#jonathan lemire

Donald Trump and the flunkies in his administration keep saying that "nobody" could have predicted Iran's response to the undeclared US-Israeli war which started over a month ago. Frankly, I could have generally told them what would happen. There's a very good reason no previous US administration has launched a full scale war against Iran.

The late Dr. Zbigniew Brzeziński was National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter. In a 2012 interview, he accurately spelled out how Iran would respond if attacked. At that time, Trump was too busy with birther conspiracy theories to have caught that Brzeziński interview.

Trump is an idiot who hires people to flatter him – not to give him sound advice on matters he knows nothing about.

Joe Scarborough pointed out in that piece that Trump's antipathy to Ukraine prevented him from asking Ukraine for advice on how to deal with Iranian drones before Trump's attack on Iran began. And NO country has more experience shooting down Iranian drones and Russian knockoffs than Ukraine.

Jonathan Lemire@JonLemire

Raw Story is strongly left-biased and not always entirely accurate, but in this case the video is right there for anyone to watch.

“In our reporting, he was telling people around him that he thought this would be a good cultural war, kind of victory here, akin to the NFL players kneeling for the national anthem.”

Washington Week with The Atlantic is produced every Friday and is a great way to cap off the political week.

Of course there was plenty of discussion of Trump's feud with the pope and Trump's dubious war with Iran. But there was also talk about Kash Patel's hopelessly bad running (even by Trump administration standards) of the FBI. This coincides with a just published article at The Atlantic.

A few excerpts.

The FBI Director Is MIA

Patel’s spotty attendance at the office and the eagerness with which he’s embraced the perks and travel that come with the job have also been sources of concern at the White House. Some in the West Wing have followed the headlines about Patel’s use of the FBI jet for personal matters—as well as the whispers about his love of partying—and said that they fear that Trump would react badly were he to focus on those storylines. [ ... ] Patel’s drinking is no secret. While on official travel to Italy in February, he was filmed chugging beer with the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team following their gold-medal victory. The incident prompted the president—who does not drink and whose brother died following a long struggle with alcoholism—to call the FBI director to convey his unhappiness, according to two officials familiar with the call. But officials told me that Patel’s alcohol use goes far beyond the occasional beer. FBI officials and others in the administration have privately questioned whether alcohol played a role in the instances in which he shared inaccurate information about active law-enforcement investigations, including following the murder of Charlie Kirk. [ ... ] Officials have grown accustomed to such behavior, and they have learned to roll their eyes at it. But they said that the absurdity masks real concerns about what Patel’s leadership has meant for an institution that the country relies on for national security and the safety of its citizens. “Part of me is glad he’s wasting his time on bullshit, because it’s less dangerous for rule of law, for the American public,” one official told me, “but it also means we don’t have a real functioning FBI director.”

Hungary has awakened from a bad dream. Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party has been defeated. And he was beaten despite doing everything possible to rig the system against the opposition.

I'll try to explain this in a hypothetical American context.

Imagine Republicans succeeding in all their gerrymandering efforts while Trump judges strike down all Democratic efforts to do the same. But in spite of that, Democrats still win 305 seats in the US House and a total of 67 seats in the Senate in the midterms.

This was a spectacular rejection of Orbán and a kick in the butt to both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. It is a boost for NATO and the European Union and good news for Ukraine.

These results are damn close to final. Any possible minor changes won't alter the fact that Péter Magyar's Tisza Party won a supermajority and will be able to undo most of the anti-democratic shit implemented by Orbán since 2010.

Orbán has been MAGA's favorite European. Trump endorsed him on several occasions. Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, and Don Jr. have made trips to Hungary to back Orbán. Now they all look like LOSERS – bigtime!

Steve Benen at MS NOW points out how Orbán's defeat is a blow to the international alt-right.

^^^ What actually went on when Donald Trump desecrated Arlington National Cemetery.

What sort of person does thumbs-up photos in front of the graves of war dead? <spoiler>Donald Trump</spoiler>

Charlie Sykes has an excellent piece in The Atlantic about Trump's dreadful visit to Arlington. But the article is behind a paywall. So here is Charlie discussing that article with Jonathan Lemire who read excerpts from it.

