The worst job in all of Trump’s Cabinet just opened up.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, a newsletter that is to American politics what a pressure-cleaner trailer is to Tiger Woods’ speeding car.

Congress went on spring break this week. That left the nation’s capital to President Donald Trump, who filled the vacancy with a prime-time speech about how the Iran war is over (or possibly escalating). He also attended a Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship—but it was another court case that caught our attention.

He also fired someone! To the rankings.

1.

Pam bondi

Who wants this impossible, degrading, no-win job next?

Trump finally fired his attorney general this week after months of whispers about when he would do so. He’s long resented her inability to contain the frenzy surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files. And unquestionably, her management of that issue was almost as bad as Donald Trump’s. More broadly, though, Bondi was unable to adequately perform the job that Trump wants in an attorney general: being a personal legal instrument who will fulfill orders to prosecute Trump’s enemies. No doubt she tried in some cases, staining the Justice Department in the process. But, as with the failed prosecutions of Jim Comey and Letitia James, trying wasn’t good enough.

So who’s got next? Here is the gig. The president will insist you do things, such as prosecute people who offer unflattering commentary about the president on Morning Joe, which are not allowable under the law and violate basic right-and-wrong lessons from kindergarten. The choice is to either tell him directly that those things aren’t possible—no thanks!—or try them, only to be humiliated by either a grand jury or a judge. The daily grunt work of humoring the president does lasting damage to the Justice Department and your own personal reputation and legacy, while failing to earn the president’s respect. Eventually, after a year or two of otherworldly stress, and oceans of criticism from all Democrats, the president, and the president’s base, the president will fire you on social media. Whose appetite for pain is strong enough to win the job?

2.

Donald Trump

When the speech could’ve been a Truth Social post.
 

Trump addressed the nation on Wednesday night. Why, though? It’s not as if he was announcing the end of the Iran war—sorry, “military operation.” Instead, he gave a marginally more formal “update” about progress in Iran than he gives all day on social media or in quick press availabilities. It was the usual: We’ve done a whole bunch of bombings and if they don’t make a deal soon, we’ll ramp up the war crimes by bombing their power plants. Either way, there will be more bombings: “Over the next two to three weeks,” he said, “we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” Stock futures dropped and oil prices jumped when he concluded.

While the Surge can’t assess the extent to which “Iran has been essentially decimated” and is even less capable of believing anything this administration says, what can we look to going forward, a month into the war? Well, there’s an energy price spike domestically and a severe one for countries more reliant on oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Speaking of that strait, Iran has decided that it would like to keep it. The U.S. military arsenal has been further depleted, and the Pentagon is preparing to come to Congress with a $200 billion invoice. But at least this has brought the U.S. closer than ever with its allies? Right? Right?? (Brigitte Macron might disagree. Also, see below.)

3.

Marco Rubio

A law can’t stop the president from gutting NATO.
 

You don’t need reminding, but: Trump decided to go to war with Iran without consulting either the American people or European allies. Then, when that decision made a mess of things in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump got furious at NATO countries—and this was not a NATO operation—for not helping out. (He doesn’t seem particularly mad at Russia, though, even as it actively helped Iran target our troops while getting richer off of higher oil prices.) The question of whether Trump would try to leave NATO has been a live one since he returned to office, but the chatter was especially acute this week. It was almost a surprise that he didn’t announce it in his Wednesday speech.

Atlanticists took heart this week, though, in reminding everyone of a 2023 law that doesn’t allow the president to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty without a two-thirds Senate vote or an act of Congress. The sponsors of that law were Sen. Tim Kaine and then-Sen. Marco Rubio, whose 2023 post expressing thanks for the law’s passage went viral this week. Trump likely sees that law as less of a barrier than a dare, and would enjoy challenging its constitutionality in court. But even if it were upheld, Trump can do all the damage he wants to NATO without withdrawing from it. Do you think, today, that if Russia attacked an Eastern European country, Trump would rush to meet the United States’ Article 5 obligations? Because the Europeans don’t.

