President could initiate the destruction of human life on earth with no legal constraints. If that doesn’t worry you, it should.

We came close to nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis under President Kennedy. President Reagan’s son Ron believes that the President suffered from dementia during the final year of his term. Many question whether President Biden was fully mentally competent during the last months of his term.

But Donald Trump’s diminished mental state increases the danger he might impulsively order a civilization-ending nuclear strike all by himself. He appears to have moved from just being a narcissistic, power hungry, ignorant bully to having dementia.

Could Trump get so angry at another world leader like the Prime Minister of Norway or Switzerland that he would order not just the annexation of Greenland or high tariffs on Swiss Chocolate but a nuclear strike? I don’t know how likely that is, even for Trump, but it’s no longer unthinkable.

The unilateral power for any President to launch a nuclear first strike must be legally curtailed and the power to remove a mentally disabled President from office must be strengthened. Neither Republicans nor Democrats should want one person alone to have to power to order the destruction of humanity.

Outlaw a nuclear first strike

Congress must pass a bill outlawing the first use of nuclear weapons. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MS) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) have introduced the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act multiple times since 2017, most recently in January 2025 with 26 co-sponsors in the House and seven in the Senate. The bill was referred to committee, where no discussion or hearings have been held.

A “No First Use” statute could be short and sweet:

“(a) It shall be the policy of the United States that nuclear weapons may only be used in direct retaliation for a nuclear attack against the United States or its allies. (b) The President shall not authorize, order, or direct the non-retaliatory use of nuclear weapons. (c) No member of the Armed Forces shall execute, implement, or otherwise carry out an order for such use.”

This is something both parties should support. Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you should not want one person alone to launch a civilization-ending nuclear war.

Make the 25th Amendment practical

For most of American history, there was no constitutional means to remove a mentally or physically disabled President other than the high bar of impeachment. Following President Kennedy’s assassination, the 25th Amendment was enacted to set up a constitutional procedure to transfer presidential powers.

Under Section 4, the President may be removed and replaced by the Vice President if the President cannot perform his duties for any reason including mental incapacity such as cognitive or psychological impairment.

If the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet send a written declaration to Congress that the President cannot discharge his duties, the Vice President immediately becomes Acting President.

If the President disagrees in writing, the Cabinet and Vice President have 4 days to respond. If within 21 days two-thirds of both the Senate and House approves, the Vice President remains President. If not, the original President is restored to office.

But the 25th Amendment is badly flawed. Among other things, the cabinet members have been appointed by the President and are unlikely to revoke his powers. And if they were to consider it, the President could simply fire them before they voted.

That’s why the drafters of the 25th Amendment included an alternative mechanism: Congress may pass a law designating another body other than the Cabinet to determine the President’s fitness for office

In 2020, to implement the intent of the 25th Amendment, the House passed “The Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office Act,” authored by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD). The bill did not target any specific President. It would have set up a 17-member bipartisan panel of physicians and former executive branch officers to evaluate the President’s fitness for office. To prevent partisanship, half the members would be appointed by Republicans and half by Democrats. While it passed the House, the bill did not pass the Senate.

Under present circumstances, it’s time to modernize and enact the bill. The republic should not have to improvise during a Presidential medical emergency or cognitive decline.

Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote several years ago that:

“From the perspective of the Republican leadership’s duty to their country, and indeed to the world that our imperium bestrides, leaving a man this witless and unmastered in an office with these powers and responsibilities is an act of gross negligence, which no objective on the near-term political horizon seems remotely significant enough to justify.”

Regardless of your partisan leanings, it’s time to act to limit the President’s unilateral power to launch a nuclear first strike and to use the 25th Amendment to remove a mentally impaired President.

In that event, J.D. Vance would become President, which shouldn’t bother Republicans. And for Democrats, it would still be better than allowing a mentally declining Trump to remain in power, even if Vance’s values are as reactionary as Trump’s.

And even if it doesn’t pass, it would put the issue of the President’s mental health and the danger of a unilateral nuclear first strike front and center.

Outlawing the President’s unilateral first nuclear strike right could even become one of the demands of a contemplated general strike.

This is the real threat in Trump's madness and it will stop you sleeping

I couldn’t sleep last night because I kept thinking about Trump’s response to the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner. Something about it kept worrying me.

