They know Trump is in trouble
Earlier this morning, the President of the United States sat glassy-eyed and dazed, propped up in his tall leather chair behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office while he did something he believed he had never done before. He called it “a little bit unusual,” downplaying the serious situation that called for such a drastic action on a Saturday morning. Instead of spending the day golfing in Florida, like he does on most other weekends, Donald J. Trump held a last-minute press conference. Surrounded by men, many of whom had spent the last week criticizing the president and his Iran war, calling it “insane” and warning it could lead to “World War III,” he was now seated in front of them for an executive order signing that hid the real reason they were all there: his survival of the most vulnerable time of his presidency.
The executive order itself directed the FDA to fast-track research into psychedelic drugs, particularly ibogaine, for treating veterans with PTSD, depression, and traumatic brain injuries. Fifty million dollars was earmarked for states to develop programs. And if you set aside everything surrounding it, the policy itself is worth pursuing. Veterans deserve access to treatments that could save their lives. The research is promising, and the need is real. But that is not why this happened today, and it is not why these particular men were surrounding the president in the Oval Office on a Saturday morning.
Standing directly behind Donald Trump was Joe Rogan. Just two days ago, Rogan sat on his podcast with comedian David Cross and called the Iran war “terrifying.” Cross said there was no plan, and Rogan agreed. He said Trump’s supporters feel “betrayed.” He asked, on camera, for millions to hear, “What the f*ck are we doing?” He has been saying versions of this for weeks, calling the war “insane,” warning it could spiral into something much larger, and pointedly reminding his audience that the reason many of them voted for Trump in the first place was because he promised no more wars. Rogan had also publicly declared himself “politically homeless.”
And then, suddenly today, everything seemed fine between them. Or at least that’s what the press conference was designed to make us believe, as if there had never been any tension between the president and Rogan at all. We were told that a text message had been sent, according to Rogan himself, who explained to the room that he had shared information about ibogaine and that “the text message came back: ‘Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let’s do it.’ It was literally that quick.” He credited Trump with breaking down barriers, thanked him profusely, and in doing so gave the president exactly what he needed: a carefully constructed moment captured on camera, of one of his most influential critics standing behind him, smiling, inside the Oval Office. A signal to his base that Trump is still in control and just as powerful as he has always been, or at least that’s the version of reality they are trying to sell.
Also standing behind Trump was Robert O’Neill, the former Navy SEAL who claims he killed Osama bin Laden. Less than two weeks ago, O’Neill went on Piers Morgan and said he went to Truth Social to check if Trump’s posts threatening to wipe out “a whole civilization” in Iran were even real, because he couldn’t believe a sitting president would say such things. “I didn’t think it was presidential,” O’Neill told Morgan. “Someone should step up on something like this.” He warned that Trump was “teetering” on violations of the Geneva Convention and urged the commander in chief to “take a deep breath.” Today, he stood in the Oval Office and told the press that ibogaine “fixed my demonic relationship with alcohol” and “saved my life.” Both things can be true. The treatment may have changed his life. And he was also being used as a political pawn.
And I want to be clear about something. The policy itself, expanding research into psychedelic therapy for veterans, is worth doing. I will leave the science to the medical experts and the researchers who understand these treatments far better than any politician in that room. If ibogaine or psilocybin or any other therapy can help a veteran struggling with PTSD, addiction, or traumatic brain injury, then it deserves our attention, our funding, and our urgency. Nothing that helps our veterans should take decades to reach them. That part is not in question. What is in question is the machinery behind the moment. Because what we watched today had nothing to do with veterans. Trump loves to use veterans as props, the same way he uses anyone who serves his purposes and discards them when they don’t. Even if he wasn’t fully aware of why this was being fast-tracked on a Saturday, the people operating the levers behind him understood exactly what was happening. This was the machine recognizing a fracture in the foundation and moving to seal it before it spread any further.
That is how Trump operates. He doesn’t persuade his critics. He purchases them. Not always with money, but with access, with wins, with the thing they care about most. Rogan wanted psychedelic therapy for veterans. O’Neill wanted recognition for a cause close to his heart. Trump gave them both what they wanted, and in return, he got the only thing he ever wants: the appearance of loyalty and control. A vision of his presidency that everything is great, even as the world outside that room was falling apart.
