Trump is a desperate man doing desperate things

At 5:12 this evening, Donald Trump was finally seen in public again after four days of hiding inside the White House. For just three minutes, he stood on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where, with a slight slurring at the end of his words, he took questions from the press before boarding Air Force One to fly to a Trump Inc. fundraising event at Trump Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia. And in that brief, tightly controlled appearance, he made something unmistakably clear: this war is not over, and tomorrow might be the day the bombs start falling again.

When a reporter asked, “What’s your backup plan if they don’t open it,” referring to the Strait of Hormuz, Trump didn’t hesitate. “You don’t need a backup plan,” he said, before adding, “We’ve hit them hard. Our military is amazing. The job they’ve done.” It wasn’t just the words. It was the certainty, the absence of caution, the complete dismissal of what that question was really asking, which is what happens if this spirals further out of control.

The reporter followed up, asking, “Is this a one-and-done talk, or are you open to more talks after this?” referring to the current negotiations around what has already been described as a ceasefire agreement. Trump’s response was just as unstable. “I don’t know. I can’t tell you. I have to see what happens tomorrow.”

And then, just as abruptly as it began, he ended it. “Thank you very much,” he said, turning away mid-moment and walking straight toward the stairs of Air Force One. As he climbed, his right hand locked onto the side railing, gripping it tightly as he pulled himself up step by step, using it to steady and propel his body forward. Each movement looked deliberate, controlled, like something he had to think through rather than do naturally. He paused briefly at the top, waved down at the tarmac with a hollow, distant scowl on his face, and then disappeared into the plane.

But even before he stepped onto that tarmac, he had already been setting the stage. In a phone call with the New York Post earlier that morning, he issued yet another deadline for his war. “We have a reset going,” he said. “We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made, even better than what we did previously, and we blew them apart.” When asked whether he believed the talks would succeed, he answered, “We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon.” And then he made the threat clear: “If we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively.”

This is now at least the fourth time he’s set a deadline. March 21, then pushed to April 6. Then an 8 PM deadline on April 7, when he threatened “a whole civilization will die tonight” and announced a ceasefire 90 minutes before his own cutoff. And now this. Another 24 hours with the threat of annihilation. He keeps threatening violence, and then pulling back, and then threatening again, each time more erratic than the last. And this time, he did it while his own Vice President was in the air on the way to Pakistan for peace talks. JD Vance told reporters before boarding Air Force Two, “If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand.” And at that same moment, Trump was on the phone with a tabloid, bragging about ammunition. Seemingly preemptively sabotaging his negotiator, making us and the world question if peace is what he really wants.

In any functioning presidency, a moment like this is when a leader shows up. When a ceasefire is teetering, when your Vice President is heading into negotiations, when inflation just hit a two-year high because of the war you started, you stand before the country, and you lead. You project calm and competence. Instead, he flew down to his own winery for a fundraiser for himself.

And that three-minute appearance on the tarmac wasn’t even close to the full picture of what this president has been doing behind closed doors. Because while he’s been hiding from cameras, he hasn’t been quiet. He’s been posting around the clock on social media. Trying to control the narrative so we don’t see how quickly his grip on power is slipping, and how he will do just anything to hold onto it.

It started yesterday when the President of the United States posted a video of a woman being beaten to death with a hammer at a gas station in Fort Myers, Florida. Not the blurred version that the Department of Homeland Security had already posted. The full, unblurred footage. Twenty seconds of a woman being struck in the head, falling to the ground, and being hit again and again while she lay there. With a replay button at the end, inviting you to watch her die over and over again.

Her name was Nilufa Easmin. She was a mother of two. She was an immigrant from Bangladesh who worked as a gas station clerk. And the President of the United States turned her death into content he used to spread propaganda. He didn’t name her or even mention that she was herself an immigrant. He wrote that he felt an “obligation” to share the footage “so that people can see what Democrats are protecting.” He warned it was “Not for children!” and then posted it on a public platform where any child with a phone could find it. By the time of this writing, 25,800 people had hit the heart button on a video of a woman being murdered.