As you may recall, instead of extending his sympathies, he said in a post to Truth Social Monday morning that:

“Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace.”

Many commentators and politicians (including several Republicans) have criticized Trump for this.

Sage Steele, former ESPN host and Trump ally, called Trump’s post “disappointing.” Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, wrote that “regardless of how you feel about Rob Reiner this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered.” Rep. Michael Lawler, Republican of New York, said, “This statement is wrong.”

Jenna Ellis, Trump’s former lawyer who’s now a conservative radio host, wrote that “this is a horrible example from Trump (and surprising considering the two attempts on his own life) and should be condemned by everyone with any decency.” New York Times columnist Bret Stephens said: “We are led by the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House.”

All true, but Trump says inappropriate things all the time, and most of us know by now that he’s a loathsome human being.

Stephens went on to charge that Trump had debased America:

“In every grotesque social media post; in every cabinet meeting devoted, North Korea-like, to adulating him; in every executive-order-signing ceremony intended to make him appear like a Chinese emperor; in every fawning reference to all the peace he’s supposedly brought the world; in every Neronic enlargement of the White House’s East Wing; in every classless dig at his predecessor; in every shady deal his family is striking to enrich itself; in every White House gathering of tech billionaires paying him court (in the literal senses of both “pay” and “court”); in every visiting foreign leader who learns to abase himself to avoid some capricious tariff or other punishment — in all this and more, our standards as a nation are being debased, our manners barbarized.”

Of course Trump is debasing America. But we already knew this, too.

What kept me up last night was something else.

I’ve worked for three presidents, one Republican and two Democrats. I’ve seen presidents up close. The job is overwhelmingly difficult. It takes a toll. But I have never seen anything remotely like what has happened to Trump.

If Trump was once rational, he no longer is.

His response to the Reiner killings, like his AI post on Oct. 18 in which he defecated on millions of protesters, reveals a depth of paranoia and grandiosity worse than anything he has shown before.

His chief of staff, Suzy Wiles, told Chris Whipple in an interview that appeared in Tuesday’s Vanity Fair that Trump has an “alcoholic’s personality” because he “operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”

Nothing he can’t do?

I don’t want to alarm you, and I hesitate to even mention this, but I couldn’t sleep knowing that Trump has the power to launch a nuclear bomb.

As commander-in-chief, he is the only person in the United States with the authority to launch a nuke. No one else need be consulted before he does. No one else can veto such an order. Not even the vice president or secretary of defense has the power to stop it.

I hope to god he doesn’t. I don’t think he would.

But what if he’s provoked? What if he feels that his manhood or his authority or his status is being threatened? What if he just wants to demonstrate to Americans and the world how strong he is?

Again, I doubt this will happen, but the risk is not zero. Here’s a man who thinks Rob and Michele Reiner were murdered because they had a “raging obsession” with him. A man who, according to his current chief of staff, has the personality of an alcoholic with delusions of omnipotence.

It’s a risk that neither the United States nor the rest of the world can afford to take.

I don’t think I’m being alarmist. If anything, I worry that we’ve become so inured to Trump’s madness that we’re not alarmist enough.

Trump must be removed from office as soon as possible.

Either Section 4 of the 25th Amendment must be invoked — because he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” — or he must be impeached and convicted under Section 4 of Article II of the Constitution for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Trump can't grasp the terrifying reality of what he just promised

On Oct. 29, just before meeting China’s President XI Jinping, Donald Trump posted on his social media network Truth Social that “because of other countries [sic] testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”

The US stopped testing nuclear weapons in 1992 — that is, detonating nuclear warheads. It regularly tests “delivery vehicles,” the missiles that would be used to carry the nuclear weapon to its intended target. The most recent of these tests took place early on Wednesday, Nov. 5, when an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, on the coast of California. It’s possible that Trump simply does not understand the difference between these two things.

Observers speculated that Trump’s nuclear test announcement was a response to Russia’s recent test of its Burevestnik missile, which is nuclear-capable — meaning it could carry a nuclear warhead, though it did not during the test — and powered by nuclear energy. Some pointed out that it would be the Department of Energy, rather than the Pentagon, that would carry out a test detonation of a nuclear weapon. Trump’s use of the phrase “on an equal basis,” given that China and Russia are not detonating nuclear weapons, was comforting to some.

