This week, as the country entered the eighth week of Trump’s Iran War, Trump appeared to be backed into a corner. He spent the week spewing false claims about the state of negotiations, the ever-changing objectives of the war, and on what had been achieved; but by the week’s end, amid all his bluster and bravado, he chose to extend the ceasefire for the fifth time, this time indefinitely. Troubling reporting by the WSJ indicated that while Trump projected bravado, privately he was scared about a war that has gotten away from him, and with his erratic behavior and impatience, national security officials had taken to excluding him from the room during a major operation.

Meanwhile at home, the federal agencies are in disarray. Trump fired a third cabinet member, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the third firing in recent weeks, all women. FBI Director Kash Patel sued The Atlantic over an article detailing his alcohol abuse and its impact on his work, notably during a war. Homeland Security Sec. Markwayne Mullin suggested his agency would run out of money in early May, again during a war. Health and Human Services Sec. Robert Kennedy continued his free-fall, as measles cases continued to spike, and he refused to back Trump’s latest pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control.

All the while, Trump found time to focus on his ballroom, his arch, and pursuing retribution and petty grievances against his perceived enemies. In fact, reporting continued to indicate he repeatedly tried to pivot away to other topics from the Iran War, which he has put himself in unilateral control of, as this week once again, both the Senate and the House failed to pass measures to rein in his war power. Trump’s polling continues to crater to new lows of not only the second regime, but both regimes. The American people largely do not support his Iran War, or his increasingly erratic behavior, including his continued conflict with Pope Leo XIV.