Tuesday morning, the president of the United States threatened genocide against another nation, all because he does not know how to get out of a war he started to distract Americans from his terrible economy, disastrous immigration headlines, and attempts to bury the Epstein files.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he wrote on Truth Social, the social network he had to create so he can say deranged things like this without being deplatformed.
“I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” he continues flippantly, suggesting that he will “probably” nuke a nation that just a month ago he was insisting he wanted to liberate.
In case it needs pointing out, this threat of genocide would be a war crime, as are the many threats he’s made to strike Iranian infrastructure like water and bridges.
So as we sit on the precipice of what could be NUCLEAR WAR, my question to Trump voters is this: what more are you willing to ignore?
What more are you willing to “compartmentalize” while you tell yourself this is all an acceptable bargain to get judges and tax cuts?
What indefensible, illiberal, un-American and inhumane garbage are you willing to defend in service of MAGA’s childish obsession with “owning the libs”?
How much more chaos, b.s., gaslighting, lying, grifting, incompetence and corruption are you willing to put up with?
And how much economic pain and destruction are you willing to suffer so that he can get rich and spend your taxpayer dollars bombing other countries, suing his political enemies, and building monuments to himself?
Ten years ago, Trump told us exactly who he was, and he’s been revealing himself ever since.
He was a bad person then. During campaign rallies and his presidency, you watched as he made fun of disabled people, prisoners of war, women, and children. You ignored it.
He was a bigot then. You watched as he defended neo-Nazis, called for travel bans against Muslims, called African countries “sh-hole nations,” denigrated Black and Brown communities in American cities, called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers, called himself a nationalist and welcomed white supremacists into the party. You ignored it.
He was a misogynist then. You watched as the “Access Hollywood” tape came out, as woman after woman told their stories of rape and sexual assault, as the Epstein rumors swirled for years, as porn stars revealed their affairs, as he made fun of women’s faces and biology. You ignored it.
He was a fraud then. You watched every story about the fraudulent Trump University and Trump Foundation, stories of tax fraud, licensing scams, real estate fraud, contractor non-payment, election interference, and now crypto corruption. You ignored it.
He was a terrible Christian then. You watched as he repeatedly broke nearly every Commandment, every tenet of Judeo-Christian faith, all while corrupting the religious right to sell bibles with his name on them. You ignored it.
He was a terrible conservative then. You watched as he abandoned nearly every long-held conservative principle that Republicans had stood for, from lowering the debt and deficit, to anti-protectionism, to family values. You ignored it.
And he was a terrible leader then. You watched as he turned American against American, broke the trust of our allies, propped up our enemies, sent his own supporters down dangerous conspiracy theory rabbit holes, all while taking their hard-earned money to fight imaginary election fraud. You ignored it.
So what now? Does he need to nuke a nation to lose your trust and respect? Does he need to shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue to test your moral compass? Does he need to bankrupt our country, destroy 250 years of American exceptionalism, undo 70-year-old international treaties, and start WWIII to get you to finally object to one more second of his unhinged lunacy?
If not now, when?
Sincerely,
Sane America
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.