Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.
WATCH: Donald Trump is getting his daily briefing on the war in the form of a highlight reel of "stuff blowing up,” NBC News reports. “National intelligence in the form of Instagram Reels, basically,” says Chris Hayes. https://t.co/ByWSf8GW1m
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) March 26, 2026
SCOTT WALDMAN, BEN JOHANSEN and SOPHIA CAI at POLITICO:
NATE SWANSON spent nearly two decades in the U.S. government, including most recently as the National Security Council’s director for Iran. Days before the U.S. bombed Iran, Swanson published a piece predicting that Iran would do exactly what it has done should the U.S. attack.
That’s expertise President DONALD TRUMP had available to him — until Swanson, an BARACK OBAMA holdover, was “forced out” of his post after a critical tweet from LAURA LOOMER, Swanson said. Neither the White House nor Loomer returned a request for comment.
In his piece for Foreign Policy published Feb. 24, Swanson wrote that Iran would not capitulate after a bombing campaign, but rather escalate and “target global oil flows and international shipping, sending energy prices up and creating a serious political liability for Trump.” And indeed, Iran has made scattershot attacks on energy targets and others across the region, as well as throttling passage through the Strait of Hormuz by threatening attacks on ships.
In an interview with POLITICO this week, Swanson predicted that the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran will not go well because both sides are “irrationally confident” in their positions. Neither side seems willing to find an off-ramp at this point, he said.
...
Trump keeps saying Iran’s response has surprised him — that no one told him Iran would retaliate against regional energy infrastructure. How does that kind of comment from the president sit with you?
"Obviously, it’s not true. There are many people in the government who told him that there was high risk involved. He just chose not to listen to them. And as someone who was forced out of the government and wrote pretty much exactly what was fairly obviously going to happen, that doesn’t sit super well."
Among the people to whom he does not listen is former Secretary of Defense Mattis.
“‘Targetry’ does not take the place of strategy”
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) March 24, 2026
Looking forward to all the people who are going to argue that Jim Mattis is a woke war college weenie https://t.co/N1vXWypJVZ
