A record of the week ending March 22, 2026. No jokes. Just the list.
He revealed a congressman’s terminal diagnosis to the press
At a White House event ostensibly about the Kennedy Center, President Trump disclosed that Republican Representative Neal Dunn of Florida had received a terminal heart diagnosis and would have been “dead by June” without emergency surgery. Dunn had never made his condition public. House Speaker Mike Johnson, seated beside the president, responded with visible discomfort: “OK, that wasn’t public.” Trump then added that he had intervened to secure Dunn’s surgery partly because he “needed his vote.”
Medical privacy is not a courtesy. It is a recognized legal and ethical principle in every functioning democracy. The president of the United States disclosed a sitting congressman’s undisclosed terminal diagnosis in front of cameras, mid-sentence, with the apparent belief that doing so was a compliment. The moment prompted an audible groan from the audience. It should have prompted more.
He forgot that two different heads of state were women, on two different days
On St. Patrick’s Day, Trump was asked about comments by Irish President Catherine Connolly criticizing the war in Iran. Seated beside Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin in the Oval Office, Trump appeared unaware that Connolly was a woman, misgendering her while the prime minister smiled awkwardly beside him.
This was not an isolated slip. Trump has been the head of government for parts of six years. Two of the world’s major democracies are currently led by women. The president of Ireland has held office since November 2024. That a sitting American president requires a two-day correction on who leads which country is not a trivia problem. It is a competence problem.
He accidentally called Gavin Newsom the President of the United States while arguing that Newsom should never be president
Trump was mid-sentence attacking California Governor Gavin Newsom’s dyslexia as disqualifying for the presidency when he slipped and referred to Newsom as “the President of the United States.” He had just finished saying that presidents should not have learning disabilities.
Dyslexia affects roughly one in five people and has no relationship to cognitive ability or executive function. Dozens of successful leaders, executives, and heads of state have had it. Trump’s claim that it is disqualifying was not just factually wrong. It was the kind of statement that, a decade ago, would have ended a political career. On the same day he made it, he demonstrated he could not keep track of who currently holds the office he was describing.
JD Vance explained that past presidents started wars because they were dumb
When asked in the Oval Office whether he fully supported the war in Iran, given his long history of opposing foreign military interventions, Vice President JD Vance replied: “I think one big difference is that we have a smart president, whereas in the past we’ve had dumb presidents.”
The vice president of the United States, a Yale Law graduate, used his defense of a shooting war to retroactively describe every previous American commander-in-chief as cognitively deficient. The presidents he was implicitly characterizing include Eisenhower, who commanded the Allied forces in Europe, and George H.W. Bush, who assembled a 35-nation coalition to liberate Kuwait. The explanation also revealed that Vance had no policy argument for why this war was different from the interventions he once called traps. He had only the argument that the man who started it is smart.
He said the US might take Cuba and can “do anything it wants” with it
In a separate Oval Office appearance, Trump told reporters: “I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba,” adding, “I think I can do anything I want with it.”
Cuba is a sovereign nation of 11 million people. Its annexation by the United States would be illegal under international law, the UN Charter, and the Organization of American States charter. It would also represent the first territorial seizure of a sovereign country by the United States in the modern era. The president said this in passing, between other topics, as if it were a real estate observation.
His National Counterterrorism Director resigned, saying Iran posed no immediate threat
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, posted his resignation letter publicly on X, writing that he could not “in good conscience” support the war. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” he wrote, “and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Under US law, the concept of “imminent threat” is a legal prerequisite for a president to launch military attacks without congressional approval. Kent was Trump’s own appointee, a former Green Beret who completed 11 combat deployments. He was not a dissenting Democrat or a career bureaucrat being eased out. He was a MAGA loyalist who concluded that the legal and factual basis for the war he was asked to defend did not exist, and said so publicly. Trump responded by saying he had always thought Kent “was weak on security.”
Every living former president denied Trump’s claim that one of them privately praised his Iran decision
Trump told reporters he had spoken to a former president who told him, “I wish I did it.” He declined to name the person, saying it would “be very bad for his career, even though he’s got no career.” Representatives for all four living former presidents, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden, told the Associated Press they had not spoken to Trump since the war began.
