The House of Representatives delivered a remarkable rebuke to the White House yesterday, passing a war powers resolution that would require the president to withdraw forces from Iran or seek congressional approval for ongoing military action. Four Republicans broke ranks to support the measure, which now heads to the Senate.

Donald Trump wasn’t pleased. “Who would do such an unpatriotic thing,” he fumed on Truth Social. “They know where the negotiations stand. . . . They should be ashamed of themselves.”

In other words: Quit telling me to end my war! Can’t you see I’m TRYING? Happy Thursday.

The Authoritarianism Accelerates

by William Kristol

Last night, President Trump announced at a dinner in what used to be the Rose Garden that he would be nominating acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to hold that post in a full capacity. As Trump put it, “we are going to make him permanent attorney general.”

It’s an interesting formulation. Trump can’t actually “make” Blanche attorney general. That will require Senate confirmation, which could well be problematic. And moving up from acting attorney general doesn’t make you “permanent attorney general.” Unless Trump plans to remain permanent president.

Which, it seems, is something Trump increasingly seems to have in mind.

In his two months as acting attorney general, Blanche has gone out of his way to show Trump, conspicuously and publicly, his unsparing commitment to the autocrat’s precept: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies the law.” From the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, to the authorization of a sweeping investigation of former law enforcement and intelligence officials allegedly engaged in a decade-long conspiracy against Trump, to the attempt to establish a $1.776 billion slush fund for Trump’s allies and supporters, to his earlier work on the Epstein coverup—Todd Blanche has done what Trump wants. Trump’s announcement last night sends the signal that such an effort will be recognized and rewarded.

Trump’s announcement of his intention to promote Blanche came hard on the heels of Trump’s selection Tuesday of his spectacularly unqualified but fervently loyal henchman, Bill Pulte, to be acting Director of National Intelligence. And the last few days have also seen progress, if that’s the word, in the ongoing Trumpification of other key national security agencies. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has intervened in unprecedented ways in the selection of senior military officers, and has also put a 24-year-old convicted January 6th rioter in a counterterrorism job at the Pentagon. Trump has also been increasingly strident in recent days in his defense of what he and his supporters attempted on January 6, 2021. And in testimony to Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has refused to commit to obeying court orders. This led senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to comment, “If you’re a Republican or a Democrat on this committee, you should be really, really freaked out.” Just yesterday, Trump signed an executive order converting some 8,000 career, non-partisan civil service positions into political appointments, making those employees hirable and fireable at will.

We all should be “really, really freaked out.” Because it’s clear that Trump’s power grab over the executive branch is not just proceeding apace, but is intensifying. Yes, Trump is less popular than he used to be, and he has less of an absolute sway over Republican members of Congress than he once did. But this seems to be causing not hesitation on Trump’s part, but an intensification of his power-grabbing efforts. He seems no longer to care much about political backlash, or electoral consequences. As he said last week, “I don’t care about the midterms.” It’s almost as if he doesn’t expect elections to matter because he’s not going to do everything he can to allow them not to matter.

Trump seems to be at the stage of his authoritarian project when the mask comes off, when he increasingly disdains to conceal his aims. Trump has always presented himself as the tribune of the people. But yesterday he posted on Truth Social:

Communists always do well with the Voters or, as they would say, THE PEOPLE, in the Early Years! But, in the end, the Country, State, or City, GOES TO HELL! Great Violence proceeds at levels never seen before, and the entity dissolves into Poverty, Squalor, and Crime. Remember, breathtaking ‘Popularity’ first, and then, guaranteed DEATH AND DESTRUCTION!

This professed disdain by Trump for the “Voters or, as they would say, THE PEOPLE” is striking. Trump has been a fantastically successful demagogue, a master flatterer of the people. But at some point in an authoritarian takeover, one has to explain why one is taking over power despite or against the wishes of the people. What we are seeing is a president who is going full steam ahead on his centralization of power in a way that should make one doubt he intends to give it up—whether over the next two years, whatever a Democratic Congress tries to do, or in 2028, whatever the people try to do at the polls.

Many of the authoritarian efforts of Trump and his apparatchiks remain in the shadows, to be sure. But he wants to accustom his supporters to