Whatever he meant, it’s worth considering how this latest episode of existential terror imposed from above highlights what depths of apocalyptic misbehavior are now considered normal when it comes to how nuclear weapons countries behave toward one another.

The missile Russia tested was designed to deliver a nuclear weapon without being intercepted by missile defense systems, using nuclear power to extend its flight time much longer than non-nuclear powered missiles. The Russian government also claimed to have tested its Poseidon torpedo, also nuclear-capable and nuclear-powered, and designed to be used in coastal waters to create a huge wave of irradiated water that would wash ashore.

Neither of these, nor the ICBM test, amount to a “nuclear test.” But, should the US conduct a test explosion of a nuclear warhead, it would be adding to the environmental burden that has led to nearly half a million deaths, by one scholarly estimate, from the over 1,000 test nuclear detonations the US has carried out. (This is about half of the over 2,000 total tests carried out worldwide between 1945 and 2017.) The health and environmental effects of this testing are ongoing, and the United States hasn’t come close to cleaning up after its earlier nuclear tests.

To take just one example, waste from tests conducted in the Marshall Islands is still sitting in the Runit Dome, a cracking concrete structure on Runit Island in the Enewetak Atoll that is under constant threat from worsening storms as a result of climate change. US nuclear testing has rendered Marshallese ways of life untenable for the long term, with no real prospects for full remediation on the horizon. (ICBM tests launched from Vandenberg are aimed at the Marshall Islands’ Kwajalein Atoll, a less dramatically destructive but still significant burden on a place that has long paid a high price for the maintenance of US nuclear weapons.)

Still, even if Trump is responding to recent nuclear tests that didn’t happen, this is largely in keeping with how nuclear-armed countries tend to justify changes in their nuclear policy as reciprocal responses to unprovoked aggression, no matter what the facts are. What’s more certain, however, is that if the US tests a nuclear weapon, Russia and China are far more likely to begin testing nuclear weapons of their own, as Russia has already threatened. This would lead to more environmental damage, more health consequences across the globe, and more normalization of nuclear explosions as part of the business of doing politics.

It seems as if much of the press has lost sight of the actual stakes here. The Washington Post‘s coverage of Trump’s announcement, for one, skipped over all the reasons a nuclear test might actually be undesirable and instead merely named “far-reaching consequences for relations with adversaries” as the real thing its readers should be worried about. If that is indeed the main concern, conducting multiple missile tests a year that signal the US’s willingness to use ICBMs should be viewed for what it is — a gesture that keeps nuclear war on the mind of governments around the world as a real possibility, a norm of global politics rather than a collective fate that must be avoided at all costs.

The reality is, Americans share the unfortunate situation of everyone else in the world of being first and foremost potential victims of nuclear weaponry, vulnerable to the whims of the leaders they have theoretically empowered to control the country’s thousands of nuclear weapons, nearly all of which are much, much more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear arsenals have been maintained using advanced computer modeling for decades. The fact that nuclear test explosions have entered even the far reaches of possibility, even for an administration which embraces brutal violence with such open enthusiasm, is cause for alarm and collective action against the threat that nuclear weapons pose to human life.

It’s easy to dismiss a “test” as something less than the full terrifying reality of nuclear weapons use. In some cases, this is true. Underground nuclear tests are less immediately hazardous to human and environmental health than atmospheric tests, which the US stopped conducting in 1962. An ICBM test does not involve the detonation of a nuclear weapon.

But the scale and political importance of a nuclear weapon test means any indication of a willingness to use it under any circumstances has political significance. Historians have noted that one of the main reasons the United States ultimately decided to use nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to test whether they would work as expected.

We should not let nuclear testing once again become part of nuclear-armed countries’ business as usual. A nuclear explosion is a nuclear explosion, and the fallout will be all of ours to deal with.

Emma Claire Foley is a Program Associate at Global Zero. She runs the Global Zero Military Incidents Project, which collects and analyzes open-source data to track the risk of conflict involving nuclear-armed states. She received her A.M. in Russian and Eurasian Studies from Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

This alarming intel shows how TACO Trump will drag us into World War III

The world has often seen great wars ignited not by inevitability, but by weakness, hesitation, and betrayal. Cowards playing with matches.