Trump didn’t share this for justice or to honor her. It was to make us associate immigration with violence so deeply that we stop seeing immigrants as people and start seeing them as threats. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council compared it to the “black crime” section Breitbart used to run, a dedicated page on the far-right website that curated stories of crimes committed by Black Americans, presented without context, designed to make readers associate an entire race with criminality. Reichlin-Melnick said there hasn’t been an administration this openly racist since Woodrow Wilson invited the Klan to the White House.

Trump also wrote a long and rambling post attacking Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones. The people who built his movement, defended him for years, and carried his message to millions. He called them “stupid people” with “Low IQs.” “NUT JOBS.” “LOSERS” with “Third Rate Podcasts.” He called Carlson a “Hand Flailing Fool” and wrote, “Perhaps he should see a good psychiatrist!” He mocked Candace Owens’ appearance. He brought up Alex Jones losing his fortune over Sandy Hook. These were his most loyal media allies, and he shredded them because they had the audacity to criticize his war. Owens responded by posting a screenshot and writing, “It may be time to put Grandpa up in a home.” Jones said on his show, “This is dementia.” And the New York Times found thousands of his own Truth Social supporters lashing out, accusing him of betraying the “America First” promises that got him elected. His own base is fracturing, and he is struggling to keep the remaining ones loyal.

But maybe the oddest post he made was when he declared: “WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL RESET!!! President DJT.” There was no context or explanation. Just an all-caps Truth Social post that made no sense, and all the sense in the world at the same time. Because this is just how he thinks now. He was following an instinct to project dominance when everything is falling apart, which is one of the most dangerous traits a person in power can have. Because that’s when the worst decisions get made.

Not a single one of these recent posts mentioned the Americans struggling under the weight of inflation. Not one word about the families cutting back, the workers whose paychecks are shrinking, the small businesses absorbing higher fuel costs. And today’s inflation numbers confirm what every American already feels. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices rose 0.9% in March. Annual inflation hit 3.3%, the highest since early 2024, driven almost entirely by a 10.9% surge in energy costs. Gas prices jumped 21.2% in a single month, the largest monthly increase recorded since 1967. Real earnings for workers fell 0.6%. All of it is driven by his war. The war he chose. The war he started without congressional authorization. The war that closed the Strait of Hormuz and threw global energy markets into chaos.

Today, we also got the clearest evidence that even Trump himself knows how much trouble he and his presidency are in. According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump has repeatedly promised mass pardons to members of his administration before leaving office. “I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” he said in a recent meeting. The radius keeps expanding every time he repeats it. In another conversation, he said he’d pardon anyone who’d come within 10 feet. In a separate meeting in the dining room next to the Oval Office last year, he said he would hold a news conference and announce the mass pardons before he leaves. Aides say he raises it so regularly that some of them now laugh about it. But Trump is known to joke about things he later seriously pursues, and the frequent references have led some aides to believe he is serious. The White House response was not a denial. Karoline Leavitt said, “The Wall Street Journal should learn to take a joke, however, the President’s pardon power is absolute.” That “however” does all the work. It’s not a joke. It’s a promise. And it’s a signal. He’s promising blanket protection to his entire administration, before any of them have even been charged with anything.

This is a recruitment tool. He is telling every person around him: do whatever I need you to do. Break whatever law I ask you to break. Carry out whatever order I give. I will make sure you never face consequences. Because if a president can buy loyalty and encourage potentially illegal actions to stay in power by offering a presidential pardon, then we are no longer operating under democratic norms. That’s how dictatorships are born, with a man promising immunity to anyone willing to carry out his orders. And the reason he’s doing it now, this early, nearly three years before the end of his term, is because he knows what’s coming. The midterms are approaching. Democrats have said they will investigate if they take the House. And he can feel the walls closing in from every direction. So he’s doing what cornered men always do. He’s building an escape route for himself and for anyone willing to help him hold on.

History shows us what this looks like. Desperate people do desperate things. And authoritarian leaders don’t back down when they start losing control. They double down. They get louder, more erratic, more dangerous. They reward loyalty with immunity. They attack their own allies when those allies start telling the truth.

