6 min Click here to listen to this article

Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print

Copy Link URL Copied!

This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

Amid all the alarming and unhinged comments of the president of the United States in recent days threatening Iran with genocide — remarks beyond even the usual cray-cray blather from Donald Trump — it was a statement from his spokesperson on Tuesday that really put the madness in the White House in perspective.

“Only the President knows where things stand and what he will do,” Karoline Leavitt said.

She issued those words just hours before Trump’s 8 p.m. Tuesday deadline for Iran to either reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping or face Armageddon — that is, war crimes by the United States. The statement from the White House press secretary was as clear a description as Americans could get of governance under Trump these days: A mad king reigns, virtually unchecked.

And as a practical matter, there is nothing under the Constitution, neither impeachment nor removal under the 25th Amendment, that can be done about him. There’s only voters’ opportunity to eject the complicit Republican majorities in the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections, to install a Democratic — and democratic — check on Trump for the remaining two years of his term.

By now we know that, just before Trump’s deadline to Iran warning “a whole civilization will die tonight,” he announced a fragile two-week ceasefire for negotiations. The commander in chief declared victory, natch. But so did Iran. And it had the better of the argument: Iran continued to control and monetize passage through the strait, unlike before Trump’s war began Feb. 28, and already on Wednesday it flexed that power by closing the route in retaliation for Israeli strikes. The ceasefire also lets Iran retain possession of its enriched, nearly bomb-grade uranium, and the nation won Trump’s offer of possible tariff and sanctions relief.

So much for the “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” he demanded in a post a month ago.

I’m writing these words on Wednesday. Who knows where things will stand by the time you’re reading this? “Only the president knows.”

Trump has fluctuated, reversed and contradicted himself repeatedly — even within a single social-media screed or chest-thumping performance for the press — since he ordered war against Iran nearly six weeks ago, without notice to Congress, let alone its authorization. Since Sunday, he’s variously called Iran’s leaders “crazy bastards” and “animals” and taken credit for “Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail.”

Presidential rule by fiat and whim would be wrong in any case under the Constitution’s checks and balances of power, and specifically of war power. But in Trump’s case, America has a president who lately has piled on the evidence that he is mentally unstable, unfit for the office.

And spare us the cheerleaders’ claims on Fox News about how he’s playing multidimensional chess. When even Alex Jones likens Trump to “crazy King Lear” and calls for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from power — echoing former Trump promoters including Marjorie Taylor Greene and Candace Owens, among others — you know he’s crossed a line by his unilateral war-making and profane threats (on Easter Sunday!) of genocidal apocalypse.

The evidence of Trump’s dangerous instability has been there from his political genesis. In his first term, he warned he’d unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” against nuclear-armed North Korea then declared that he “fell in love” with dictator Kim Jong-un (without achieving any diminution in Kim’s arsenal). He celebrates the deaths of political enemies and prosecutes those still living. He repeatedly interrupts himself on some policy question to bloviate about his ballroom plans.

He’s ordered armed agents into American neighborhoods on immigration raids, then expressed neither responsibility nor remorse when citizens died and legal residents got deported. The national security leaders of his first term let it be known that they’d prevented him from acting on his worst impulses, but there’s no chance of that from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Retired Gen. Mark Milley, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in 2021 described first-term Trump as being in mental decline and “fascist to the core.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks Trump has gotten better in the intervening five years.

The country “can’t be a therapy session for … a troubled man like this,” Trump’s first-term attorney general, William P. Barr, told CBS in 2023 as Trump campaigned to return to office.

If only the presidency were therapy for Trump. Instead he’s like a power addict in the world’s most powerful job, mainlining its intoxicants, and no one will stop him. Only people with extraordinary egos seek the White House in the first place, but when an actual egomaniac inhabits that warping bubble of butter-uppers, there’s danger. I remain haunted by the words of retired Gen. John F. Kelly, Trump’s first-term Homeland Security secretary and then White House chief of staff, who in 2023 said of Trump’s potential reelection: “God help us.”

Having failed twice to convict and remove Trump in his first term, Democrats have shied from a third attempt, until now. Scores in Congress have called for impeachment or invocation of the 25th Amendment to oust him. There’s some value in sending a message. But Democrats are offering supporters false hope. A Republican-led Congress and a Cabinet of clownish sycophants will not exercise the powers they have, even against a mad king.

