Amid all the alarming and unhinged comments of the president of the United States in recent days threatening Iran with genocide — remarks beyond even the usual cray-cray blather from Donald Trump — it was a statement from his spokesperson on Tuesday that really put the madness in the White House in perspective.

“Only the President knows where things stand and what he will do,” Karoline Leavitt said.

She issued those words just hours before Trump’s 8 p.m. Tuesday deadline for Iran to either reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping or face Armageddon — that is, war crimes by the United States. The statement from the White House press secretary was as clear a description as Americans could get of governance under Trump these days: A mad king reigns, virtually unchecked.

And as a practical matter, there is nothing under the Constitution, neither impeachment nor removal under the 25th Amendment, that can be done about him. There’s only voters’ opportunity to eject the complicit Republican majorities in the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections, to install a Democratic — and democratic — check on Trump for the remaining two years of his term.

By now we know that, just before Trump’s deadline to Iran warning “a whole civilization will die tonight,” he announced a fragile two-week ceasefire for negotiations. The commander in chief declared victory, natch. But so did Iran. And it had the better of the argument: Iran continued to control and monetize passage through the strait, unlike before Trump’s war began Feb. 28, and already on Wednesday it flexed that power by closing the route in retaliation for Israeli strikes. The ceasefire also lets Iran retain possession of its enriched, nearly bomb-grade uranium, and the nation won Trump’s offer of possible tariff and sanctions relief.

So much for the “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” he demanded in a post a month ago.

I’m writing these words on Wednesday. Who knows where things will stand by the time you’re reading this? “Only the president knows.”

Trump has fluctuated, reversed and contradicted himself repeatedly — even within a single social-media screed or chest-thumping performance for the press — since he ordered war against Iran nearly six weeks ago, without notice to Congress, let alone its authorization. Since Sunday, he’s variously called Iran’s leaders “crazy bastards” and “animals” and taken credit for “Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail.”

Presidential rule by fiat and whim would be wrong in any case under the Constitution’s checks and balances of power, and specifically of war power. But in Trump’s case, America has a president who lately has piled on the evidence that he is mentally unstable, unfit for the office.

And spare us the cheerleaders’ claims on Fox News about how he’s playing multidimensional chess. When even Alex Jones likens Trump to “crazy King Lear” and calls for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from power — echoing former Trump promoters including Marjorie Taylor Greene and Candace Owens, among others — you know he’s crossed a line by his unilateral war-making and profane threats (on Easter Sunday!) of genocidal apocalypse.

The evidence of Trump’s dangerous instability has been there from his political genesis. In his first term, he warned he’d unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” against nuclear-armed North Korea then declared that he “fell in love” with dictator Kim Jong-un (without achieving any diminution in Kim’s arsenal). He celebrates the deaths of political enemies and prosecutes those still living. He repeatedly interrupts himself on some policy question to bloviate about his ballroom plans.

He’s ordered armed agents into American neighborhoods on immigration raids, then expressed neither responsibility nor remorse when citizens died and legal residents got deported. The national security leaders of his first term let it be known that they’d prevented him from acting on his worst impulses, but there’s no chance of that from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Retired Gen. Mark Milley, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in 2021 described first-term Trump as being in mental decline and “fascist to the core.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks Trump has gotten better in the intervening five years.

The country “can’t be a therapy session for … a troubled man like this,” Trump’s first-term attorney general, William P. Barr, told CBS in 2023 as Trump campaigned to return to office.

If only the presidency were therapy for Trump. Instead he’s like a power addict in the world’s most powerful job, mainlining its intoxicants, and no one will stop him. Only people with extraordinary egos seek the White House in the first place, but when an actual egomaniac inhabits that warping bubble of butter-uppers, there’s danger. I remain haunted by the words of retired Gen. John F. Kelly, Trump’s first-term Homeland Security secretary and then White House chief of staff, who in 2023 said of Trump’s potential reelection: “God help us.”

Having failed twice to convict and remove Trump in his first term, Democrats have shied from a third attempt, until now. Scores in Congress have called for impeachment or invocation of the 25th Amendment to oust him. There’s some value in sending a message. But Democrats are offering supporters false hope. A Republican-led Congress and a Cabinet of clownish sycophants will not exercise the powers they have, even against a mad king.

The authors of the Constitution, having thrown off a king, debated at length how to guard against a power-crazed president. But they didn’t anticipate political parties that put tribal loyalty over the country. That partisanship has rendered the high bars to a president’s removal — a vote of two-thirds of the Senate for conviction after impeachment, or, under the 25th Amendment, action by the vice president and a Cabinet majority — all but insurmountable.

That leaves the voters, who in special and off-year elections as recently as Tuesday have shown their zeal to punish Trump’s party. We can hope that a new Congress will check him come January.

And we can pray.

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Virginia’s Democratic Governor, Abigail Spanberger, took credit for billions in economic achievements secured under her GOP predecessor, earning her backlash from Republican leaders and their representatives running the state before she got there. 

