I don’t know what’s going to happen next in the Middle East. On Sunday, the United States joined Israel’s bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic, striking three of the country’s nuclear facilities under the belief that they were on the verge of developing nuclear weapons that would, presumably, be trained on the Jewish state and the United States itself. The following Monday, Donald Trump announced that the three nations had reached a ceasefire agreement, only for him to later complain that Israel and Iran weren’t abiding by the terms and “don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.” At the time of this writing, things seem to have calmed down, but the question of whether or not to escalate these strikes into an all out war against one of America’s longtime adversaries has had some fascinating domestic reverberations. 

It prompted an unlikely alliance between Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna and Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, both of whom tried to pass a resolution that would prevent Trump from attacking Iran without congressional approval (oops). It’s led to the rest of the Trump Administration essentially icing out Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, one of the figureheads of the non-interventionist wing of the Trump coalition, who, until recently, was insistent that U.S. intelligence indicated that Iran was still years away from developing a nuclear weapon. It even sparked an incredibly contentious interview between Senator Ted Cruz and right wing talk show host Tucker Carlson, an interview that, somehow, probably left many liberals and progressives agreeing with a man who less than a year ago was platforming Nazi apologia.

Once again, I have no idea what the Trump Administration will do in the Middle East next, or how it might reorder American politics. But even if the worst is past us, I still can’t help but be troubled that, when asked about the implications of war with Iran, Trump said that “anything could happen.” Nor am I comforted that Trump also told a reporter that “nobody knows what I’m going to do” – a description that seems to apply not only to the American public and media, but Trump himself. 

Obviously, the range of “anything could happen” being “a free and flourishing Iran” and “a nuclear war that kills us all” made Trump’s hemming and hawing disturbing. But anybody surprised that the most impulsive and unapologetic president in American history was suddenly unsure of himself shouldn’t be. I haven’t actually run the numbers, but if I had to guess, the most common phrase uttered by Trump in his second term is probably “I don’t know.” He said it when he was asked if he, as president, had a responsibility to uphold the Constitution. He said it when he was asked about rumored plans to relocate migrants to Libya. He said it when asked about Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s claims that certain products would be exempt from tariffs. He even said it about the qualifications of Casey Means, his pick for Surgeon General, redirecting the question to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

I’ve long believed that consistency, and sometimes even certainty, is overrated in politics. Elected officials should be allowed to change their strategies and adjust their policies when faced with new data or changing circumstances without being branded a “flip-flopper.” They should also probably opt for cool rationality over kneejerk decisiveness – in other words, act more like George H.W. Bush after the fall of the Berlin Wall and less like George W. Bush after the invasion of Iraq. 

But there’s a big difference between being deliberate in your decision making and measured in your language and straight up admitting you don’t seem to know what your own government is doing. The notion that Trump doesn’t actually want to be president, that he’s only attracted to the power and the prestige that comes with the office, has reached a sort of meme status ever since he started running for the office in 2015. But his apparent ignorance of the policies being pursued by his own administration – let alone the core responsibilities of the office – lend credibility to what at first felt like a liberal coping mechanism. Every president has to delegate, of course. But the degree to which Trump seems to have outsourced his decision-making makes him feel less like a president executing a grand vision than a vessel granting fiefdoms to different interest groups – the anti-vax conspiracy theorists get health policy, the tariff fetishists get trade, the nativists get immigration, the anti-deep state paranoiacs get law enforcement and national intelligence. These aren’t building blocks in a coherent national vision – instead, they’re favors handed out to people who pledged their loyalty to him, perhaps the only thing that Trump seems to care about. 

Done right, this management style would, ironically, look a lot like the prior presidency. One of the keys to Joe Biden’s political longevity was his malleability – his willingness to locate the center of the Democratic coalition at any given moment in time and adjust his views and rhetoric appropriately. Some might view it as cynical, but it served him well in 2020 – his grandfatherly demeanor helped sell centrists on the the social spending programs favored by the Warren and Sanders wing of the party, while his ties to labor and willingness to dialogue with the left helped smooth over progressives’ disagreements with the more orthodox aspects of his politics. Every piece of Biden’s governing coalition may not have always agreed with him, but they at least knew where he stood. I’m under not illusion that Biden could recite every provision of the American Rescue Plan or the Inflation Reduction Act, but if they did something potentially damaging to his base like, say, threaten the funding of rural hospitals, I don’t think that he’d have been “unaware” of it until a slightly heterodox senator from his own party told him about it.

Things only began to crack in the Biden coalition once the public began to think he didn’t know what day of the week it was, let alone the finer points of foreign policy. The reason why this wasn’t an issue earlier was because he seemed to be on the same page with his advisors and cabinet, and they seemed to be on the same page as each other. Trump, evidently, does not have the same luxury. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had to ensure that Peter Navarro was as physically far away from the president as possible to convince Trump to ease his tariff policy. Some officials are throwing around the idea of collapsing Gabbard’s ODNI into another agency. Elon Musk was getting into scuffles and shouting matches with cabinet officials. Under a more competent manager, these disputes might be handled differently. But Trump, apparently devoid of an opinion or knowledge of certain issues, seems content to merely roll with the advice of whoever he’s last spoken to. 

Take immigration enforcement. In early June, after ICE’s raids began to reach outside of liberal bastions and into the purple-to-red environs of central California farms and Nebraska meatpacking plants, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and related business leaders lobbied Trump to ease up on enforcement at their places of business. Accordingly, on June 12, Trump posted on Truth Social that “Changes are coming!” to help “protect our Farmers [sic].” That same day, DHS agents received a memo telling them to “hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels.” But that following Monday, the Administration reversed course, telling those same agents to return to the previous level of enforcement at those aforementioned businesses, aligning with the preferences of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. 

Who, exactly, was responsible for these whiplash changes? Was Donald Trump even aware of them? Does he have an opinion about how such enforcement will impact the agricultural industry? The right spent the better part of Biden’s presidency arguing that he was a puppet of his advisors and special interests. But given Trump’s apparent ignorance of the high level functions of his own administration, I haven’t seen much evidence to suggest that he isn’t being batted about the different factions of his own coalition, greenlighting whatever they propose when he isn’t busy tearing up Jackie Kennedy’s rose garden or gilding the White House. 

I don’t expect any president to be intimately familiar with the day-to-day, tactical goings on of the executive branch. But they should at least be able to answer broad questions about policy strategy, why they are appointing a particular person to a particular office, and what their allies in Congress are trying to accomplish. Thus far, I’ve seen little indication that Trump has an ability or an interest to do all three. Perhaps, given Trump’s impulsive, vindictive nature, this is a blessing in disguise. But, what can I say other than I’d really prefer it if the decision to put American lives at risk didn’t hinge on who Trump last had lunch with.