Derek Thompson

And he said, no, no, and no.

So what's the universal theory of Iran?

The universal theory of attacking Iran is that Donald Trump does whatever the hell he wants, whenever the hell he wants, and doesn't ask Congress for permission.

And the Republicans in Congress roll over and say, sure, take whatever Article 1 power you want and make it the new prerogative of the executive branch.

That's the story of Trump 2.0.

It's the story of the last 14 months.

And so to a certain extent, there's no possible unifying theory of foreign policy that explain what we're doing now.

And to another extent, like this is just an extension of the president's personality.

We don't have a political economy.

We have Trump's personality.

Right.

He says, I'm going to slap a tariff on you.

And if you're Switzerland, you're like, here's a gold bar.

And he's like, you know what?

I'm going to reduce your tariff by 50 percent because I love gold bars.

That's not political economy.

That's just Trump loving it when people pay homage to him and loving to do whatever he wants so that he can force people into positions where they bend the knee.

So to a certain extent, maybe this is just another expression of his personality.

He wants to bomb Iran because he wants to bomb Iran.

He hopes that they change...