Donald Trump is out of control, and there's no one left to tell him no
On a warm June Sunday, while Americans were gathering with family to celebrate Father’s Day, the President of the United States spent the better part of his day hiding away at Camp David, posting erratic threats on social media. Instead of reflecting on his children or remembering his own father, he posted concerning rants on Truth Social and found twenty minutes to give a telephone interview with a Fox News reporter, threatening to end the lives of foreign dignitaries and erase an entire country from the planet.
During the interview, Trump reportedly warned that if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would “blow the sh*t out of them.” He reportedly floated taking over the strait itself, collecting tolls from international shipping, and told Iranian officials, “You won’t have a country” if they did not back down. Then he escalated even further. According to Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, Trump warned, “You won’t even make it back to your f------ country.”
These were the words of the President of the United States during what was supposed to be a diplomatic process to end a war and bring peace to an entire region. And the more Donald Trump spirals about Iran, the clearer the situation has become: Trump has lost all control. Not just self-control or impulse control, but control over his government and control over this war. There are no guardrails remaining. No safe adults left in the room.
The most disturbing part wasn’t the profanity. It wasn’t even the threats. It was how casually he made them. When Yingst told Trump that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had stated Iran would not give up its right to enrich uranium, Trump responded that Pezeshkian better “watch his mouth” and “shape up or we’ll take over the rest of the country.” He described the memorandum of understanding, the very agreement he signed just days ago to end the war, as “just an option,” adding, “I can do whatever I want after that option.” He then floated the idea of the United States seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz permanently and collecting twenty percent of all oil that passes through it, describing America as the “guardian angel” of the Middle East. This is not a strategy. It was a man fantasizing about colonial extraction on a telephone with a reporter while his vice president was physically in Switzerland trying to negotiate peace on his behalf.
And Trump did not stop at the phone call. At 9:30 this morning, he posted on Truth Social: “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP.” That post was shared around the time that Vice President J.D. Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner were sitting inside the Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland, waiting to begin the first round of talks under the memorandum of understanding Trump himself had signed. The agreement explicitly prohibits the use of threats or force between the two nations. Trump violated his own peace deal on social media, while his own delegation sat in the room where the deal was supposed to be implemented. He undermined his own talks.
The Iranian delegation responded exactly the way anyone paying attention would have expected. According to Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, Iranian chief negotiator and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi refused to participate in the planned group photograph with the American delegation, calling it an American “media show.” They then walked out of the venue in protest. Before they left, footage from the resort showed Araghchi pointedly ignoring Vance, instead embracing Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif while the Vice President of the United States stood right beside them trying to greet them. It was extremely awkward and another embarrassing moment for the United States. News footage also captured the Iranian team leaving, followed by Vance scrambling to hold a side conversation with the Pakistani prime minister as the first day of negotiations collapsed around him.
After what happened, we have to wonder if Trump set Vance up to fail. He sent his vice president halfway around the world to negotiate this fragile peace deal, then posted threats on social media that guaranteed the other side would walk out before the conversation even started. Trump likes to humiliate the people around him. He likes to make them lose, and he likes to be the center of every moment, even if it means torching a diplomatic process the entire world is watching. But this was not just a power play or an ego trip. This was the President of the United States actively sabotaging peace talks during a war that has killed thousands of people, cratered global oil markets, and brought the Middle East closer to regional collapse than at any point in decades.
What today made undeniable is that Trump has lost control of this war. Not just the narrative or the diplomacy. The war itself. In a single 24-hour period, he signed off on sending his vice president to begin negotiations, then publicly threatened to restart bombing before those negotiations began. He described his own signed agreement as “just an option” and said he could “do whatever I want” once it expires. He threatened to obliterate the country he is supposed to be making peace with, threatened to seize a sovereign waterway, threatened to assassinate the diplomats sitting across the table from his own delegation, and floated a permanent military occupation of a nation he told the American people just last week he wanted to stop fighting. These are the actions of a man who has lost control on every level and has no strategy. His own statements contradict each other from hour to hour. He cannot hold a position from morning to afternoon. The war is now being driven by his impulses rather than any coherent objective, and there is no one left around him willing to stop it.