The president claimed a private endorsement. All four people who could have given it denied doing so. The White House did not respond to the denials. This pattern, a private conversation that cannot be verified and that every possible participant disavows, is not new. It is a recurring feature of how this administration asserts support it lacks.
He threatened news organizations with treason
Trump accused news organizations of airing “LIES” about the Iran war on Truth Social and raised the prospect of “Charges for TREASON” for what he characterized as spreading Iranian disinformation. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr followed up the same day by warning broadcast networks that “hoaxes and news distortions” could lead to license revocation.
Treason is the only crime explicitly defined in the US Constitution. It carries the death penalty. The president applied the word to news coverage he disagreed with, based on an AI-generated video that major American outlets had not actually aired. Legal experts noted that the FCC has not denied a single license renewal in decades, and that Carr’s threats were, in a strictly legal sense, hollow. The chilling effect, however, is not hollow. When a government regulator threatens to end your broadcast license for unflattering war coverage, the point is not the lawsuit. The point is the threat.
He made a Pearl Harbor joke to the Prime Minister of Japan
When a Japanese reporter asked Trump why the US had not informed its allies before striking Iran, Trump replied: “We wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s eyes widened, and she shifted in her chair.
Pearl Harbor killed more than 2,400 Americans and drew the United States into the most destructive war in human history. Japan has carried the weight of that attack in its national consciousness for 85 years. The prime minister of Japan was sitting two feet away. The room went quiet.
His Secretary of Defense called NATO allies “ungrateful” and said they should thank Trump
As the war entered its fourth week, with the Strait of Hormuz still largely closed and over 3,000 vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth publicly criticized US allies for not contributing more to the war effort, calling them ungrateful and implying they owed the administration recognition for its actions.
The allies being described as ungrateful include countries that host American bases, fund NATO operations, and whose energy supplies are being directly disrupted by a war they were not consulted on before it started. The Pearl Harbor joke was made the same week.
He asked for a $200 billion war supplemental for a war he said was already won
The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon plans to request $200 billion from Congress to fund ongoing military operations in Iran. Trump confirmed the figure, though he said it covered matters “beyond even what we’re talking about in Iran.” NBC News: The request came more than a week after Trump declared that the United States had met its objectives.
A war that is over does not require $200 billion in new appropriations. A war that requires $200 billion in new appropriations is not over. Neither can both things be true simultaneously, and the administration has not explained which version it intends the public to believe.
He said no one was shooting at US forces. The same day, Iran shot down a US fighter jet.
Oil prices reached $112 a barrel as the vital Strait of Hormuz remained largely closed, with over 3,000 vessels stranded in the region. During the same period, Trump publicly stated that Iranian forces were not targeting American personnel. Iranian forces continued to target American personnel.
The gap between what the president says is happening in a war and what is actually happening in that war is, by any historical standard, the central measure of wartime credibility. This administration has not closed that gap. It has widened it, week by week, statement by statement.
He lifted sanctions on Iranian oil while at war with Iran
The Trump administration announced it was temporarily lifting sanctions on Iranian oil currently loaded on ships, in an attempt to ease what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called one of the worst disruptions to the global oil market ever experienced. The measure is expected to add roughly 140 million barrels to a global market that consumes about 100 million barrels per day.
The administration is simultaneously conducting military operations against Iran and purchasing the economic relief that easing sanctions on Iran provides. The country being bombed is also the country whose oil the administration is now allowing to flow freely. National security analysts described the measure as unlikely to move prices significantly. Energy economists noted it may not even reach the market before the temporary window expires on April 19.
He said he was winding down the war. The next day, he threatened to obliterate Iran’s power plants.
On Friday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the US was “getting very close to meeting our objectives” and was considering “winding down” military efforts. Less than 24 hours later, he posted a new threat: “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”
A ceasefire signal followed within hours by a threat to destroy civilian infrastructure is not a strategy. It is two contradictory impulses, expressed in public, with no evident coordination between them. Iran responded by warning it would target US energy and desalination facilities in the Gulf. Israel announced it would increase the intensity of its strikes. The war, which the president said was nearly over, escalated on both fronts before the week ended.