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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, Slate’s politics newsletter funded by a new toll on the Strait of Hormuz. The new revenue stream will allow us to branch out from the newsletter business and into the product of the future: ballistic missiles.

We never thought we’d say this but: Congress really needs to come back. Not that they would adequately provide adult supervision to Donald Trump, but he seems to go especially loopy when he has the town to himself. Maybe some more dinner companions would help? Should he get a cat?

The dangerous escalation embedded in TACO. 

The week revolved around one of the most sickening things Trump has ever said. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump posted ahead of his Tuesday night deadline for Iran to come to the table. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” The threat of civilization-ending war crimes prompted dozens of Democrats to call for his removal from office and loud rebukes from key voices in the MAGA movement (as well as all generally sane people). Shortly before the deadline, though, Trump called off his bombardment and agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran to attempt to negotiate a deal. That ceasefire has been proceeding delicately.

The Surge was grateful in this case that Trump always chickens out (TACO). But for a U.S. president to even threaten such overt war crimes, and to set up his decision for an 8 p.m. prime-time special, shows how he’s rebranded the country into a rogue state. We should only expect more maniacal threats as time goes on. The idea that Trump will chicken out from his wild threats is so built into markets and diplomacy that he needs to resort to progressively more extreme threats in order to get the reaction he needs to change course—typically a market downturn, or a panicked response from his counterparties. There are still nearly three years left in his term. That is not a formula for civilizational security, and whatnot.

Man, imagine foreign powers interfering in the Hungarian election …

The vice president hasn’t been his trash-talking, omnipresent, ever-tweeting self since Trump initiated the Iran war. Vance was the senior administration figure most opposed to the war, as a big New York Times story this week—for which Vance should’ve been given a byline—explained in detail. As a pick-me-up present to himself, then, Vance spent spring break in Hungary this week to campaign for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ahead of Sunday’s election, in which Orbán is trailing in the polls. Orbán has a cult-like following among the American small-l........

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