The one huge flaw with TACO that could explode in our faces.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, Slate’s 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.

We never thought we’d 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?

Let’s get into it.

1.

Donald Trump

The dangerous escalation embedded in TACO.
 

The week revolved around one of the most sickening things Trump has ever said. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump posted ahead of his Tuesday night deadline for Iran to come to the table. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” 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.

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’s 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—typically 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.

2.

J.d. vance

Man, imagine foreign powers interfering in the Hungarian election …

The vice president hasn’t 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—for which Vance should’ve been given a byline—explained 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 Orbán ahead of Sunday’s election, in which Orbán is trailing in the polls. Orbán 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 because he wants people to have more babies, and seem to look at his corruption and democratic backsliding with great envy/inspiration.

It’s uncommon practice, to put it lightly, for the administration to make an endorsement in an ally’s election and send its No. 2 official to the campaign trail. Even more brazen, though, was how J.D. Vance accused other countries—other allies!—of inappropriately interfering in Hungary’s election. Speaking of the European Union, Vance said that “what has happened in the midst of this election campaign is one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I’ve ever seen or ever even read about,” accusing the E.U. of economic sabotage against Orbán (when really the E.U. props up Orbán’s crappy economy). He took shots 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.

3.

The MAGAsphere

Revolt among the influencers.

Trump’s threats to destroy Iranian infrastructure and civilization sparked an open revolt among voices in the MAGAsphere. Tucker Carlson, a consistent critic of Trump’s interventionist streak, warned that the president was leaning toward nuclear war and urged military officers to refuse his orders. Infowars host Alex Jones asked, “How do we 25^th Amendment his ass?” Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and conservative conspiracist Candace Owens also called for Trump to be removed from office, with Owens calling Trump a “genocidal lunatic” and calling on Congress and the military to “intervene.”

And yet, we’re loath to call this a “schism” in the president’s 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 supportive of Trump’s 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—because that’s where their audience will still be.

4.

Pope Leo XIV

War on the Vatican next?

Joining the ad hoc coalition between Democrats and some MAGA influencers in condemning Trump’s existential threats against Iran was a certain White Sox fan who runs the Catholic Church. “Today, as we all know, there was this threat against all the people of Iran,” Pope Leo XIV said Tuesday. “This is truly unacceptable.” He said these words only a couple of days after his Easter homily, in which he warned against the “desire for domination.” The pope has generally not been shy in his criticism of Trump, either over his imperialist ambitions or his treatment of immigrants.

Some reporting later in the week, too, suggested that the White House hasn’t exactly been willing to let this slide. In January, following Trump’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Leo had been critical, saying that “a 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.” According to a report in the Free Press, the remarks prompted Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby to summon the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. to the Pentagon and upbraid him, warning him that “the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world” and that “the Catholic Church had better take its side.” The Pentagon described this and other lurid reports of the meeting as “highly exaggerated and distorted.” But the Vatican nevertheless was spooked enough that Leo opted against returning to his home country for the America 250 celebration this summer.

5.

Todd Blanche

Who loves Trump enough to be his next attorney general?

Will He Or Won’t He (Eradicate Persia)? wasn’t the only game show Trump debuted this week. The AGeepstakes is going strong, as D.C.’s most broken masochists jockey for a chance to have their lives ruined by becoming Trump’s attorney general. In the mix we have: Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency Director Lee Zeldin, who’s been dutifully performing the work of reintroducing poisons to the environment; Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, who is performing the job on an acting basis; Jeanine Pirro, the ex–Fox News host and D.C. U.S. attorney; and Harmeet Dhillon, who’s worked hard on behalf of Trump to target civil rights as the lead of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.

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. “If President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and I go back to being the DAG, that’s an honor.” Then: “If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’ ” 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, she said of Trump: “I grew to—I don’t want to use the word love—to really respect and like him.” If you really want the job, maybe use the word love next time!

6.

steve hilton

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—British-born policy adviser and Fox News host Steve Hilton and MAGA Sheriff Chad Bianco—might advance from the state’s jungle primary system on to November’s general election.

Fortunately for Democrats, Donald Trump has stepped in to soothe their nerves. The president endorsed Hilton this week, which is likely to ensure Hilton earns a spot on the ballot in November while sending Bianco tumbling. That frees up the second November ballot spot—and, likely, the governorship—for whichever Democrat emerges from the peloton ahead of the June 2 primary. Democrats probably would have manipulated this outcome on their own, by running ad campaigns directing Republican voters to close ranks behind one of the two GOP candidates. Trump may have saved them that dirty work, though—and plenty of money. So, say it all at once, California Democrats: “I love you, sir.”

7.

melania trump

An out-of-the-blue statement.

You know who doesn’t like talking in public? Melania Trump. You know what the White House doesn’t like talking about? Jeffrey Epstein. You know what happened on Thursday? Melania Trump delivered a statement at the White House about Jeffrey Epstein. No one seemed to call for this or expect it or know entirely why she was doing it, but so she did. She denied that she was friends with Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, and that Epstein introduced her to Trump, and said that the “lies linking me” with them needed “to end today.” She further called “on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors. Give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress with the power of sworn testimony.”

We don’t know if there’s a story in the works, or some legal issue, or what. But the White House had finally gotten the Epstein story to cool down after a year—all it took was the snap decision to launch a major war in the Middle East—and here goes the first lady breathing new life into what her husband has described as a “hoax.” So, props to her! Better hold those hearings, Congress. The first lady insists.