— Jonathan Lemire | Friday June 6, 2025 | The Atlantic

For once, President Donald Trump was trying to be the adult in the room.

Trump and Elon Musk, two billionaires with massive egos and combustible temperaments, had forged an unlikely friendship over the past year, one built on proximity, political expediency, and, yes, a touch of genuine warmth. Relations between the president and his top benefactor had grown somewhat strained in recent weeks, as Trump began to feel that Musk had overstayed his welcome in the West Wing. Musk had suggested privately that he could stay on at the White House, an offer that Trump gently declined, two people familiar with the situation told us. (They, like others we talked with for this story, spoke anonymously in order to share candid details about a sensitive feud.) But Musk was still given a gracious send-off last Friday—complete with a large golden, albeit ceremonial, key—aimed at keeping the mercurial tech baron more friend than foe.

The peace didn’t last even a week.

On Tuesday, Musk took to X to attack the Republican spending bill being debated in the Senate, trashing Trump’s signature piece of legislation as “a disgusting abomination.” Even as the White House tried to downplay any differences, Musk couldn’t let go of his grievances—the exclusion of electric-vehicle tax credits from the bill, and Trump’s rejection of Musk’s pick to run NASA.

Yesterday, the planet’s richest man attacked its most powerful. Each took aim at the other from their respective social-media platform, forcing rubberneckers into a madcap toggle between Truth Social and X. Trump deemed his former aide “CRAZY,” while Musk went much further, dramatically escalating the feud by calling for Trump’s impeachment, suggesting that the president had been part of Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious sex-trafficking ring, and—likely worst of all in Trump’s mind—taking credit for the president’s election in November.

For one day, Musk made X great again. The spectacle seemed to subside today, as Trump showed—at least by his standards—some restraint. The president insisted that he was not thinking about Musk and wanted only to pass the reconciliation bill that had featured in the brawl. Musk, meanwhile, has far more to lose: his newfound stardom within the MAGA movement, his personal wealth, and government contracts worth billions to his businesses.

"He's Very Disrespectful": Trump Just Gave An Update On Where He Stands With Elon Musk, And Yeah, It's Not Good. Paige Lavender, Tuesday June 10, 2025, Buzz Feed, Yahoo.Com

Steve Bannon, the influential Trump adviser who has long been critical of Musk, crowed that the tech billionaire’s attacks on Trump were so personal that he won’t be forgiven by the MAGA crowd. “Only the fanboys are going to stick with him—he’s a man without a country,” Bannon told us.

Trump and Musk were inseparable during the transition and in the first months after the inauguration. At times, Musk stayed over in the White House residence, regaling reporters with tales of late-night Häagen-Dazs ice-cream binges (caramel flavor) in the White House kitchen. He grew close to Trump’s powerful adviser Stephen Miller and to Miller’s wife, Katie, who’d entered the administration as a special government employee alongside Musk; the trio socialized outside of work. (Musk has since unfollowed Stephen Miller on X.) Musk’s 5-year-old son, X, became a frequent visitor to the Oval Office and Mar-a-Lago, at times scampering around the tables at Trump’s private club.

But friction mounted over time: a West Wing shouting match between Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a heated Cabinet meeting about job cuts, clashes with senior White House staffers. Trump grew angry that Musk was bad-mouthing his tariff plan to CEOs, and was especially incensed when The New York Times reported in March that Musk was scheduled to receive a classified briefing at the Pentagon about China; the president began quietly telling confidants last month that he was getting tired of the Tesla chief. The cuts forced by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency—symbolized by Musk wielding a gold-plated chain saw at the Conservative Political Action Conference—angered even some Republicans, who depended on the government services DOGE was slashing. Trump initially bought into Musk’s claim that DOGE would find $2 trillion in cuts, two advisers told us. But the potential savings shrank as the chaos grew, and Trump became disillusioned

“Trump started off as more than enamored, then it faded when it turned out the trillion dollars in DOGE cuts was bullshit,” Bannon told us. “Trump was like, Okay.”

