The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The planet’s most important oil chokepoint is one nervous twitch away from catastrophe and Donald Trump is, of course, handling it on Truth Social. After reciprocal U.S.–Iran strikes over the Strait of Hormuz started to shred what’s left of a "peace deal," Trump announced, in all caps, that “IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING” in Doha. Iran’s negotiators then politely replied, "What meeting?" because nothing says stable global order like nuclear-adjacent adversaries playing He Said/They Said via press releases and social media.

Behind the bluster, the U.S. and Iran are supposedly trying to turn a fragile interim agreement into a final deal: technical teams, de-escalation channels, and a U.N.-backed shipping route near Oman that lets tankers sneak past Iran’s self-declared tollbooth. Tehran, furious that reality is not respecting its imagined monopoly over Hormuz, responded like any totally normal, responsible government by attacking ships and hitting Bahrain and Kuwait, while Washington launched strikes “across Iran” to protect commercial traffic and whatever’s left of deterrence.

Trump, ever the diplomat, is publicly threatening to “militarily complete the job” the U.S. “successfully started,” as if war with Iran is a home renovation project he’s been meaning to finish. Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian is simultaneously selling the interim deal at home as a heroic victory that will unlock $6 billion in frozen assets, while his own deputy foreign minister insists there are no technical talks scheduled in Doha. So we’ve got a U.S. president saber-rattling online, an Iranian leadership contradicting itself in state media, and a major waterway being treated like a mob protection racket. What could possibly go wrong with this carefully curated path to peace?

European leaders are apparently living in a quantum thought experiment where NATO both exists and doesn’t, depending on whether Donald Trump woke up wanting to help defend Europe or shake it down like a mob boss with nuclear weapons. The European Council on Foreign Relations politely calls this a “Schrödinger’s NATO” moment; the less polite version is: the continent’s security now hinges on the mood swings of a guy who once tried to blackmail Ukraine for dirt.

While Vladimir Putin tests how much of Ukraine he can chew off, Europe is heroically responding by… letting French and German defense contractors torpedo a £100bn joint fighter-jet program over who gets to hoard the tech and the glory. As Spain’s defense minister dryly notes, it’s not ideal when Dassault’s ego outranks Europe’s security. Meanwhile, everyone keeps buying US F-35s that only work as long as Washington feels like letting them, and the US is already leaning on Italy over its AI air defense project to make sure the gravy train of dependency keeps flowing.

Brussels is trying to duct-tape together a response with a new EU defence industrial strategy and €150bn in cheap loans, plus a patchwork of side deals like the UK–Finland–Netherlands procurement club. And yet, even as G7 leaders trek to Evian to sweet-talk Trump into maybe pressuring Putin this week, the editorial’s whole subtext is: Europe either grows up and stops relying on flattering an aspiring autocrat, or it keeps gambling its survival on the hope that the guy who loves strongmen suddenly decides to stand up to one.

Donald Trump hopped on the phone with Benjamin Netanyahu and, according to Donald Trump, also with Hezbollah, declared that "all shooting will stop" and that there would be "no Troops going to Beirut" because the Commander-in-Chief of Vibes said so. Within hours, Israel was still striking southern Lebanon, a civil defense center was hit, soldiers were wounded by a drone, hospitals were damaged, and people were fleeing Beirut while the self-described dealmaking genius posted through the collapse of his own ceasefire.

The White House now says the president had a "very productive" call with Netanyahu in which Trump reportedly called him "crazy" in an expletive-laden rant, and then bragged that Hezbollah had also agreed to stand down after his "very good call" with them — marking what appears to be the first time a U.S. president has chatted up a State Department–designated terrorist organization like it’s a condo board dispute. Meanwhile, Iran threatened to suspend negotiations and floated retaliation if Israel keeps bombing Lebanon, while Trump alternated between saying talks might be over and insisting they're continuing "at a rapid pace," because nothing projects stability like your nuclear diplomacy sounding like a live tweet of a reality show reunion.

So on one side: Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran trading threats, rockets, and airstrikes; on the other: Trump, announcing ceasefires that don’t exist, freelancing U.S. war policy in public, and turning the entire region into a stage for his personal fan fiction about being the world’s greatest negotiator. Actual diplomacy remains missing in action, but at least the president got a fresh Truth Social post out of it while civilians in Tyre and Beirut dig themselves out of the rubble.

Mohammad Al-Saadi, an alleged commander of Kata’ib Hizballah, has been indicted on eight counts tied to nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks across Europe, Canada, and the U.S. Prosecutors say he helped direct assaults on U.S. banks, synagogues, and Jewish communities — essentially running a global terror franchise with a very specific target demographic. Because this timeline is cursed, sources now say he also talked about wanting to target Ivanka Trump in Florida, presumably to avenge U.S. strikes on his mentors.