Then came Lindsey Graham. On CBS’s “Face the Nation” this morning, the South Carolina senator spoke about war, occupation, and the seizure of a sovereign waterway with a confidence that suggested these conversations are already happening behind closed doors. “I spent four and a half hours with President Trump on Friday,” Graham said. “Here’s what I think is going to happen. If this deal fails, President Trump is going to take the Strait of Hormuz over by force. The United States will control the Strait of Hormuz. We’ll charge a fee for all those who go through to pay for the operation, and we’re going to expand the Abraham Accords in calendar year 2026.” And then Graham put into words what Trump himself had been hinting at all day: “If Iran contests control of the Strait of Hormuz by the United States, we will obliterate them.”
Graham’s comments revealed something bigger than his own recklessness. They revealed what has happened to everyone around Trump. The people around Trump are no longer acting as guardrails. They have moved into full-blown enablers. Graham’s performance today is proof that there is no one left in Trump’s inner circle who is willing to say no, pump the brakes, or even express concern about what this trajectory means for the world. The enablers are not just tolerating the madness anymore. They are participating in it.
J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio could stop this. Right now. Today. Vance could invoke the 25th Amendment. He could rally members of the Cabinet behind the scenes. He could call for what the Constitution provides when a president is no longer fit to carry out the duties of the office. Trump cannot remove him. Vance’s position is constitutionally protected. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose by doing this. And Rubio, the Secretary of State, the man whose entire job is to manage the diplomatic relationships Trump is destroying, could stand beside him. Together, they could bring the Cabinet with them. They could end this before it goes any further. Because if this keeps going, if Trump keeps threatening to obliterate sovereign nations between rounds of golf, keeps sabotaging his own agreements, and keeps contradicting himself from one post to the next while the military tries to figure out which version of his orders to follow, we are very close to another war the likes we haven’t seen in nearly 80 years. Because the early moments have already begun brewing in the background. Vance knows this. Rubio knows this. Every single person in this administration who has sat across the table from Trump and watched the lights go out behind his eyes knows this. And yet they keep clearing the room, keep covering for him, and keep pretending everything is fine. At some point, maybe Vance and Rubio will try to claim they went along with all of this to mitigate the damage. But they could stop it right now. And they are choosing not to.
Meanwhile, at 7:41 this morning, Trump posted his Father’s Day message on Truth Social: “Happy Father’s Day! Our Country is doing GREAT. Record Jobs Numbers and Stock Market, BEST ECONOMY EVER! Greatest Military in the World, by far. We are WINNING on all fronts, WINNING LIKE NEVER BEFORE. GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Not one word of it is true. According to data released by the Department of Education this past week, 9.16 million student loan borrowers are now in default. That is roughly one in five Americans carrying federal student debt. The number has surged from 7.7 million in December and six million last August. Another three million borrowers are at least ninety days behind on their payments. And those figures are from April. The real number today is almost certainly worse.
Borrowers are being hit from every direction, squeezed by a Trump administration that continues to make life more expensive for working Americans. They have driven inflation higher, increased the cost of everyday necessities through tariffs that function as taxes on American consumers, resumed student loan collections, reinstated credit score penalties, and are preparing to begin garnishing wages. Some people are being forced to choose between their mortgage and their student loans. Others are choosing neither because they can no longer afford either.
Gasoline prices have risen roughly forty percent since the Iran war began in February. Inflation reached 4.2 percent in the most recent reading, its highest level since April 2023. That is what economic pain looks like. And while millions of Americans are struggling to keep up, the President of the United States is posting Father’s Day messages on social media pretending everything is fine.