And then there was Rogan himself. Everyone in that room was wearing a suit or professional attire except for him. Rogan stood behind the president in a black long-sleeve button-down shirt, deliberately more casual than everyone else in the room, as if to say: I’m not one of you. I’m here on my terms, and it is not out of respect. And he was. He stayed mostly solemn-faced throughout the event. He laughed at Trump more than once, not with him, but at him, glancing sideways at others in the room as if to say, are you hearing this? At one point, Trump launched into yet another rambling, repeated story, and Rogan’s expression shifted to something between amusement and disbelief. He was not a passive participant. He came with his own agenda, and he executed it. He got the executive order. He got the moment for veterans. And he gave Trump just enough to keep the photo useful without surrendering his leverage entirely. But here’s the part that we can’t forget: Joe Rogan is one of the reasons we are in this dangerous situation. His endorsement of Trump on the eve of the 2024 election reached tens of millions of young men who trusted him, and it helped put this man back in the White House. That is something that will follow Rogan for the rest of his career and life. The fact that he’s having second thoughts is worth noting, but second thoughts only go so far when the damage is already done. This is on him to help clean up now.
Because while Trump sat in the Oval Office telling reporters that the situation with Iran was “going actually along very well,” Iran was closing the Strait of Hormuz again. For the second time this week. Hours after announcing it would reopen the strait as part of the fragile ceasefire, Iran reversed course after Trump insisted on maintaining the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports. And with Trump saying last night, aboard Air Force One, responding to a reporter asking what happens if no deal is reached before the ceasefire expires, Trump said, “Maybe I won’t extend it. So you’ll have a blockade, and unfortunately, we’ll have to start dropping bombs again.” Thus causing Iran to escalate the conflict further, with the Revolutionary Guard firing on ships attempting to pass. Two Indian-flagged merchant vessels came under gunfire. A container ship was struck by an unknown projectile off the coast of Oman. Iran’s military command issued a warning that any vessel approaching the strait would be considered “cooperation with the enemy” and targeted accordingly.
Trump also quietly signed something else this morning that received almost no attention. While the cameras were focused on Rogan and the psychedelics order, Trump put his signature on a short-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law that allows U.S. intelligence agencies to intercept the phone calls, text messages, and emails of foreign nationals overseas without a warrant. The problem is that when those foreign targets communicate with Americans, our messages get swept up too, and under current law, agencies like the FBI can search through that data without ever going to a judge. Trump wanted an 18-month extension with no changes and no new privacy protections. But members of his own party blocked it. Conservative Republicans joined with Democrats to reject both a five-year and an 18-month renewal in a pair of embarrassing after-midnight votes on Friday, demanding reforms that would require a warrant before the government can read an American citizen’s communications. So instead of the sweeping renewal Trump wanted, all he got was a 10-day patch, extending the program through April 30 while Congress tries to figure out what comes next.
What we saw today in the Oval Office was a man with no limits. Not just on what he says, or what he does, but also on who he’ll use or discard to protect himself. And that absence of limits is not just embarrassing, it is the defining danger of this presidency. When a man with this much power has no internal mechanism telling him when to stop, the only thing standing between us and catastrophe is the people around him. And those people, as we saw today, are either compromised, compliant, or drunk behind a locked door.
And this wasn’t even the only crisis unfolding while the cameras rolled in the Oval Office. More of the façade was cracking. Last night, The Atlantic published a devastating investigation into Kash Patel, the director of the FBI. Based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former officials, the report describes a man whose excessive drinking has become a recurring source of concern across the government. Meetings and briefings have reportedly been pushed back because Patel was too impaired from the night before. On multiple occasions in the past year, his security detail had difficulty waking him because he appeared to be intoxicated. On one occasion, the detail requested breaching equipment, the kind used by SWAT teams to break down fortified doors, because Patel was unreachable behind a locked door. Officials described him as erratic, paranoid about losing his job, and prone to jumping to conclusions without evidence, behavior they called a national security vulnerability. And their concern has only deepened since the war with Iran began.