History shows that one of the biggest risk factors for war is an autocratic leader who fears for his own future. Which is why the kind of pathetic incoherence we saw at the United Nations this week should concern us all.

This week’s news brings some alarming data points:

After four different Danish airports were buzzed by what many assume to be Russian drones (Danes are uncertain), a French airport was hit yesterday and a Norwegian airport was shut down by drones earlier in the week.
The US Navy fired Trident II D5 ballistic missiles from the coast of Florida, lighting up the sky as they were testing devices that could carry thermonuclear bombs deep into Russia.
A massive US Navy presence in the Caribbean and off the coast of Venezuela was just this week joined by F35s and Reaper drones as Trump has blown three Venezuela boats out of the water without congressional authorization.
In an absolutely unprecedented move, Pete “Kegger” Hegseth has ordered all the US military’s flag officers and their staffs to come to Virginia for a meeting with an unknown agenda. This is not normal military procedure; it has the stench of authoritarian consolidation, the kind of maneuver history has shown us precedes purges, coups, and crackdowns.
Russia is experiencing a nationwide fuel shortage (also in Russian-occupied Crimea) as the result of Ukrainian drones taking out refineries and depots across the nation. It’s so bad, the Kremlin has banned fuel exports until the end of the year. The nation’s economy is teetering and Putin is apparently in political trouble.
Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister Wu Chihchung warns, “China is preparing to invade Taiwan.”
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, just said, “NATO and the European Union want to declare, in fact, have already declared a real war on my country and are directly participating in it.”
NATO notified Russia that they may shoot down planes that invade NATO airspace, and Russia replied that “would be war.”

As Russian jets cross NATO skies and intelligence warns of an impending strike, while Trump — desperate for a diversion from the Epstein/Trump sex scandal and a collapsing economy —appears to be trying to provoke a war with Venezuela, the question grows louder: are we watching the sparks of a new global conflict?

And is the dangerous bond between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump the match that could light the fuse of World War III?

Remember back in July when Trump told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (during a visit to the Oval Office) that if Europe would pay for the anti-missile defense systems Ukraine desperately needs he’d see to it that they were shipped over there promptly?

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted:

“I’m grateful to our team and to the United States, Germany, and Norway for preparing a new decision on Patriots for Ukraine.”

Rutte coordinated with Germany and Norway (and later other NATO countries) to raise the billions necessary to pay for the systems to replenish stocks held by European nations, particularly France, Germany, and Denmark, that those countries are supplying to Ukraine.

The replacements should have arrived in Europe by now, a continent that’s increasingly on edge as Putin keeps flying MiGs over former Soviet client states in the Baltics.

As they supply Ukraine — which is suffering under unprecedented attacks with hundreds of missiles and drones every night — Europe’s own stockpiles that could be used to deter Russian aggression are vanishing.

Between that Oval Office meeting and now, however, Trump had his infamous red-carpet meeting with Putin in Alaska and apparently got different orders from his self-described friend and probable mentor.

As Vivian Salama reports for The Atlantic, there’s been a sudden change in the Trump administration’s position with regard to providing NATO or EU countries with defensive weaponry to replace what they’ve given to Ukraine:

“Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby said that he didn’t believe in the value of certain foreign military sales, according to two administration officials with knowledge of the discussion.”

Adding to European concerns, news broke last week that a Russian Major General who defected claims Putin is planning a full-on invasion of both Ukraine and parts of the Baltic states — all NATO members — “before Christmas.”

The British newspaper the Daily Express reported, in an article headlined “Russia's 'greyzone' invasion plan to start WW3 before Christmas revealed by defector”:

“Moscow is preparing a ‘greyzone’ attack on Poland before Christmas, a senior Russian military official has revealed.

“The warning, sent through an Eastern European ally during London’s DSEI arms fair last week, has triggered urgent discussions in the UK and US about the risk of a deniable strike aimed at fracturing NATO.”

Poland, Romania, and Estonia have all seen Russian MiGs violate their airspace in the past two weeks, scrambling NATO jets as Poland and Estonia have invoked NATO’s Article 4 process to stand up to potential aggression.