4.

Mike Johnson

After all that, he’ll eat the Senate’s plan.
 

Last week, the Senate finally settled on a plan to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown. The bill, which was passed late at night by unanimous consent, would fund all of DHS, except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. Republicans planned to pursue later funding for those agencies along partisan lines through an upcoming reconciliation bill. But then House Republicans threw a tantrum and refused to swallow the Senate plan, prolonging the shutdown into a two-week congressional recess. The Senate “sent us a bill that literally put the number zero in the bill for the funding of border security and customs and immigration enforcement,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “We can’t do that.”

By Wednesday, Johnson had agreed to do just that. “In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process,” Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a joint statement. The president supports the plan. It’s a pretty good deal for Republicans: So long as they don’t let reconciliation get too overloaded with individual demands and imperil the whole bill, they can fund the immigration enforcement agencies to their hearts’ delight—through Trump’s presidency, if not beyond—in reconciliation. This was obvious last week, too. Not sure why we had to go through all of that but for House Republicans’ pride.

5.

Lindsey Graham

What, a guy can’t let his hair down after getting the world into a war?

The Dadaesque life of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham continues to be a central focus of this newsletter, and folks: You just never know. Graham spent the first months of this year traveling around the world to build up support among Middle Eastern allies to get Trump to bomb Iran, all while gushing over the president as much as possible during golf rounds, on Air Force One, and on television. He did a smashing job of it.

This week, he was in the news for going to Disney World. TMZ, which has been hunting politicians during the congressional recess, spotted Graham eating a resort breakfast, walking around with a bubble wand, and getting on Space Mountain. His life is Mad Libs. Graham’s office explained to TMZ that he was in south Florida for a meeting with Trump friend/envoy Steve Witkoff and then “went to Orlando to meet friends after.” Since that news, Graham has posted photos of himself shooting clay and doing other community events in South Carolina, and he has threatened sanctions against Spain. Also: As chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, he will be managing the upcoming reconciliation bill. May the spirit of Chef Mickey be with him.

6.

Casey Means

Is the White House going to abandon her nomination or what?

Casey Means, the MAHA wellness influencer with an inactive medical license, had her Senate confirmation hearing to serve as surgeon general in late February. It is now April, and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee still has not voted on her nomination. If we apply all the skills we’ve accrued over the years to analyzing this situation, it could be that a majority of the committee believes her nomination is a joke, and will not vote to advance her. Having been humiliated already after voting to confirm Robert F. Kennedy to the Cabinet after he assured them he wouldn’t run the department like a maniac (a promise immediately broken), GOP senators like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Bill Cassidy may be more inclined to hold their ground this time.

So when is the White House going to dump her and nominate, we don’t know, a warm body with an active medical license? There were mixed signals on that this week. When asked about whether he might replace her, Trump said that “something like that would be possible. We certainly have a lot of great candidates.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said shortly afterward, though, that Trump “stands by her and the Senate should move to quickly [confirm] Dr. Means as our next surgeon general without further delay.” The delay continues.

7.

Richard Leon

Pray for the nation.

The George W. Bush–appointed federal judge granted a preliminary injunction this week ordering the administration to stop construction of the White House ballroom, concluding that a challenge against it “is likely to succeed on the merits because no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have.” The administration is appealing.

No news this week frightened us more. The ballroom, when you get right down to it, is the only thing that Trump cares about (and we hope not the only thing that can stop him from nuking the planet into oblivion). If you watch any Trump press conference on any topic, no matter how heavy or light, he will talk for a good 10 minutes about the ballroom and how construction is proceeding. He doesn’t understand a lot about his job, but he understands construction of a ballroom. It comforts him. For the ballroom to suffer a setback in federal court, then, is for the whole world to be in sudden danger. Take away the man’s adult coloring book, and reckless policy will ensue. We are roughly 45 percent joking in this entry.