The authors of the Constitution, having thrown off a king, debated at length how to guard against a power-crazed president. But they didn’t anticipate political parties that put tribal loyalty over the country. That partisanship has rendered the high bars to a president’s removal — a vote of two-thirds of the Senate for conviction after impeachment, or, under the 25th Amendment, action by the vice president and a Cabinet majority — all but insurmountable.

That leaves the voters, who in special and off-year elections as recently as Tuesday have shown their zeal to punish Trump’s party. We can hope that a new Congress will check him come January.

Bluesky: @jackiecalmesThreads: @jkcalmesX: @jackiekcalmes

Voices Contributor: Fed up with Trump’s chaos? Then his strategy is working April 10, 2026

Contributor: Fed up with Trump’s chaos? Then his strategy is working

Voices Calmes: Trump’s recklessness endangers the nation March 12, 2026

Calmes: Trump’s recklessness endangers the nation

After week of war and political upheaval, Trump remains defiant as ever March 7, 2026

After week of war and political upheaval, Trump remains defiant as ever

L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.

The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.

Ideas expressed in the piece

The president operates as an unchecked “mad king” with virtually no constitutional restraint, evidenced by unilateral war-making against Iran without congressional authorization and repeated threats of genocide that exceed even typical behavior from this administration.

The president operates as an unchecked “mad king” with virtually no constitutional restraint, evidenced by unilateral war-making against Iran without congressional authorization and repeated threats of genocide that exceed even typical behavior from this administration.

The president has demonstrated mental instability and unfitness for office through contradictory statements, policy reversals that occur within single social media posts, and erratic decision-making that national security leaders from the first term worked to constrain.

The president has demonstrated mental instability and unfitness for office through contradictory statements, policy reversals that occur within single social media posts, and erratic decision-making that national security leaders from the first term worked to constrain.

Congressional Republicans refuse to exercise their constitutional powers to check executive authority, rendering impeachment and the 25th Amendment removal process effectively unusable due to partisan tribal loyalty overriding national interest.

Congressional Republicans refuse to exercise their constitutional powers to check executive authority, rendering impeachment and the 25th Amendment removal process effectively unusable due to partisan tribal loyalty overriding national interest.

The constitutional framers’ system of checks and balances has collapsed because they failed to anticipate political parties that prioritize partisan loyalty over country, making the high bars for presidential removal all but insurmountable in practice.

The constitutional framers’ system of checks and balances has collapsed because they failed to anticipate political parties that prioritize partisan loyalty over country, making the high bars for presidential removal all but insurmountable in practice.

The president’s pattern of contradicting himself—such as demanding “unconditional surrender” from Iran then accepting terms that allow Iran to retain enriched uranium and control of the Strait of Hormuz—demonstrates governance by whim rather than strategy or principle.

The president’s pattern of contradicting himself—such as demanding “unconditional surrender” from Iran then accepting terms that allow Iran to retain enriched uranium and control of the Strait of Hormuz—demonstrates governance by whim rather than strategy or principle.

The only practical remedy available to voters is to elect Democratic majorities in Congress in November’s midterm elections to install constitutional checks on executive power for the remaining two years of the term.

The only practical remedy available to voters is to elect Democratic majorities in Congress in November’s midterm elections to install constitutional checks on executive power for the remaining two years of the term.

Different views on the topic

The president’s exercise of executive power reflects a structural shift in American politics where the decline of legislative party discipline since the 1960s has weakened Congress’s ability to constrain executive authority, making this a systemic problem rather than one attributable solely to individual presidential behavior[1].

The president’s exercise of executive power reflects a structural shift in American politics where the decline of legislative party discipline since the 1960s has weakened Congress’s ability to constrain executive authority, making this a systemic problem rather than one attributable solely to individual presidential behavior[1].

The president possesses constitutional authority to set priorities for law enforcement and determine the best way to execute laws, with legitimate discretion in these executive functions that people of good faith can debate appropriately[2].

The president possesses constitutional authority to set priorities for law enforcement and determine the best way to execute laws, with legitimate discretion in these executive functions that people of good faith can debate appropriately[2].

© Los Angeles Times