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Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Brendan Smialowski\/AFP via Getty Images.<\/p>\n
Sign up for the Surge<\/a>, the newsletter that covers the most important political nonsense of the week, delivered to your inbox every Saturday.<\/p>\n Welcome to this week\u2019s edition of the Surge, Slate\u2019s politics newsletter funded by a new toll on the Strait of Hormuz. The new revenue stream will allow us to branch out from the newsletter business and into the product of the future: ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n We never thought we\u2019d say this but: Congress really needs to come back. Not that they would adequately provide adult supervision to Donald Trump, but he seems to go especially loopy when he has the town to himself. Maybe some more dinner companions would help? Should he get a cat?<\/p>\n Let\u2019s get into it.<\/p>\n \n 1.\n <\/p>\n Donald Trump<\/p>\n The dangerous escalation embedded in TACO. The week revolved around one of the most sickening things Trump has ever said. \u201cA whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,\u201d Trump posted<\/a> ahead of his Tuesday night deadline for Iran to come to the table. \u201cI don\u2019t want that to happen, but it probably will.\u201d The threat of civilization-ending war crimes prompted dozens of Democrats to call for his removal from office and loud rebukes from key voices in the MAGA movement (as well as all generally sane people). Shortly before the deadline, though, Trump called off his bombardment and agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran to attempt to negotiate a deal. That ceasefire has been proceeding delicately.<\/p>\n The Surge was grateful in this case that Trump always chickens out (TACO). But for a U.S. president to even threaten such overt war crimes, and to set up his decision for an 8 p.m. prime-time special, shows how he\u2019s rebranded the country into a rogue state. We should only expect more maniacal threats as time goes on. The idea that Trump will chicken out from his wild threats is so built into markets and diplomacy that he needs to resort to progressively more extreme threats in order to get the reaction he needs to change course\u2014typically a market downturn, or a panicked response from his counterparties. There are still nearly three years left in his term. That is not a formula for civilizational security, and whatnot.<\/p>\n \n 2.\n <\/p>\n J.d. vance<\/p>\n Man, imagine foreign powers interfering in the Hungarian election \u2026<\/p>\n The vice president hasn\u2019t been his trash-talking, omnipresent, ever-tweeting self since Trump initiated the Iran war. Vance was the senior administration figure most opposed to the war, as a big New York Times story this week<\/a>\u2014for which Vance should\u2019ve been given a byline\u2014explained in detail. As a pick-me-up present to himself, then, Vance spent spring break in Hungary this week to campaign for Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n ahead of Sunday\u2019s election, in which Orb\u00e1n is trailing in the polls. Orb\u00e1n has a cult-like following among the American small-l post-liberal right, who are willing to overlook his weak economic performance and servility to Russia<\/a> because he wants people to have more babies<\/a>, and seem to look at his corruption and democratic backsliding with great envy\/inspiration.<\/p>\n It\u2019s uncommon practice, to put it lightly, for the administration to make an endorsement in an ally\u2019s election and send its No. 2 official to the campaign trail. Even more brazen, though, was how J.D. Vance accused other countries\u2014other allies!\u2014of inappropriately interfering in Hungary\u2019s election. Speaking of the European Union, Vance said that \u201cwhat has happened in the midst of this election campaign is one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I\u2019ve ever seen or ever even read about,\u201d accusing the E.U. of economic sabotage against Orb\u00e1n (when really the E.U. props up<\/a> Orb\u00e1n\u2019s crappy economy). He took shots<\/a> at Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and got Trump to dial into the rally (after multiple missed calls). Vance, of course, vehemently denied that he was interfering in any way.<\/p>\n \n 3.\n <\/p>\n The MAGAsphere<\/p>\n Revolt among the influencers.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s threats to destroy Iranian infrastructure and civilization sparked an open revolt<\/a> among voices<\/a> in the MAGAsphere. Tucker Carlson, a consistent critic of Trump\u2019s interventionist streak, warned that the president was leaning toward nuclear war and urged military officers to refuse his orders. Infowars host Alex Jones asked<\/a>, \u201cHow do we 25th Amendment his ass?\u201d Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and conservative conspiracist Candace Owens also called for Trump to be removed from office, with Owens calling<\/a> Trump a \u201cgenocidal lunatic\u201d and calling on Congress and the military to \u201cintervene.