Trump’s Secret War Fears Leak Out as GOP Grows Unnerved: “Alarm Bells”

On Monday, Donald Trump exploded in telling tirades. In one, he raged that he (just he) is winning the war “BY A LOT” and bizarrely stressed that “I’m in charge!” In another, he emphasized that he feels “under no pressure whatsoever” to reach a deal with Iran. Why is Trump so fearful of appearing to lose control? Well, The Wall Street Journal has a striking new report relating that gas prices and the war recently had the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis “looming large in his mind. He’s “grappling behind the scenes with just how badly things could go wrong.” In short: He fears looking like Jimmy Carter as the midterms approach. Indeed, Politico reports that prices have some Republicans sounding “alarm bells” about this fall. We talked to The Lever’s David Sirota, narrator of the “Master Plan” podcast, whose new season focuses on the hyper-powerful presidency. We discuss Trump’s growing fears that events are slipping from his grasp, how this is rooted paradoxically in his assertion of an imperial presidency, how decades of failure led to this moment, and how Democrats can run against his imperial rule. Listen to this episode here.