It appears to me (just my opinion) that when Putin met with Trump in Alaska either he ordered Trump to back away from Ukraine and NATO, or simply took the measure of the man and concluded he could launch an invasion of the Baltics with a low probability that the United States under the convicted felon would respond militarily. Trump’s recent blocking of Patriot systems to Europe suggests the former rather than the latter.

Europe is taking this threat seriously. Great Britain this past week dispatched Royal Air Force jets to Poland with backup from Voyager tankers; they join German, French, Swedish, and Danish jets that began patrolling the eastern flank of the Baltic nations after the first Polish incursions.

Donald Tusk, Poland’s Prime Minister, warned that his nation — and, implicitly, the region — is now closer to military conflict “than at any time since the Second World War.” The UK’s OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) Ambassador, Neil Holland, was explicit that these were not accidental incursions into NATO airspace:

“Either Russia has deployed systems it cannot control, or it is provoking us deliberately.”

According to the Express reporting, British intelligence isn’t expecting a full-on invasion of Eastern Europe but, instead — at least initially — the same sort of “deniable” pinpoint attacks Putin has used to precede his later, larger assaults on other nations including Georgia and Ukraine. One UK intelligence official said:

“There’s no suggestion of a full-scale invasion. But a calibrated strike – something deniable, something confusing – is exactly how Russia has operated in the past.”

He added:

“They’re probing NATO. If they can strike Poland and NATO flinches — even slightly — it undermines the whole alliance.”

At the same time, Russia has reportedly launched a full-scale “coordinated information warfare” assault on Finland via the internet and social media. Finland shares a 833-mile border with Russia, which, as the USSR, has invaded that nation twice in modern times, once in 1939 and again in 1941.

Marco Giannangeli, Defence and Diplomatic Editor for Express, pointed out:

“Western officials fear the disinformation campaign is intended to soften the ground for further provocations along the Gulf of Finland.”

Putin’s apparently taking Trump’s TACO (“Trump Always Chickens Out”) label to heart. Tragically, the entire world may soon see the consequence of a blustering, incompetent, race/deportation-obsessed, apparently terrified-of-Putin president who’s surrounded himself with people whose singular quality is not competence but loyalty and a willingness to break tradition and the law on the boss’ behalf.

History will not forgive miscalculation at this scale. With Europe bracing for attack, NATO stockpiles running dry, Trump near provoking war with Venezuela, and Putin — in deep trouble at home — probing for weakness, the world stands at a perilous crossroads.

The only question now is whether this moment will be remembered as the turning point that stopped another world war, or the disaster when Trump and Putin together opened the gates to it.

Trump holds all the cards — yet he just got played

The U.S. Massive Ordnance Penetrator (“MOP”), weighing in at 30,000 pounds, was designed to destroy weapons of mass destruction buried in mountains or deep below the earth’s surface. The MOP is so heavy it can only be lifted by a B-2 bomber, which can perform attack missions at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet.

Israel does not own an MOP bomb or the B-2 bombers needed to carry it — both were developed and are owned exclusively by the United States Air Force. Although Trump claims credit for it, the MOP was developed in 2004 under the Bush administration, and U.S. weapons engineers have tested and refined it ever since.

Israel has been asking the U.S. for an Ordnance Penetrator for years, and lobbied for it hard in 2004. Until now, no administration would commit. But this week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — either seeking to prolong his own rule, or because he found evidence of an “imminent” threat, depending on what media sources you consume, forced Trump’s hand by unilaterally attacking the sites of Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities.

Ending Iran’s nuclear program

Without the MOP, Israel’s laudable goal of ending Iran’s nuclear weapons proliferation — if, indeed, that is what Iran is up to —cannot succeed. There is no disagreement among military experts about the necessity of the bomber. It’s use is the only way to effectuate Israel’s goal of disabling Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities.

Netanyahu, however, started the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities without consulting, conferring or strategizing with Trump, while Trump was still trying to get Iran to negotiate an end to its uranium enrichment.

In March, Tulsi Gabbard, the U.S. director of national intelligence, testified before Congress that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khameini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” Just last week, Trump was still trying to negotiate an agreement with Iran, and “remained hopeful that his Middle East peace negotiator, Steve Witkoff, who had been scheduled to conduct another round of peace talks in the region Sunday, could soon get an agreement over the line.”

