So, everybody feeling safer today?

A hellish scenario: Funding cuts, brain drain at NSC, incompetent sycophants at DOD, DHS and the FBI, and now Trump gets us into a war.

The problem is, Trump is unbelievable, and Americans still feel burned by the lies that got us into the last Middle East war. No rational person should accept that, by bombing Iran, Trump has made us safer. That would require believing Trump — an impossibility for millions of us — that the bombings were necessary. Rather, he appears to have been, as Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland pointed out Saturday night, “outmaneuvered by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who opposed the [Iran nuclear deal] negotiated by President Obama and has long favored drawing America into a war against Iran.”

This is a horrible situation, starting with the fact that Trump lies all the time, and his staff lies for him and to him. You can’t believe that the bombing run was anything but an expensive ego stroke for Trump; he probably thinks the mission makes him look strong and decisive.

(Public opinion: In results published just last week, Pew Research found that only 28% of people surveyed in 24 countries described Trump as “honest.” A February Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that 62% of Americans do not find Trump “honest and trustworthy.”)

If Americans feel less safe today, it’s with good reason: Terrorist attacks, either state-sponsored or carried out by Iran supporters, will likely be part of the response to the bombing Trump ordered. And if you worry that the U.S. intelligence system is unprepared for such counterattacks, you have good reason: Trump is erratic and never measures the consequences of his actions. He is a low-information, visceral president.

Just last month, he ordered massive cuts to the White House National Security Council, sending dozens of policy and security experts packing. The Middle East section went from 10 staffers to five. The Middle East envoy is Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate billionaire who golfs with Trump.

The White House has also proposed cutting the FBI's fiscal-year 2026 budget by $545 million dollars, or about 5% of the bureau's budget.

The Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3), formed in the Department of Homeland Security to help communities across the nation prevent hate-fueled attacks, is being drastically cut back. And ProPublica found that CP3 is headed by a 22-year-old recent college graduate with no previous counterterrorism experience.

There are other examples of cuts to federal public safety programs.

But the main reason to worry is this: The Department of Homeland Security has focused its staffing, intelligence and funding on the mass deportation of immigrants, mostly from Central and South America. Security experts, including some who worked in the first Trump administration, fear that the obsession with immigrants has diverted attention from real threats.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen growing numbers of hate crimes and political violence domestically, and now Trump’s war with Iran could spark more violence against the U.S. and its allies by international operators.

So, funding cuts, a brain drain at NSC, incompetent sycophants in charge of DOD, DHS and the FBI, and now Trump getting us into a war — no one should feel safer today.