Donald Trump doesn't have friends

At 8:34 Eastern time, the President of the United States started his day by giving a live phone interview to Fox & Friends ahead of a day of deep mourning. He chose this early morning conversation so he could pay tribute to a good friend who had died 17 days earlier, ahead of their funeral later that afternoon. With the three Fox hosts sitting on the couch listening to his every word, this was supposed to be a moment of remembrance for the late Senator Lindsey Olin Graham. A chance to honor someone he had repeatedly called “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known” and one of his closest political allies. Instead, he spent much of the interview describing how he would bring death and devastation to millions of civilians if negotiations with Iran failed.

He was very matter-of-fact and eager to share, “I could take out most of their bridges in less than an hour, less than an hour.” Adding, “Bridges take the longest and power plants are second. I can knock out the power plants. Within one day, all of their power plants would be gone.” And he kept going, “I think about 91 million people without power, without bridges where they have to live.” And he took it even further, admitting that he knew exactly what he would be doing and who he would be hurting if he chose this path, “There’s always the desalination plants... and who am I hurting there? I’m hurting the people.”

This is the man who stood before the country on February 28 and spoke directly to the Iranian people as the first bombs were falling. “To the great, proud people of Iran,” he said, “I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.” He told the Washington Post that same day, “All I want is freedom for the people.” He looked into a camera and told 91 million human beings that when the bombing was over, they could take over their own government. “It will be yours to take,” he said. That was supposed to be one of the missions. Liberation and freedom for the Iranian people from decades of tyranny. Five months later, here we are on the morning of a funeral for a man he called family, once again threatening the very people he promised to liberate.

Today’s thought, the one that keeps sitting in my mind, is not the threat itself, because we hear him make threats often, but the way he said it with such callousness. How he talked about decimating a country and the infrastructure the civilians need for survival. How he bragged when he said, “That’s what I used to do for a living, construction.” Reminding us all that he knows how long it takes to build a bridge. Acknowledging the humanitarian crisis they would face because of how long it would take to build a new power plant if he destroyed the current one. Not only is it just a gross misuse of his presidential powers and cruelty unbecoming of the United States President, but under international humanitarian law, deliberately targeting power grids, water systems, and civilian infrastructure that a population depends on to survive could very well be considered a war crime. The President of the United States described making a country unlivable, on purpose, on the same morning he was supposed to be mourning a friend.

It wasn’t just the war talk that interrupted his tribute. He spent the first few minutes doing his best to share some sort of grief, calling Graham special, saying he became like a member of the family. But within four minutes he broke. Trump said Graham loved golf but “wasn’t born to be a golfer.” He said, “Lindsey liked war, to be honest with you,” and added, “He’s never seen a war that he didn’t like.”

Fox’s Brian Kilmeade, not a hostile interviewer or a member of the press that Trump calls fake, but one of Trump’s media enablers, set Trump up with a win by asking him a simple question. He noted that Iran’s foreign ministry had publicly denied that any negotiations were taking place with the United States. “So, could you tell me who you’re talking to, Mr. President?” Kilmeade asked. Trump did not answer. He pivoted into a vague riff about how sometimes during a “beautiful discussion” the Iranians come out and say they are not talking. He never named a single person and could not or would not say who he is negotiating with about their future and our own after being dragged into Trump’s own forever war.

And in the same interview, he said something that history might point to as the answer to why we are where we are today and why he did so many of the things he did. “Frankly, if I weren’t president of the United States, Israel today would not exist.” He did not hesitate or have any sense of how enormous or delusional that claim is. And maybe we should take him at his word, and as a window into how he sees his own presidency. Because if Donald Trump genuinely believes he is personally responsible for Israel’s survival, then much of what he has done makes sense. The war with Iran was not an American national security emergency. It was Israel’s top strategic priority. The decision to bomb first, and to never seek congressional authorization, was always the plan. Netanyahu has been at his side, at Mar-a-Lago, on the phone, and in the Oval Office, at every turning point. The strikes, escalation, and the refusal to seek a real diplomatic path before the first bombs fell, start to look more like a president who has been allowing another government’s priorities to dictate his own actions. By his own admission, he is not leading this; he is being led. Maybe that is what he just told us.

The timing is especially telling since “Bibi” (as Trump calls him), Benjamin Netanyahu, flew to Washington just last night and had a private meeting with him today with no press allowed in the room.

When Kilmeade asked about the economy and tariffs, Trump claimed, “I stopped eight wars, I would say five of them because of tariffs.” He admitted that the Supreme Court, in what he called “a very close decision,” ruled against him on his tariff authority. And instead of accepting the ruling of the highest court in the land, he said, “Now I have other ways of doing the same thing.” He described the alternative as “a more cumbersome process,” but the message was clear. The Supreme Court told him no, and his next move was to disrespect the rule of law and our democratic norms, because he long ago decided the law does not apply to him.

