Since the firing of his boss, Pam Bondi, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has been hustling like crazy to get the top job permanently. His latest caper: Yet another federal indictment of FBI Director James Comey, this time on the ludicrous grounds that an Instagram picture he posted last year—of seashells on the beach spelling out “86 47”—represented “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.” Happy Wednesday.

Reading Trump’s Mind

by William Kristol

Christ. It’s four in the morning, and I can’t get back to sleep. I dunno why. I mean, that state dinner for King Charles went fine. And I still look good in white tie!

So why can’t I get back to sleep? I’m getting like that goddamn Macbeth in that play Ivanka made me see. Macbeth was a tough guy. I liked him. But I guess it didn’t end well.

I gotta be honest. I do know why I can’t sleep.

For one thing, the dinner was okay, but I knew all along what the King was thinking: “Really? This is the best they can do?” A “state dinner”? The King doesn’t have state dinners. He throws state banquets. And he doesn’t live in some run-down White House with 132 rooms. He lives in Buckingham Palace. A palace. With 775 goddamn rooms.

And I can’t even get a ballroom added to this dump.

We tried pushing for the ballroom after that assassination attempt over the weekend. But maybe we laid it on too thick? It doesn’t seem to be convincing anyone. And some of the idiot Republicans in Congress are making it worse. They decided to try to suck up to me by saying the government should pay for it. Dunces. I’ve said over and over the ballroom wouldn’t cost the taxpayers anything!!! So now it’s gonna be, “First Trump raised your gas prices, and now he wants you to pay for his ballroom.” That’s just great!

Congress is such a pain in the ass. I was trolling when I told the guys to post that picture this afternoon of me and Charles together, with the caption “TWO KINGS.” But goddamn it—it would be good to be a king.

If you’re king you can ignore Congress. And you can ignore the polls. And now they tell me there’s a new poll that shows 17 percent of my voters say they regret their vote. And they say the war with Iran was the number-one reason, followed by the economy.

Well, shit. Those are connected! Look at the goddamn gas prices. And that goddamn strait they didn’t warn me about.

The Iran thing, that’s the real reason I can’t sleep. What the hell am I going to do?

I gotta get out of there. They keep telling me I have to stay the course and raise the pressure and get the nuclear dust out and not let Iran have any control over the strait. But two months ago they told me it would all be easy. I don’t believe a thing they tell me anymore.

Am I becoming Jimmy Carter? Am I becoming Jimmy Fuckin’ Peanut Farming Carter? That’s like the opposite of being a king.

I gotta get out. But I can’t look weak. Gotta look tough. Especially if you’ve gotta back down, you gotta declare victory. Can’t look like I’m a loser or a sucker. Can’t let people listen to the goddamn German chancellor saying I’m being humiliated by the Iranians!

But Merz was right when he said, “I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.” So do I. Maybe I can get lucky to get out of there without too much damage to my brand.

But it’s tricky. Get out too quickly and things go to hell. Stay too long and . . . things go to hell. So I’ll keep on blustering for a while, like I did with that Truth Social post I just put up:

That’ll help. For a while.

And I’ve got to tell Karoline to get the word out that I’m preparing for an “extended blockade” of Iran. I gotta look determined for a while.

But in reality I’ve got the intel guys looking at what would happen if I just declare victory and call it a day. I can’t believe they leaked that one. Gotta get rid of Tulsi.