We’ll be honest: When Sam and Andrew unearthed a clip last November of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. interviewing a chemtrail conspiracy theorist on his podcast—“I am persuaded by what you’re saying,” Kennedy told him—we thought we were spotlighting the then-HHS nominee’s conspiratorial frame of mind. The idea he would actually use his lofty perch in the government to succor chemtrail nuts seemed, even then, a little far-fetched.

But as Will Sommer reported yesterday, that’s exactly what Kennedy is doing: “It’s done, we think, by [the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency], and a lot of it now is coming out of the jet fuel,” Kennedy told a chemtrail believer in a Dr. Phil appearance this week. “I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it.” Happy Friday.

Waltzing Michael

by William Kristol

Yesterday started as a normal workday for Trump’s embattled national security adviser, Mike Waltz: Get to the office early, spend a little time at your job, then hustle to the White House grounds for the truly important work: an appearance on Fox & Friends at 8:00 am.

But being friends with Fox wasn’t enough. No sooner was Waltz off the air than word began circulating that he was to be fired. Later that morning, Trump held a public event in the Rose Garden in which most of his top aides were present, but not Waltz.

That was followed by a slew of reports (confirmed by White House officials) that Waltz was indeed on the way out. Soon after, President Trump announced he would be nominating Waltz to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations—thereby removing him as national security adviser—and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would serve in that position on an interim basis.

What does it all mean?

You might think it means that it’s chaos as usual in the court of the mad king.

But that would be wrong! Waltz served 101 days as Trump’s first national security adviser, far outstripping his first term predecessor, Michael Flynn, who was booted after 22 days. It’s a new era of relative stability in Trump World!

It does mean that above the staff turmoil stands Donald Trump, firmly in charge, with his advisers pretty much interchangeable and replaceable at his whim.

It also means that while Trump relishes seeing people sell their souls for him and to him, it rarely pays off. As Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton remarked yesterday:

I was honestly surprised when Mike Waltz, a friend and colleague who cares about American leadership in the world, sold out to Trump because it was always going to end this way. A combat veteran who honorably served his country, Mike was never going to be unprincipled enough, incompetent enough, or dumb enough (like Pete Hegseth) to survive under Trump.

One problem with selling out is that there can be receipts from your past. MAGA true believers like Laura Loomer are pretty good at finding those receipts, and making life unpleasant for those who have stopped even one step short of total Maoist recantation. Over at Axios, our old colleague Marc Caputo quoted an administration adviser yesterday who called Waltz’s reassignment a “confirmed kill” for Loomer.

Insofar as anything substantive about foreign policy can be read into Waltz’s removal, it’s that America First doctrines are stronger than ever in the Trump circles. Any remnants of Reaganite Republican internationalism will be even weaker in the Trump administration going forward.

As the New York Times reported, Waltz, who had been “arguing internally for sharp sanctions against Russia if it fails to agree to a cease-fire with Ukraine,” was seen “as too hawkish to work for a president who campaigned as a skeptic of American intervention abroad and was eager to reach a nuclear deal with Iran and normalize relations with Russia.” With Waltz gone, the prospects for increased hostility toward democratic allies and more accommodation of Vladimir Putin have heightened.

So whatever schadenfreude one can enjoy from the failure of Waltz’s Faustian bargain should be tempered by the realization that his departure means the odds of even more irresponsible and destructive Trump administration policies have gone up.

Who will take over as the next security adviser? Trump sycophant and MAGA grifter Ric Grenell is generally considered the leading candidate. But it’s worth noting that as soon as the news of Waltz’s firing broke, the prominent Trumpist account “@MAGAResource” posted this: “Would you support General Flynn as Trump’s new national security advisor now that Mike Waltz is gone?” It’s gotten thousands of likes and retweets.

Whoa. Of course Trump wouldn’t actually consider bringing Mike Flynn—a (pardoned) felon who twice pleaded guilty of lying to the FBI and has since become an ever more crazed lunatic conspiracy theorist—back into the White House, right?

Right?

Tales from the Groupchat

by Andrew Egger

During Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, Mike Waltz was photographed with his phone out under the desk, surreptitiously checking his—what else?—Signal. Here’s a conversation he might have been having. . . .