Desperate Trump Begs for Help to Escape Iran Fiasco

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Weak and Cornered

The foolery reached new heights over the weekend as President Trump veritably begged other nations, including rival China, to rescue him from his self-own in the Strait of Hormuz.

In social media posts and news interviews, the president concocted new and implausible rationales on the fly for why other nations owed it to him to pitch in to thwart Iran’s stranglehold on the vital shipping channel.

The headlines are almost comical:

• WaPo: Trump urges world to help open Strait of Hormuz
• Politico: Trump demands ‘about 7′ countries join coalition to police Iran’s Strait of Hormuz
• WSJ: White House Tries to Build Coalition on Iran to Address Energy Crisis
• Bloomberg: Trump Floats Xi Summit Delay If China Doesn’t Help in Hormuz
• NYT: Nations Respond With Caution to Trump’s Call to Send Warships to Strait of Hormuz

While accurate, the headlines don’t quite do justice the mix of magical thinking, narcissistic indignation, and pseudo-economics Trump spent the weekend trafficking in:

Trump: "We're always there for NATO. We're helping them with Ukraine. It's got an ocean in between us. It doesn't affect us, but we've helped them. It would be interesting to see what country wouldn't help us with a very small endeavor, which is just keeping the Strait open."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-03-16T00:07:59.251Z

Trump on Strait of Hormuz: "Really, I'm demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their territory … you could make the case that maybe we shouldn't be there at all, because we don't need it. We have a lot of oil."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-03-16T00:11:32.038Z

Trump, who was reportedly warned in advance by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the eminently foreseeable Iranian response of closing the strait, is left to grovel on the international stage, though in classic Trump fashion he compensates for his weakness by berating, lashing out, and threatening other countries.

With oil executives warning the White House that oil prices are not likely to retreat anytime soon and the crisis is likely to worsen, it is slowly dawning on Trump that he has an election year nightmare on his hands.

Trump’s invitation for China to assert itself more vigorously in the Middle East and to take on more of the U.S. Navy’s century-plus duty of keeping shipping lanes free and open is a huge capitulation to the rival already eager to flex its own Navy. No U.S. interest is too valuable for Trump to forsake it for his own political expediency.

When Trapped, Trump Punches Down

Trump and his coterie lashed out on the home front, too, with news outlets being the easy and obvious target of his scorn.

• An especially peevish Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth railed against CNN Friday, saying he couldn’t wait for the tech oligarch David Ellison to take over its corporate parent.
• FCC chair Brendan Carr, always looking for a chance to curry favor with Trump, launched a new wide-ranging threat against the public broadcast licenses of news outlets who report “fake news” about the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran.
• Trump seized on Carr’s threat to accuse out-of-favor news outlets of “TREASON” in a social media post: “you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!” Given the way Trump runs the Justice Department from the White House and how DOJ has responded to past calls from Trump to pursue prosecutions, these are not idle threats from a lonely old man spending his Sunday evening on social media.

The authoritarian impulses, themselves noteworthy and with few historical precedents in the United States, are clearly the default fallback position in a global energy crisis, where gas prices are spiking and there are few viable options for Trump to take decisive action to fix the problems he created. With no easy way out that doesn’t involve a debilitating loss of face, Trump is left to punch down at other targets like the press to try to maintain his aura of power and invincibility.

Boasberg Quashes Subpoenas of the Fed

In a remarkably direct and uncluttered ruling, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., found that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro subpoenaed the Federal Reserve for the improper purpose of harassing and pressuring Chair Jay Powell into lowering interest rates or resigning.

In finding that the subpoenas were “pretextual,” Boasberg said the Trump DOJ “produced essentially zero evidence” of any crime by Powell and offered only “thin and unsubstantiated” justifications for the subpoenas:

In sum, the President spent years essentially asking if no one will rid him of this troublesome Fed Chair. He then suggested a specific line of investigation into him, which had been proposed by a political appointee with no role in law enforcement, who hinted that it could be a way to remove Powell. The President’s appointed prosecutor promptly complied. Those facts strongly imply that this investigation was launched for an improper purpose, as were the resulting subpoenas.

Trump reacted to the ruling with a predictable social media attack on Boasberg.

Trump DOJ Drops Flag Burner Case

The Trump DOJ moved to dismiss the criminal case against a veteran who burned an American flag in D.C. in protest of Trump’s executive order that purported to punish flag burning. The motion to dismiss was filed ahead of today’s deadline for the government to respond to the vindictive prosecution claim raised by the defendant.

The Secret Police Playbook

A really smart piece from two experts on the underlying dynamics that can turn a professional law enforcement organization into a secret police force, with a special focus on Trump’s transformation of ICE.

For Your Radar …

If the Trump administration’s threats to break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder have seemed more subdued lately, don’t be fooled. Proposals from institutions that want to take over management of the center’s research portfolio and various facilities were due Friday. It’s not clear when a final decision on NCAR’s fate will be made.

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