Spanberger touted signing legislation that authorized four separate investments from the aerospace, energy, and pharmaceutical industries earlier this week. The investments, according to a press release from Spanberger’s office, would welcome 3,250 new jobs and $7.1 billion in business investment to the state. 

“From my very first day in office, I have been working to create a stable business environment so companies can hire, expand, and continue to invest in our Commonwealth,” Spanberger said in her press release. “I am signing these bills into law so we can continue to grow Virginia’s economy and create opportunities for Virginians.”

However, Spanberger’s signature was effectively just a formality, as the deals she touted were part of Youngkin’s broader push to spur economic development as governor of Virginia, which included a record of $156 billion in total CEO commitments during his term. As he was exiting office, the former GOP governor garnered more than the previous six gubernatorial administrations combined,  according to a press release from Youngkin’s team.

BIDEN ALLY TELLS SPANBERGER TO EXIT ‘BUNKER’ AS EX-GOV RENEWS DEBATE PUSH

“She’s trying to take credit for somebody else’s work,” former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told Fox News Digital. “In grade school we call that cheating.”

“The last three months have been nothing but horrible news for Virginians as Abigail Spanberger broke every single promise she made on the campaign trail and now has the lowest approval rating of any Virginia governor this century,” added Youngkin spokesperson Justin Discigil. “Governor Youngkin is happy that Virginians are being reminded of some good news, even if it means Gov. Spanberger taking credit for the economic deals he secured for the Commonwealth.”

Spanberger did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the matter. 

WHO IS ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, AND WHY DID DEMOCRATS CHOOSE HER FOR TO THEIR STATE OF THE UNION RESPONSE?

The four bills she signed, which with her signature authorized the awards, were announced during Youngkin’s term as governor. 

The first, HB 1531, allocates $537 million to aerospace company Avio USA and is expected to create over 1,500 jobs. The award, according to public reports at the time, was announced in December 2025. The next bill, HB 799, will allocate $457 million and is expected to create over 825 jobs. This award was announced by Youngkin in September 2025. HB 800, allocating over $2 billion to pharmacuetical manufacturer Eli Lilly and expected to create more than 450 jobs to manufacture the active ingredient in major cancer, autoimmune and other advanced drugs, was announced in September 2025 as well. Meanwhile, rounding out the handful of investments touted by Spanberger this week was HB 1076, which invested $4 billion into pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and is expected to create around 500 jobs. That commitment was announced in October 2025.

“Attracting new businesses and jobs to Virginia is a core focus of my administration — and I’m proud of the hundreds of millions of dollars in investment we have already announced this year,” Spanberger continued in her press release this week announcing the Virginia investments. “I look forward to continuing to work with legislators, local communities, and business leaders as we make clear that Virginia is the top state in the nation to grow or start a business.”

In a background section of the press release, the announcement continues touting Spanberger’s commitment to growing Virginia’s economy.

FORMER VIRGINIA GOV GLENN YOUNGKIN HINTS AT POLITICAL FUTURE, SAYS HE’S ‘CHOMPING AT THE BIT’ AFTER EXIT

“My simple message for Abigail Spanberger is, to quote Elizabeth Warren, ‘You didn’t build that!’” Sean Kennedy, president of Virginians for Safe Communities, said. “Spanberger has to take credit for her Republican predecessor’s accomplishments bringing jobs to Virginia because her policies are actually raising taxes, killing jobs, and hiking energy costs. Spanberger has to play make believe that she is delivering on her affordability agenda to impress the 2028 Democratic Party kingmakers. I expect that Spanberger will nevertheless persist in her false claims.”

Critics of Spanberger have questioned the moderate campaign message she campaigned on, as well as her economic strategy, which has included ushering in new taxes in the state despite campaigning on a message of affordability.

“Abigail Spanberger’s first 100 days in office have been a disaster when it comes to economic development, argued Miyares, who lost to current Democratic Attorney General Jay Jones in November. Jones infamously called for the murder of his GOP rival, something that ultimately did not matter enough for voters as he and Spanberger came out victorious in November. 

“Three pillars of a good business environment is a good tax environment, a good regulatory environment and an environment that – from a litigation perspective – is not anti-business. Spanberger has already indicated and done a rash of bills that will make Virginia less competitive. Virginia does not compete by itself, we compete with 49 other sates, and Spanberger seems hellbent to hurt us with her tax, regulatory and litigation.” 

Miyares added that he was aware of multiple Virginia businesses that former Governor Youngkin had recruited and were thinking about expanding in Virginia, but will no longer do so as a result of Spanberger’s policies. 

He also pointed out that Spanberger “does not believe in energy abundance” despite touting energy infrastructure investments this week. “I find it in some ways laughable and pathetic what she is attempting to do,” Miyares said.