This is who is running the FBI during wartime. A man whose own security team has had to consider breaking down his door to reach him, whose personal emails were hacked by an Iranian cyber group just weeks ago, with over 300 emails and personal photos published online, because the director of the FBI couldn’t secure his own Gmail account. A man who has assigned a full FBI SWAT team, agents trained to rescue hostages and breach barricaded buildings, to serve as a personal security detail for his 27-year-old girlfriend, a country singer 22 years his junior. Those agents have escorted her to hair salons in Nashville, to singing appearances at NRA conventions, and to a resort near London. On at least two occasions, Patel reportedly ordered her security detail to drive one of her friends home after a night out partying. He has used a $60 million taxpayer-funded government jet for personal trips to see her perform, including one during the 43-day government shutdown. And when The Atlantic reached out for comment on the drinking allegations, Patel’s response was to post a threat on the social media platform X from his official FBI Director account: “Memo to the fake news, the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop. Keep talking, it means I’m doing exactly what I should be doing. And no amount of BS you write will ever deter this FBI from making America safe again and taking down the criminals you love.”
None of this is surprising. It is exactly what you would expect from an administration where the president says, “Can I have some, please? I’ll take whatever it takes. I don’t have time to be depressed.” about psychedelic drugs at a morning press conference while his head of the FBI threatens the media for doing their job and pointing out the dangers of who he is and the seriousness of the office he leads.
I know that what we are watching happen to this country is getting harder to face every day. The assault is constant, and it is designed to be. They want us to be overwhelmed so we stop paying attention. But we are in a pivotal moment, and looking away is not something we can afford. We have to keep talking about all of this, and we have to reach more people. We have to make sure that even the people who feel too exhausted to follow it all can still see what he and his administration are doing. And I know it can feel unsafe saying these things out loud. There are still not enough of us speaking up, and that makes it feel risky, isolating, even dangerous. But that is changing. Soon it won’t feel this way. And until it doesn’t, I will carry us. You can share these posts so you don’t have to say it yourself. Let my words be your words until there are so many of us that it no longer feels like a risk to add your own.
And I want to take a moment tonight and thank all of you for making this possible and allowing me to be so deeply entrenched in this battle for our country. I take the trust and support you have given me seriously. When I started writing these posts, I made a decision that nothing would ever be behind a paywall. The truth should always be free. This is my full-time job now, something I never planned for when I first sat down to write. I didn’t know how I was going to make it work. And what happened is that a community formed around these posts, and you showed me how. Your paid memberships are what have allowed me to keep every single word free for everyone, which was my goal from the beginning. You have enabled me to turn these posts into videos found on my new YouTube channel, and into a podcast, Hope for America with Heather Delaney Reese, available wherever you listen. This expands the reach of this message to people who prefer audio or video formats. These posts are long, and sometimes it’s easier to watch or listen on the go. I’m trying to bring this in as many formats as possible to reach the most people in their preferred ways.
Ultimately, I believe that what will save us, and our country, is each other. Thank you for being here with me. I can’t thank you enough. And let’s not forget what we saw today. The cracks continue to show. His allies are fracturing. The loyalty he demands is transactional and brittle, and we watched it on full display. Joe Rogan called this war “terrifying” on Thursday. By Saturday, he was standing in the Oval Office thanking the president. That is not conviction, nor is it loyalty. That is a deal. And the deals break when the cost gets too high, when the public pressure becomes unbearable, and when the tide turns far enough that standing next to him becomes more dangerous than standing against him. We are not there yet. But we are closer than we have ever been. And 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: Watching this kite on our walk made me realize how many of the simple things in life we are missing out on, having to put so much focus, time, and effort into resisting Trump's regime. It won't always be like this. Someday, we will look back and know it was worth it.
Sources:
President Trump Signs an Executive Order, Apr. 18, 2026: White House Official Video
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-signs-order-to-speed-review-of-psychedelics
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/18/politics/joe-rogan-trump-psychedelics-white-house
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/irans-military-closes-strait-of-hormuz-again-citing-u-s-blockade
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/17/nx-s1-5788573/house-extends-surveillance-powers-for-10-days
https://www.ms.now/news/fbi-director-kash-patel-sue-the-atlantic-drinking
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/27/politics/iran-linked-hackers-fbi-director-patel
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/06/metro/fbi-director-girlfriend-controversy/
Hi Heather,
Thank you for highlighting the fiasco behind the propaganda photo shoot!
Although I completely understand the exhaustion people are feeling and that sense of drowning in the daily sewage…it is more important than ever, for Tdump and his back seat drivers to be exposed and the truth to be broadcast far and wide!
Thanks to you and others, Heather, for continually proving that Trump's claim to "control information" is just another grandiose fantasy. Knowledge is power, and truth does conquer all. So what are we waiting for?