Steve Clemons

He thinks that Donald Trump cannot completely reject him.

They're not pursuing the same objective.

I think Donald Trump, he thought he could get easy regime change in a week.

He thought he could change the leader and put Ahmadinejad in.

And that would be his answer to how we've approached incremental political change in Venezuela.

that he could get an oil deal done with Iran and then largely stabilize, make everybody happy, get partial regime transition, but not regime change.

And that would have been fine with him.

So he hasn't achieved that.

Israel wants to neutralize Iran as a threat and become the reigning superpower of the broader Middle East.

Israel trying to become that regional uncontested superpower is something Donald Trump is not aligned with.

And right now, Trump is facing an electoral situation himself with his party and looking like, you know, they're going to get slammed because in part because of this decision to take this step towards a very hot conflict with Iran.

I think Trump doesn't like his power challenged, particularly overtly and publicly by anyone.

Doesn't matter if you're Fox News or Benjamin Netanyahu.

And so Trump's willing to tolerate a lot of stuff if it's behind the scene, but he wants complete obsequiousness and wants his everyone to obey.

And when Netanyahu clearly doesn't obey Trump,

that really sets Trump off there.

So you're hearing Trump, who often says many things publicly, doesn't follow through with them all and can also flip-flop, just expressing his rage and anger at Netanyahu, but it can change in 24 hours.

I think he's in a real bind.

I think that the numbers look so bad for him among political independents.

Remember, it's not Republicans or Democrats that actually prevail in American elections.