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“Abigail Spanberger inherited a $2.7 billion surplus and benefitted from hundreds of thousands of new jobs created under Republican leadership,” the Virginia GOP added in February, in response to headlines about rising Virginia unemployment numbers. “Her and her Democrat allies are squandering it all in a matter of weeks while breaking every promise they made on ‘affordability.’”

When the speaker of the Texas House recently outlined his priorities for the next legislative session, he mentioned tax relief, the development of data centers and a notion that sent many eyebrows skyward.

Dustin Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock, directed the chamber’s governmental oversight committee to study the legal and economic implications of Texas absorbing one or more counties in eastern New Mexico.

The “conversation,” Burrows told the Dallas Morning News, “is ultimately about culture, opportunity and the right to choose a path that reflects the shared values of the Permian and Delaware basins,” a vast desert expanse awash in oil and natural gas.

Apparently, Texas lawmakers have time and money to burn.

The notion of the swaggering state swallowing a chunk of its resistant neighbor is completely far-fetched. Just four states have been carved from the territory of others: Kentucky, Maine, Vermont and West Virginia. And it’s been quite a spell since the last time that happened. West Virginia split off from Confederate Virginia in 1863.

Realistically, there is no end of hurdles — legal, political, practical — that would have to be surmounted for a partial Texas-New Mexico merger to occur. Both states would need to agree — New Mexico is a hard no — and Congress would also have to approve.

But the impulse to bust up, break away and move on is as old as America itself and, at the same time, as fresh as the latest provocation to pass the lips of the nation’s frothing commander-in-chief.

“Calexit,” the idea of California breaking away from the U.S. and becoming its own nation, took root during President Trump’s turbulent first reign and gained renewed support as soon as he returned to power. Texas toyed with the idea of secession when Barack Obama was president.

“The driver,” said Syracuse University professor Ryan Griffiths, an author and expert on secession, “is politics and polarization.”

The notion being if you don’t like it, then leave.

Or, at least, make noise about doing so.

Eastern New Mexico — dry, desolate — looks and feels very much like an appendage of West Texas. Its residents have long been estranged from the rest of their state and, especially, the Democratic leadership in Santa Fe, the state capital. That is not to say, however, the slightest inch of New Mexico territory will be going anywhere anytime soon.

Earlier this year, two Republican state lawmakers introduced a measure to give voters a say on whether they wanted their counties to break away — or, as one of the legislators put it, “Get the hell out of New Mexico.” The constitutional amendment died without a hearing.

When Burrows renewed talk of a takeover, Javier Martinez, speaker of the New Mexico House, responded without equivocation. “Over my dead body,” he said.

But the notion has garnered Burrows plenty of attention in the Lone Star State, a place with no lack of self-regard. And it certainly hasn’t hurt his standing with Texas’ arch-conservative Republican base, which has sometimes viewed Burrows with suspicion.

“People in Texas have a lot of fun with the idea that Texas … is entitled to secede and that maybe it can restore lost lands in New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado and beyond,” said Cal Jillson, a longtime student of Texas politics at Southern Methodist University. “It [appeals to] the conservative base, but also to everyone who loves to chuckle.”

Serious or not, secession — or independence, as some prefer to call it — has long been the dream of dissenters, of the discontented and those who feel put upon or politically unrepresented. America, after all, was birthed by divorcing itself from Britain and King George III.

For the longest time, residents in the ruddy north of blue California have agitated for a breakaway state called Jefferson. In recent years unhappy conservatives in eastern Oregon have spoken of splitting from their Democratic state and becoming a part of Republican Idaho. (Lawmakers in Boise passed a measure in 2023 inviting Oregon to the negotiating table; Oregon has so far declined to show.)

Since 2020, voters in 33 rural Illinois counties have voted to separate from their state and its Democratic leadership, a move welcomed in a measure passed by the Republican-run Indiana Legislature and signed by the state’s GOP governor, Mike Braun. (Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker dismissed the 2025 legislation as “a stunt.”)

Which, indeed, it appeared to be.

But Richard Kreitner said there is a certain logic behind secession movements, as governments from Washington to the statehouse are seen as increasingly unresponsive and dysfunctional.

“As people become more disenfranchised … more disillusioned from the political process, you’re going to start looking outside of the political process, the political structure, the constitutional structure, for a possible solution,” said Kreitner, who hosts a history podcast, “Think Back,” and has also written a book on secession. “If you’re going to do that in a country founded with a secessionist manifesto, the Declaration of Independence, at some point people are going to start thinking about that.”

Legitimate grievance grounded in serious concern is certainly worthy of attention. But exploiting that discontent to draw notice or score cheap political points — as Burrows seems to be doing in Texas — is something altogether different.

The chance of New Mexico ceding a part of itself to Texas is precisely zero, meaning the legislative study is less about “culture” and “opportunity” than the speaker and fellow Republicans evidently looking to troll their blue-state neighbor.

There are better, more productive ways for lawmakers to spend their time.

And their taxpayers’ dime.