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Musk’s 130-day tenure as a special government employee expired late last month. Despite growing disenchanted with Washington, he suggested to the White House that he wanted to stay on, the two advisers told us. Trump declined. A representative for Musk did not respond to requests for comment. “Trump was like, You know, he’s been around long enough, but he was not mad, not like, Screw this guy,” one of the advisers told us. “It was like, It’s probably time to turn the page.” The White House built Musk a dignified off-ramp, with aides putting together an exit plan that would allow Musk to leave the team on good terms. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had often found herself in the unenviable position of trying to manage Musk—a man Trump privately described as part genius, part child. But in the hours before his departure, Musk was dealt a disappointment over a government job that was very important to SpaceX. Trump had announced Jared Isaacman, an aviation entrepreneur and a Musk ally, as his pick for NASA administrator in early December. But Isaacman faced opposition on Capitol Hill, and the scheduling of his confirmation vote forced the issue last week. Trump, after hearing senators’ complaints, asked Sergio Gor, the personnel director who had previously clashed with Musk, for Isaacman’s vetting files. The White House was unhappy about the nominee’s previous donations to Democrats, a White House official told us, and his nomination was withdrawn.

At the same time, Musk took aim at the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that encapsulated the entirety of the Republican legislative agenda. He privately lobbied Trump, Wiles, and House Speaker Mike Johnson to include an EV tax credit and then publicly torched the bill when they didn’t, posting on Tuesday to his 220 million X followers: “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong.”

The split has forced Republicans in Congress to choose between a president who demands their loyalty and a billionaire who helped fund their victory last year (and who could finance their opponents’ campaigns, if he chooses to). Some rushed to proclaim their neutrality. “I learned a long time ago when I was fighting to stay out of other people’s fights,” Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a Trump ally, posted yesterday on X. (A former wrestler, Mullin had a brief professional career in mixed martial arts.) Other Republicans assumed the posture of a child begging their warring parents to get along for the sake of the family. Representative Beth Van Duyne began a post on X, “We have the best chance to save America, save the world, and bring lasting prosperity.” Then she dropped the politesse: “WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER!! CEASE FIRE FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

For GOP leaders, the choice seems to be an easy one: They have stuck with Trump, fiercely defending the bill they wrote on his behalf and are rushing to enact before the self-imposed July 4 deadline. After Musk took credit for the party’s majorities in Congress as part of his X tirade yesterday, Johnson told reporters that the glory belonged not to Musk, but to the president.

A few House conservatives seized on Musk’s complaints about the deficit-busting nature of the bill and suggested that they might reconsider their support if the Senate does not improve the legislation. “He made the biggest mistake in Washington,” a Republican strategist who requested anonymity to speak frankly told us. “He told the truth. He is not wrong, even if he is annoying.”

But Musk might have overplayed his hand in pivoting from policy to personal attacks on the president. “He hasn’t moved a vote,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters, according to NBC News.

Perhaps realizing that he was destined to lose a fight he’d started, Musk appeared to cool off late yesterday, approvingly quoting social-media posts about stopping the fight and saying that he would not follow through on his threat to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spaceships, which are used to transport NASA astronauts and supplies to and from the International Space Station. He might have 38 billion reasons for seeking détente: That’s the number of dollars his companies are believed to receive in government contracts, deals that could be canceled by a vengeful president. Musk spent nearly $300 million supporting Trump and other Republicans in the 2024 presidential election, but slumping Tesla sales worldwide—due, in large part, to anger about his alliance with Trump—are estimated to have cost him well over $100 billion since he took his government post. Tesla stock fell 14 percent the day of Musk’s fight with Trump.

As of early this afternoon, Trump had not posted again about the feud. He gave brief interviews to a few reporters in which he insisted that he was not thinking about Musk, though he referred to his once–top aide as “the man who has lost his mind” to ABC News. Trump allies circulated to reporters allegations of Musk’s drug use recently aired by The New York Times (“I think the ketamine finally rotted his brain,” one told us; Musk has disputed the Times report). White House aides, stung by Musk’s eruption yesterday, let it be known that Trump has no intention of speaking with Musk today and that the president plans to sell or give away the Tesla he’d bought back in March as a show of support for Musk. Asked for comment on the breakup, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not mention Musk, saying instead that the administration will “continue the important mission of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse from our federal government” and that “the One Big Beautiful Bill is critical to helping accomplish that mission.”