There are signs the political game has changed in the United States since Hungarian voters rejected Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s leadership on Sunday, April 12. His party’s loss of control of the government to a supermajority of its opponents undermined the belief that right-wing authoritarianism was an unstoppable force in world politics. Since MAGA Republicans had tied themselves to Orbán and his movement, his loss also weakened their own claims to inevitable victory over those trying to protect democracy.
On Sunday night (April 12), President Donald J. Trump appeared to melt down on social media. In The Atlantic today, Tom Nichols noted that Trump’s “emotional state seems to be fraying: This weekend, he attacked Pope Leo XIV, presented himself as Jesus Christ, and then jabbed at his phone until dawn.” Nichols notes that after Trump attacked the Pope and portrayed himself as Jesus, he posted an AI version of a Trump Tower on the moon. (“Sure,” Nichols writes. “Why not?”)
Then Trump posted a meme of how senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and former president Joe Biden all look old—unlike Trump—and then posted clips from Newsmax. The postings continued throughout the night. “This is not the behavior of a stable, healthy leader,” Nichols writes. “The American people must not look away…. They must pay attention to the president’s deterioration, and insist that the House and Senate start acting like functioning branches of the government by asking the White House to explain what is happening, without insults or evasions, before the eyes of the country and the world.”
Trump has tried to explain away the AI image he posted on social media on Sunday depicting himself as Jesus, clothed in robes, bathed in radiant light, and apparently healing a man in bed. After an extraordinary outcry over the image from his evangelical Christian followers, he took the image down, telling reporters “I thought it was me as a doctor” and claiming that “only the fake news” could suggest the image showed him as Jesus. He added: “I do make people better.”
With the House back in session today, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill to establish an independent commission to evaluate the president’s mental state. The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution establishes a process by which either a majority of the Cabinet or a majority of a body created by Congress to evaluate the president’s fitness can declare that a president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” In a press release, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee expressed concern about “Trump’s escalating erratic conduct.” The bill has fifty Democratic co-sponsors.
“Public trust in Donald Trump’s ability to meet the duties of his office has dropped to unprecedented lows as he threatens to destroy entire civilizations, unleashes chaos in the Middle East while violating Congressional war powers, aggressively insults the Pope of the Catholic Church and sends out artistic renderings online likening himself to Jesus Christ. We are at a dangerous precipice, and it is now a matter of national security for Congress to fulfill its responsibilities under the 25th Amendment to protect the American people from an increasingly volatile and unstable situation,” Raskin said in a statement.
Trump’s deteriorating mental state has become impossible to overlook, but Republicans are making excuses for it. Cabinet members, who owe their positions to Trump and who likely recognize they will never rise to such power again in a merit-based system, will probably not question Trump’s mental acuity. But Raskin’s measure will force Republicans in Congress either to vote for an independent commission to evaluate Trump or to own his increasingly erratic behavior themselves.
Today, when asked if he were comfortable with Trump’s threat of last week that an entire civilization would die if it did not meet his demands, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) changed the subject by saying: “You’ve got to…look at what the president is doing, and I think right now he’s trying to open the Strait of Hormuz, which…we are all supportive of.” The strait was, of course, open before Trump attacked Iran.
The Lincoln Project accused Republicans of “ignoring Trump’s sharp mental decline the same way they’ve ignored his crimes.”
Trump’s erratic behavior has led the U.S. into disaster by striking Iran, which in turn attacked its neighbors and closed the Strait of Hormuz. After unsuccessfully bullying other nations to force Iran to reopen the strait to all ships, not just to those of certain nations, Trump last week declared a ceasefire and a framework for an agreement, then suggested the U.S. and Iran would together manage the strait. When Iran continued to maintain control of it, Trump announced the U.S. would blockade the strait to make sure no ships at all could cross through it, with the idea that the U.S. can withstand the economic pain that closure will cause for a longer time than Iran can.
Data released today show that wholesale inflation has risen to 4%, the highest annual rate in three years. Today Marta Pacheco of EuroNews reported that the last of the vessels that left the Strait of Hormuz before the U.S. and Israel struck Iran have reached Europe. Analysts expect a new surge in energy prices. In Talking Points Memo today, David Kurtz points out that the economic mess in which the U.S., and the world, finds itself is entirely Trump’s fault. The trade wars, unjustified war in the Middle East, and attacks on U.S. science, universities, and immigration that are throttling economic growth are all a product of Trump’s personal choices.
As the war enters its seventh week, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said today that Senate Democrats will repeatedly force votes on war powers resolutions designed to force Trump to get congressional authorization before any further military action in Iran. “Forty-five days into this war, Congress has been sidelined because our Republican colleagues refuse to take a strong stand against this war and duck it completely because they’re afraid of Trump,” Schumer said today.
Thune and other Republicans countered with the belief that the war won’t go on much longer, and they support Trump’s actions.
Today former attorney general Pam Bondi was scheduled to testify under oath before the House Oversight and Reform Committee about the Department of Justice’s handling of the release of the Epstein files. The DOJ has released only about half of those files despite a law requiring it to produce them all no later than December 19 of last year. Many of the records it did release are heavily redacted, despite the very few and very specific conditions under which Congress allowed such redactions.
Bondi did not show up.
The Department of Justice is taking the position that since she was subpoenaed as attorney general and no longer holds that position, the subpoena was no longer in force.
Democrats on the committee disagree.
Representative Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who was a prosecutor before she entered the House, posted: “Pam Bondi refused to show up for today’s Oversight deposition—defying our lawful subpoena. We couldn’t care less that she was fired from her job as Attorney General. She is responsible for leading the White House cover-up of the Epstein files. Since she didn’t show up, Oversight Democrats will move to hold her in contempt of Congress. The survivors deserve justice—and we will get answers. Enough is enough.”
Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, told the Weeknight: “People have to be held accountable for the laws that we pass in the Congress and the subpoenas that we put in place.”