But earlier this week, lacking any hint of strategy, and without any evidence to support an about-face, Trump posted that everyone in Tehran, a city of 10 million, should “immediately evacuate,” and demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender.”

So much for Trump’s oft-repeated promise to pull America out of endless wars.

Bibi played Trump’s hand

The Fordow enrichment lab, under the control of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, is a uranium enrichment facility buried deep in the mountains outside the Iranian city of Qom. It’s size, secrecy, and location led analysts to doubt Iran’s proffered non-military purpose of the facility, despite Gabbard’s assessment. Many experts agree that Iran built the Fordow lab for the covert production of weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium (HEU), making it a key target in Israel’s strikes.

Brett McGurk, who worked under four American presidents of both parties on Middle East issues, told the New York Times that Fordow has “been the crux” of Iran’s weapons development all along. McGurk, along with other weapons experts, agree that if Israel’s newest bombing campaign against Iran ends with Fordow still enriching uranium, Israel’s campaign will have failed.

U.S. military strategists have been testing the MOP bomb in simulation labs enough to know that one bomb won’t do it. To successfully wreck Fordow, the attack will have to come in waves, with B-2s firing one bomb after another down the same hole into the mountain. The operation can only be executed by an American pilot and crew.

A reality TV president

The timing, in terms of U.S. national security, could not be worse. Trump is fresh off the heels of a globally embarrassing military parade that cost taxpayers $45 million. Hundreds of thousands of spectators were expected to attend but most media outlets, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, reported sparse attendance, extremely low energy, and mostly empty bleachers. The optics were painful. Trump’s Kim Jong-un style parade quickly became an international joke, with the most viral social media clip showing a tank rolling by empty spectator benches accompanied only by the lonely sound of creaking metal.

Fox News, of course, fawned over tanks in the street, and praised the parade with uninterrupted coverage. But the rest of the world saw the real spectacle happening at the same time: over 5 million people turned out to protest against Trump in over 2,100 cities across the nation. The anti-Trump No Kings Day demonstration was hailed as the largest protest in U.S. history.

Following this embarrassing split screen, publicized around the world, Trump likely appreciates that Israel, by bombing Iran and pulling the U.S. into its war, changed the channel.

Trump brought us here

It can’t be forgotten that Trump led us to this precarious path when he withdrew from the Iranian nuclear agreement in 2018, after it had been painstakingly hammered out among several nations including the U.S., Iran, France, Germany, Great Britain, China and Russia.

At the time he withdrew from the agreement, Trump’s move was expected to embolden hard-line forces in Iran, supercharging a Middle East arms race. If Netanyahu is to be believed, that is exactly what happened. President Barack Obama, whose team negotiated the agreement, predicted that Trump’s withdrawal would “leave the world less safe,” and confronted with “a losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East.”

And that losing choice is exactly where we are.

As of this writing, nothing is certain, but my money is on Trump deploying the MOP.

For one thing, Trump’s parade flop denied him the spectacle of military lethality he so desperately craves. Deploying the bomber will allow 24/7 Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax coverage of Trump beating his chest. For another thing, Trump is demanding a $1 trillion dollar defense budget while purporting to keep the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. It’s only a matter of time before senators put two and two together and figure out that Trump wants that $1 trillion to morph the military into a domestic attack force to be deployed on American soil, against American citizens who live in Democratic-run cities.

Deploying the MOP against Iran will help delay that moment of realization and provide Republicans with some diverting optics — cue Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in aviator glasses, manning a fighter jet. It could even help Trump’s budget negotiations.

It's too much to expect an effective Israel strategy from Trump, given that Netanyahu and his advisors are operating well above the second-grade level of intellect parading in the White House. Afghanistan should have taught us — even Trump — that it is far easier to topple a hostile foreign regime than it is to replace it with a functioning government acceptable to its people. Israel, if it topples the Khamenei regime, could end up leaving Iran in the hands of violent factions even more dangerous than they are now.

Netanyahu will likely get his way with Trump and the MOP, and he knows it. Fox News will re-write the narrative and sell it as proof of Trump’s genius, which 45% of the country will buy, and the U.S. will find itself in another Neanderthal war that will never end.

Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are found @ Alternet, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News, and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.