US President Donald Trump. Photo / Getty Images
From Iran to Capitol Hill, United States President Donald Trump is governing as if he believes all the constraints that limited him during his first term have collapsed.
He may be right in that assessment. But if he is, both he and his party could ultimately regret it.
Consider his decision to bomb Iran. The problem of Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon has vexed presidents for decades. Yet Vice-President JD Vance, reflecting the courtier mindset that has come to dominate Trump’s White House, insisted that other presidents hadn’t bombed Iran only because they were “dumb”.
Actually, as I was told in conversations last week with several former senior national security officials from the Joe Biden and Barack Obama administrations, those presidents also seriously considered bombing Iran.
Both concluded that military action might only slow, not stop, Iran’s nuclear effort - and could ultimately increase its determination to secretly build a bomb for deterrence.
They recognised that even an attack that initially met its military goals could trigger unintended consequences and ultimately hurt America’s long-term interests.
Maybe because Trump has spent a lifetime dodging accountability in the legal system, the idea that his actions could have unintended consequences seems foreign to him.
He has especially good reason to feel unbound now. The institutions that might have restrained him - and usually did restrain other presidents - are buckling under his relentless drive to centralise more presidential power.
Cascading events over just the past week have captured the breadth of this capitulation.
The six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices signalled again that they see themselves less as hindrances than handmaidens to Trump’s accumulation of power when they voted to essentially bar lower courts from imposing nationwide injunctions against his policies.
Two of the tiny handful of Congressional Republicans who have maintained a degree of independence - Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska and Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina - announced that they would not seek re-election, showing the President’s success at eradicating dissent within his party.
Congressional Republican leaders again demonstrated that they will not defend the institution’s authority when they justified Trump’s refusal to consult Congress (or even inform Democrats) before he bombed Iran.
The decision by the University of Virginia’s president to resign under pressure from the Administration underscored how many institutions in civil society are surrendering to Trump’s unprecedented incursions on their independence.
That was just one week.
Trump is nothing if not a student of human weakness.
And he has clearly taken note of how many institutions are splintering under his assaults.
In response, Trump is indulging his most aggressive instincts and taking political and policy gambles that might have seemed too reckless during his first term.
On issue after issue, he is treating an extremely confrontational position as merely his opening ante - before immediately doubling down with even more extreme ideas.
This tendency was evident from his first day back in office when he pardoned not only the January 6 defendants who broke into the Capitol, but also those who violently assaulted police officers.
He’s not only dropped federal investigations against political allies but has directed his administration to launch investigations of individuals he considers adversaries - most recently saying he would consider deporting friend-turned-foe Elon Musk.
In Los Angeles, Trump went beyond federalising the state National Guard over the objection of California Governor Gavin Newsom and also deployed active-duty Marines into the city.
Then, he not only used troops to defend federal buildings in LA, but also to provide security for federal immigration and drug enforcement agents on raids.
The “one big beautiful bill” staggering through Congress not only extends the tax cuts he passed in 2017 but would cause nearly as many people to lose health insurance as his failed first-term attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Trump has been equally unconstrained in international affairs.
He hasn’t applied punishing tariffs only to China, but to close allies including Canada and Mexico.
He has moved from America-first isolationism to threatening to seize territory from friendly nations.
And as noted above, he not only acquiesced as Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, but joined the attack with the biggest non-nuclear bombs in America’s arsenal.
The former senior Biden and Obama national security officials told me any administration would have considered a military strike after Israel opened a window of opportunity by degrading Iran’s air defences and disabling its key regional proxies.
But the officials also said that the continuing uncertainty over how much the attack actually set back Iran’s nuclear programme validated the conclusion in those previous administrations that a diplomatic agreement offered a better chance of lasting success.
The common thread linking Trump’s second-term choices is that he appears to view himself as both infallible and invulnerable. “I run the country and the world,” he has declared.
He partially retreated when bond markets rebelled against his tariffs, but no other external force has cowed him.
And unlike his first term, he’s filled his government with loyalists more prone to flatter than challenge him. Business executives and international leaders have followed suit, sacrificing their independence and in some cases self-respect.
That lack of pushback appears to be encouraging him to take yet more gambles.
None have entirely blown up on him yet.
But he is rushing onto so many ledges that any could crumble beneath him.
Iran eventually could respond to his attack with a destabilising act of terrorism or a sprint toward a bomb.
His National Guard deployments into blue cities could trigger a Kent State moment when civilians are killed.
Trade wars could derail the economy.
Voters could recoil from a budget bill that cuts taxes for the top 0.1% by over $230,000 annually while revoking health insurance from more people than any previous statute.
Brown University political scientist Corey Brettschneider points out that when other presidents have sought to aggrandise their power and undermine US constitutional freedoms, the system’s supposed checks from Congress and the Supreme Court have usually failed.
According to Brettschneider, who explored that history in his powerful recent book The Presidents and The People, what has slowed those presidents (from John Adams through to Woodrow Wilson) is “citizens pushing back” and building “a coalition in opposition” when rights and liberties are threatened.
That history points to the real danger of Trump’s towering overconfidence.
It has emboldened him to take serial risks that may ultimately hurt the American people and provoke a public backlash, particularly among the swing voters that he - and more immediately his party in 2026 -need to retain power.
Trump is repeatedly raising his bets as if he believes he can draw only aces from the deck.
He might do well to remember that back in Atlantic City, his ventures into the casino business more than once ended in bankruptcy.