While the President was spiraling on social media yesterday, I was sitting in an arena watching a true patriot. I was at the Bruce Springsteen “Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour” crying my eyes out. I might have been the only one sobbing, but they were tears of hope and thankfulness. I keep stepping up my economic protests. Subscribing to more paid memberships for independent voices, continuing to make sure my money is not going to people and companies who are trying to destroy our country, and also supporting musicians who are using their platforms to speak out and encourage more people to care.

When Bruce Springsteen stepped onto the stage, he opened the show with a prayer for our men and women serving overseas. And then he said this: “The America I love, the America that I’ve written about for 50 years, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty around the world, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless, and treasonous administration.”

And he is right. That is exactly who Trump is. Earlier this month, Trump attacked Springsteen on Truth Social, calling him “a total loser” who “looks like a dried-up prune” and urging MAGA to boycott his concerts. And Springsteen took that as an invitation to push harder. There were so many moments of resistance, including when he said: This is happening now. Our young men and women’s lives at risk in an illegal war. This is happening now. Immigrants held in for-profit detention centers. This is happening now. The Justice Department taking its marching orders from a corrupt White House, prosecuting the president’s enemies, covering up his misdeeds, protecting his powerful friends. This is happening now. The president and his family enriching themselves by billions while working Americans struggle. This is happening now.

And he called it what it is. He said, “If you want to talk about snowflakes, we have the president who can’t handle the truth.”

But it was this line that stayed with me, the one that has been repeating in my mind ever since: “This American tragedy can only be stopped by the American people.” And I kept coming back to what that actually means. And the answer is simple, even if it isn’t easy. We stop it in every way we can. We create friction against everything he is trying to do. We call out the corruption, over and over again, until no one can pretend not to see it. We demand impeachment. We demand that the 25th Amendment be invoked. Not because either has a good chance of happening, but because saying it out loud matters, because it draws a line and makes clear that none of this is normal, none of this is acceptable, and none of it will be quietly absorbed into the background of our lives. And it sets the groundwork for what could eventually happen.

We keep going. We protest in the streets, with our dollars, on our phones, in every email we send to our elected officials. And yes, we have a real chance to take back both chambers of Congress, and the more pressure we apply now, the faster action can happen when that window opens. But none of it works if people don’t fully understand what’s happening.

Because the majority of this country does care. They’re not indifferent. They’re overwhelmed. They’re exhausted. They’re trying to keep up with a pace of chaos that was designed to make people shut down. What I saw last night wasn’t just someone sharing information. It was something else entirely. He laid out the facts, he explained what was happening, but more importantly, he shifted the energy in the room, not into panic or fear, but into a sense of agency. People didn’t leave feeling like victims. They left feeling like they had a role to play, like they weren’t powerless in the face of it. That is what has to happen on a national level. That has to be at the core of what we do.

We have to keep talking. We have to keep pointing people to what matters most. And we have to be the ones who carry that forward, in our conversations, in what we share, in how we show up every day. The facts are the facts. They don’t change. But what does change is whether people feel something when they hear them, whether they feel connected to it, whether they believe they still have power. Because they do. We are the American people that Springsteen was talking about. We are the only ones who can stop this. And we will. 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: Took a moment to appreciate how beautiful the world is.

Sources:

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/10/world/live-news/iran-war-trump-us-ceasefire

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/iran-war-trump-strait-of-hormuz-israel-ceasefire-talks/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-graphic-video-deadly-hammer-attack-undocumented-immigrant-rcna273625

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/cpi-inflation-report-march-2026.html

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/president-bashes-maga-media-figures-iran-war-criticism-tucker-carlson-rcna267716

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-discusses-mass-pardons-aides-wsj-report-11813455

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/3-times-trump-has-given-iran-deadlines-and-then-delayed-them

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/04/07/trump-iran-deadline-final-strait-hormuz/9c5285e4-3236-11f1-b85b-2cd751275c1d_story.html