The Justice Department’s indictment somehow skips the part about the alleged Ivanka plot, leaving that detail to quietly leak out via reporters and the New York Post, which is what passes for a communications strategy in the Trump era: indict in formal legalese, leak the really explosive parts to tabloids, and let the rest of us connect the dots. The White House and Secret Service didn’t respond to questions — possibly busy workshopping whether this will be used to justify more crackdowns, more surveillance, or just more fundraising emails about how only Trump can protect the Trump family.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche vowed to prosecute Al-Saadi “under American law in an American courtroom,” which is a refreshing commitment to due process from an administration that usually treats the justice system like a personal Yelp account. Meanwhile, the same crew that screams about "weaponized DOJ" every time someone with an R after their name gets indicted is now suddenly thrilled to have federal prosecutors flexing their muscles — as long as the case can be framed as defending the royal family’s favorite influencer from a foreign boogeyman.

Google has reportedly signed on to let the Pentagon run its AI models on classified networks for basically “any lawful government purpose”, which is Washington-speak for: we’ll decide what’s lawful after we’ve done it. The deal includes Google helping the military tweak or dial down safety filters whenever the government asks, because nothing says "responsible AI" like handing the off-switch for guardrails to the same institution that brought you warrantless surveillance and forever wars.

The contract solemnly declares the AI system is not intended for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons without appropriate human oversight — the kind of carefully lawyered phrase that will look great on the slide deck at the Hague. Google, now freed from its old promise not to build tech that causes "overall harm", insists this is all about national security, while also conceding it has no power to veto what the Pentagon actually does with the tools. The fox has signed a memorandum of understanding with the henhouse and agreed to provide premium analytics.

Inside the company, more than 600 employees are frantically waving little ethical red flags, begging Sundar Pichai not to let their work be used in "inhumane or extremely harmful ways" — a concern that was apparently edited out of the latest quarterly earnings report. This is the sequel to the 2018 Project Maven revolt, except this time Google didn’t walk away; it rewrote the rulebook so it wouldn’t have to. Meanwhile, Anthropic gets labeled a "supply-chain risk" for refusing to help with autonomous weapons and surveillance, which is Washington’s new term for "company that still has a functioning conscience."

The Pentagon quietly announced that Navy Secretary John Phelan is "departing the administration, effective immediately," which is a very polite way of saying Reuters heard he was fired and everyone else is pretending this is fine. His replacement, at least for now, is Navy undersecretary Hung Cao, who has the rare distinction in this administration of having actually served in the military instead of just on a yacht with a flag.

Phelan, a major Trump donor with zero prior military or serious civilian leadership experience in the Navy, somehow landed the top civilian job anyway, because under Trump the chain of command starts with the checkbook. His résumé highlight? Founding an investment firm and advising a nonprofit called Spirit of America – which is basically like listing "I watched Top Gun twice" under relevant experience. He’s being tossed overboard just as the U.S. Navy is running a blockade of Iranian ports during a "tenuous" ceasefire in the Iran war, so naturally, there’s no explanation given for why the guy in charge got yanked mid-crisis.

This is all part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ongoing game of four-star Whac-A-Mole, where he’s already fired the Army’s top officer, Gen Randy George, plus a growing list of generals, admirals, and senior defense officials for crimes such as "existing" and "having independent judgment." No reasons, no transparency, just a rolling purge of anyone who might remember that the military swears an oath to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump’s feelings.

Cao, for his part, is a 25-year Navy veteran and failed Virginia Senate candidate who once compared communist Vietnam to Joe Biden’s administration, so he’s got the combat experience and the Fox News audition tape this White House craves. The message from Trumpworld remains crystal clear: you can buy yourself a Cabinet job, but you can’t buy job security. The only truly stable thing in this Pentagon is the chaos.

The Trump White House just had a "productive and constructive" meeting with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, which is a very diplomatic way of saying: the administration tried to kneecap his company for not handing over an all‑purpose surveillance and weapons bot, and now they need his new super hacker AI too badly to keep pretending.

Two months ago, the administration branded Anthropic a "supply chain risk" – the first US company ever publicly slapped with that label – right after Amodei refused the Pentagon's push for unfettered access to its tools over concerns they'd be used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly retaliated with the designation, a federal court largely agreed, and yet somehow the same agencies still quietly keep using Anthropic anyway. Regulation as performance art; procurement as addiction.

Trump, naturally, ranted that Anthropic was run by "left wing nut jobs" and vowed the government would "not do business with them again!" while his own bureaucracy continued doing business with them again, and again, and again. Now Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles are huddling with Amodei to "explore the balance" between innovation and safety, which appears to translate to: how do we get this Mythos model that "outperforms humans at hacking" without admitting we weaponised procurement rules to punish a company for not building us a turnkey surveillance state?

Asked about the CEO’s White House visit, Trump claimed he had "no idea" it was happening, which is either a lie or an accidental confession that the government is negotiating access to a world‑class cyber weapon behind the back of the guy who keeps screaming on social media that he’s in charge. Either way, the message is clear: refuse to build mass spying tools and killer robots, get branded a national security threat… until your tech is too good to blacklist, at which point everyone pretends this was just a friendly chat about "shared protocols" and not a hostage negotiation with the future of civil liberties.