These are troubling times for President Donald Trump. His poll numbers are in the toilet. The country doesn't trust him with the economy and doesn't support him on what was his favorite issue, immigration. The war he started is not going well and is not popular. He needs to "win" it and make it be over and the Iranians are not cooperating. They are like that.

So what does the King do when things are spinning out of control? Usually, we'd be worrying about him starting a war, but he's already done that and while it might have distracted from the Epstein of it all, rising gas prices more than made up for that. So if you can't start a new war and you're having trouble winning the war you did start, what do you do?

Attack. What else explains the president's decision to unload, again, on Sen. Mark Kelly, the former astronaut who flew 39 combat missions in Desert Storm and had the audacity to make a tape, with other veterans in Congress, telling the military and intelligence communities that they should not follow illegal orders? Holocaust Studies 101. Not to Trump, who called it treasonous at the time. Not to Hegseth, who moved to strip Kelly of his military pension and demote him; that's in federal court right now, where Kelly will certainly win.

On Wednesday, Trump took to Truth Social, posting that Kelly should be imprisoned. "Lock him up," was the phrase he used. An American hero.

It's the playbook of this administration. Look at Kash Patel. He should be the former Director of the FBI by this point. The fact that he's not is only testament to how many loyalty points he's won for targeting Trump's targets. And his own. including The New York Times reporter who had the audacity to write a piece about how taxpayer-funded security teams were escorting Patel's girlfriend to her beauty appointments. So what did Kash do? According to The New York Times, he had the FBI investigate the reporter for possible "stalking" because she talked on the phone with the girlfriend once and, following standard reporting techniques, asked her for names of those she should speak with and made her own calls. Since when is reporting stalking? When it's done to a Trump insider.

At least Fed Chair Jerome Powell is off the hook. They were after him too; the minions at the FBI and the Justice Department were determined to punish him for standing up to President Trump when some Republican senators got in the way to make clear that dropping the trumped-up investigation was the only way to get Powell's successor confirmed.

That these trumped-up investigations — of Kelly, for instance, or The New York Times reporter, or an earlier search targeting a Washington Post reporter — run into obstacles in the form of federal judges, grand juries, or even members of Congress does not mean that they are harmless. They denigrate all those involved and have a chilling effect both inside and outside the government. Knowing that you can be fired for not following the president's political agenda undercuts the security that civil service should protect. Career prosecutors get fired for taking on the president and his men, or not taking on their baggage. Reporters get investigated for doing their jobs as reporters. The New York Times has the will and the resources to fight back when its reporter is threatened. The Atlantic, which Patel has now hopelessly sued in a stunt filing that will likely go nowhere, will fight back. But the damage is done.

President Trump is scheduled to break bread with the press corps he detests at Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Dinner. It will be a difficult night for the president, not because the organization is out to embarrass him (they invited a mentalist, not the usual comedian, to host, sparing the president his own version of Saturday Night Live), but the temptation for him to attack, with all those enemies in the room, will likely be more than he can resist. It's not that it's smart politics. It's not. It's just his nature.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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