By evening, Trump had moved on to attacking the New York Times. In a post at 4:57, he called the paper “Corrupt and Failing” for running a headline that read, “What Changed After Almost 4 Months of War? Analysts Say Not Much.” He raged against the premise, insisting Iran’s military is “DONE,” its navy “GONE,” its economy “BROKEN,” and that “THE OIL IS GUSHING.” By 8:28, he had escalated further, calling the Times’ reporting “FAKE & MADE UP ‘FACTS’” and, in his words, “TREASONOUS.” He announced he would be adding their coverage to his “multi Billion Dollar lawsuit” against them. Then at 8:36, he shared a post from Lindsey Graham backing him up, with Graham calling the Times’ analysis an “insult to our men and women in uniform.” The New York Times is reporting based on facts. They are being journalists. They are doing the work they are supposed to do. This is the oldest play in Trump’s book: discredit the truth so the propaganda is louder. Call reality treason and threaten lawsuits to silence accountability. And enlist loyalists like Graham to amplify the message that asking questions about a war is somehow an attack on the troops.
What we are watching is a president in full decompensation. Not just politically or even strategically. Personally. Every authoritarian leader in modern history has followed the same pattern when the walls begin to close in. They do not retreat or reflect. They escalate. They lash out, and they create chaos to cover their decline. Mussolini’s final months were defined by increasingly erratic orders and a refusal to accept the reality on the ground. Saddam Hussein spent his last years in power issuing contradictory commands, threatening allies, and micromanaging military operations he no longer understood. And in every case, the people around them, the ones who could have stopped it, chose silence because they had too much to lose being so close to power and too much to gain from the financial benefits that proximity gives them. That is where we are tonight. The president is raging, threatening, and spiraling, and the people who swore an oath to the Constitution are watching it happen and doing nothing.
Today is Father’s Day. And in a world full of men who are protecting and covering up what may be the largest trafficking ring in modern history, who are enabling the authoritarian takeover of our country, and who are systematically propping up someone with seemingly severe physical and mental decline, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the fathers who are on the right side of this. The ones who put in the work to actually protect children. The ones who wake up every day and try to make the world safer, kinder, and more just than the one they inherited. This world needs you. Thank you for being the polar opposite of the men trying to destroy it.
And a special thank you to my own husband, Pete, who many of you have started to get to know. He has been my editor, my producer, and the person helping keep all of this moving so I can focus on writing these posts each night. Recently, he has taken on an even larger role as the co-host of our new podcast, Rational Response. He is stepping further into this fight ahead of the midterms because, as a father, he cannot sit back knowing there is more he could do to help protect the country his children will inherit.
So thank you to him, and all of the dads who are on the right side of history. The ones who take seriously their responsibility to protect children, stand up to corruption, and leave the world better than they found it. The ones teaching courage by example, showing up when it matters, and refusing to look away when others are being harmed. Thank you. Your voices, your actions, and your example matter more than you know.
The President of the United States spent Father’s Day threatening to obliterate a country, sabotaging his own peace deal, and lying to the American people about the state of their economy. He is not in control. The people around him know he is not in control, and it is our job to document what is happening.
Because we are building the record. The record that future generations will use to understand how this happened, who enabled it, who opposed it, and who found the courage to speak up when it mattered. The record that will help ensure this chapter of American history is never repeated.
Every day brings us closer to the midterms that will determine whether this man continues to wield unchecked power or whether we begin the work of reclaiming our country. And everywhere I look, I see more people paying attention, speaking up, organizing, and refusing to accept this as normal. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.
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: She is trying out her comfort sweater ahead of the 4th of July. I guess you can say we both have mixed emotions about the Fourth this year, once again, and especially since it is the 250th. It should feel like a celebration. Two hundred and fifty years of this experiment in democracy. But it does not feel like a celebration right now. It feels complicated. More on that another night.
Sources:
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/iran-nuclear-talks-walkout-trump-threats-1804081
https://www.thebrieflywire.com/iran-walks-out-switzerland-talks-trump-threats/
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/student-loan-defaults-rise-9-163427271.html
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/18/nx-s1-5863027/us-iran-trump-memorandum-of-understanding-full-text
Fox News interview video: Atrupar on X
He’s going to go too far with his humiliation of Vance and Rubio before long and someone is going to snap. Why-ever in the world are they tolerating this? Why isn’t Thiel encouraging Vance to take the proper steps to remove djt from power? He’d get his way with his sycophant in power if he did (to the detriment of the country and the world). Neither Vance nor Rubio look like happy men, from the photos I’ve seen lately.
Someone get the strait jacket!