Which leaves us with the question that every person in this country and every leader on this planet is grappling with. How do you negotiate with this person? How do you build trust with someone who has no consistency, accountability, or record of keeping his word? How do you stabilize the world long enough for him to finish his term in office when this is the sort of empty person in the position?

This is a 34-count convicted felon. A man a civil jury found liable for sexual abuse. The person who is referenced more than 38,000 times in the Epstein files. No, we have not forgotten about them, and we never will. The files he has fought for years to keep sealed and out of public view. He called them a hoax. He branded the people demanding transparency “weaklings.” He sued the Wall Street Journal for ten billion dollars over their reporting. Despite telling the world that he had been “absolved” of any wrongdoing from the files themselves, “I didn’t see it myself,” he said, “but I was told by some very important people that not only does it absolve me, it’s the opposite of what people were hoping.” We are continually being asked to support and trust this man to lead the free world.

Hours after that phone call, Donald Trump stood at the lectern at Washington National Cathedral for the funeral of the friend he cared for so much. As he was reading from his prepared remarks, he reached the line “virtually everyone, Republican or Democrat, liked Lindsey.” And then he stopped. Going off script because he was compelled to set the record straight at Graham’s funeral, he looked up and said, “Well, not everybody. But it sounds good. Not everybody.”

He could not let a generous sentence about a dead friend stand. Whether he thought he was bringing humor to a serious moment, or just didn’t like that the attention was on someone else, we will never know. What we do know is that he almost always finds a way to make someone else’s moment, even their funeral, about himself. Throughout the rest of the service, multiple moments were captured on film of Trump struggling to keep his eyes open and stay awake. At one point, in the middle of the funeral, he pulled out a container of Tic Tacs and showed them to Vice President JD Vance sitting beside him. He could not stay present even during such a high-profile funeral when he knew the eyes of the world would be on him. This is who is leading our country.

I think about what it means to know that the rest of the world is watching all of this, every day, and drawing conclusions about who we are and what it now means to be an American. I am not here to celebrate Lindsey Graham’s life. He yo-yoed between opposing Trump and enabling him, and when it mattered most, he chose to fall in line and put self over country. Whatever good he may have done in thirty years of public service got wiped away by that choice. His lasting legacy will be as a man who sold out his country for proximity to power and money. That is what history will remember, and it is what he earned.

And his choice is exactly what makes today so revealing. Lindsey Graham gave Donald Trump everything. He gave him his loyalty, reputation, credibility, and his dignity. He defended Trump when no one else would. He went on television and carried water for policies he once called dangerous. He turned himself inside out to stay close to that power. And that still wasn’t enough. Because what he got in return was a president who could not stay awake at his funeral. A eulogy that Donald Trump edited as he was reading it to make it less generous. That is the loyalty Donald Trump offers in return for destroying your legacy. That is what every person who is standing beside him needs to remember. He will use you, drain you until you are empty, and when you are gone, he will do the bare minimum to grieve you, and then you will be forgotten and added to his graveyard of past sycophants.

This is not the America that most of us want. We are 98 days away from the midterm elections and our opportunity to begin the slow process of stopping Trump’s takeover of our country. It is also our chance to remind the world what it truly means to be an American. That America is, and always has been, bigger than one man. That our democracy is stronger than whatever sinister plans he has for it. That this country still belongs to its people.

A single vote may feel too small for a moment this big, but it remains the most powerful tool our founders gave us. And in 98 days, we are going to remind ourselves, and the world, exactly who we are. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: My very independent puppy had a moment of weakness and became a lapdog. I had to document the moment!

Edit: I corrected my spelling of the word: sycophants

Here are links to the sources used in this post:
The Fox and Friends video: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6402330160112

February 28 speech full text (Times of Israel):
https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-trumps-declaration-of-major-combat-operations-against-iran/

“All I want is freedom for the people” (Washington Post, February 28):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/02/28/trump-iran-strikes-speech/

Trump tribute to Graham, “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known” (NBC News):
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/sen-lindsey-graham-dies-71-brief-sudden-illness-rcna552722

Graham funeral eulogy, “not everybody but it sounds good,” dozing, Tic Tacs (Rolling Stone):
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-sleeps-lindsey-graham-funeral-1235345892/

Netanyahu private meeting July 28 (Reuters via U.S. News):
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-07-28/trump-to-host-netanyahu-zelenskiy-as-ukraine-iran-wars-reach-critical-stages

Epstein files, 38,000 references (USA Today citing New York Times review):
https://www.aol.com/articles/trump-says-america-move-epstein-161625982.html

Trump called Epstein files a “hoax,” called supporters “weaklings” (CBS News):
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-jeffrey-epstein-hoax-republicans/

Trump sued Wall Street Journal for $10 billion (Reuters via Yahoo):
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-orders-release-grand-jury-011750315.html

“I didn’t see it myself but I was told by some very important people” (Senate Democrats official transcript, Air Force One, January 30, 2026):
https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/trump-transcripts/transcript-president-trump-speaks-to-reporters-on-board-air-force-one-13026