\u201d<\/p>\n And yet, we\u2019re loath to call this a \u201cschism\u201d in the president\u2019s base, or suggest that the bottom is falling out. Instead, these influencers and conservative media voices are exposing why they had been so loyal before reaching this breaking point. Beyond these MAGA gatekeepers, actual Republican voters are still<\/a> supportive<\/a> of Trump\u2019s war and trust him on the issue. Assuming (assuming!) Trump finds a way to wrap up the war in the near future, his base will remain intact, and these MAGA voices will mostly find their way back to Trump\u2014because that\u2019s where their audience will still be.<\/p>\n \n 4.\n <\/p>\n Pope Leo XIV<\/p>\n War on the Vatican next?<\/p>\n Joining the ad hoc coalition between Democrats and some MAGA influencers in condemning Trump\u2019s existential threats against Iran was a certain White Sox fan who runs the Catholic Church. \u201cToday, as we all know, there was this threat against all the people of Iran,\u201d Pope Leo XIV said Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cThis is truly unacceptable.\u201d He said these words only a couple of days after his Easter homily, in which he warned against the \u201cdesire for domination.\u201d The pope has generally not been shy in his criticism of Trump, either over his imperialist ambitions or his treatment of immigrants.<\/p>\n Some reporting later in the week, too, suggested that the White House hasn\u2019t exactly been willing to let this slide. In January, following Trump\u2019s capture of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, Leo had been critical, saying<\/a> that \u201ca diplomacy that promotes dialog and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies.\u201d According to a report in the Free Press, the remarks prompted Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby to summon the Vatican\u2019s ambassador to the U.S. to the Pentagon and upbraid him, warning him<\/a> that \u201cthe United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world\u201d and that \u201cthe Catholic Church had better take its side.\u201d The Pentagon described<\/a> this and other lurid reports<\/a> of the meeting as \u201chighly exaggerated and distorted.\u201d But the Vatican nevertheless was spooked enough that Leo opted against returning to his home country for the America 250 celebration this summer.<\/p>\n \n 5.\n <\/p>\n Todd Blanche<\/p>\n Who loves Trump enough to be his next attorney general?<\/p>\n Will He Or Won\u2019t He (Eradicate Persia)? wasn\u2019t the only game show Trump debuted this week. The AGeepstakes is going strong, as D.C.\u2019s most broken masochists jockey for a chance to have their lives ruined by becoming Trump\u2019s attorney general. In the mix we have: Trump\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency Director Lee Zeldin, who\u2019s been dutifully performing the work<\/a> of reintroducing poisons to the environment; Todd Blanche, Trump\u2019s former personal attorney, who is performing the job on an acting basis; Jeanine Pirro, the ex\u2013Fox News host and D.C. U.S. attorney; and Harmeet Dhillon, who\u2019s worked hard<\/a> on behalf of Trump to target civil rights as the lead of the DOJ\u2019s Civil Rights Division.<\/p>\n The most memorable AGeepstakes moment of the week came in a Blanche press conference. Blanche, who was confirmed as deputy attorney general last year, said any task that Trump offered going forward would be fine with him. \u201cIf President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that\u2019s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that\u2019s an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and I go back to being the DAG, that\u2019s an honor.\u201d Then: \u201cIf he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, \u2018Thank you very much. I love you, sir.\u2019 \u201d Read that one more time, then think about how Blanche might still be the most reasonable of all of these candidates, then go take a cold shower. Pirro, meanwhile, has some catching up to do. In a recent New York magazine profile<\/a>, she said of Trump: \u201cI grew to\u2014I don\u2019t want to use the word\u00a0love\u2014to really respect and like him.\u201d If you really want the job, maybe use the word love next time!<\/p>\n \n 6.\n <\/p>\n steve hilton<\/p>\n Trump ruins the fun in California. Democrats, who can only make themselves feel alive by panicking about worst-case scenarios, have been fantasizing over a juicy one in California. Given that every ambitious Democrat and their mother was splitting up the Democratic vote in the gubernatorial primary, the possibility existed that two Republican candidates\u2014British-born policy adviser and Fox News host Steve Hilton and MAGA Sheriff Chad Bianco\u2014might advance from the state\u2019s jungle primary system on to November\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n
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