Once you get over the astounding and reckless incompetence of Whiskey Pete Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance and other top members of Trump’s so-called national security team plotting a military strike in Yemen over an unsecure app and with a reporter in the chat, there’s another, possibly worse shocker: Where was the commander-in-chief?

The short answer: he was at his golf club. It’s almost like he’s still there.

Chris Hayes did a good piece asking the important questions Wednesday night.

Hayes opened his commentary with a clip of Trump claiming ignorance about Signalgate. Even if the man who has famously claimed, “I alone can fix it” was lying, a real head of state would have made a show of demanding answers. Not Trump. He revealed his shocking ignorance and even more shocking lack of interest: “I don’t know, I’m not sure, you’ll have to ask the various people involved … I don’t know, I was told it was Mike [Waltz, national security adviser].”

Even worse, the Signals blabbers didn’t seem to know what Trump wanted. Worse even than that, the vice president said he wasn’t sure Trump really knew what he was doing. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance wrote.

After running down the subsequent military planning now recorded for posterity in the chat, Hayes noted that “the man who’s meant to make the final decision to launch a strike” was not in the White House Situation Room but at his golf club. “His motorcade was recorded slipping into the gates of the Trump International Gold Club [in West Palm Beach], which features two golf courses with 27 holes.”

Hayes added that “the White House released photos of Trump still in his golf attire, wearing a hat with his own signature on it, apparently listening in on the Yemen attack.” I’d argue that the word “apparently” is doing a lot of work there.

Regardless, that is not how the chain of command is supposed to work, Hayes continued. Rather than texting, the national security principals are supposed to bring recommendations to the president, “who then makes a clear and unambiguous decision about the most consequential thing you can do as president: to risk the lives of American service members in an operation that will kill other people, including, in this case, it appears, many civilians who had the misfortune of just to be living in a building that we collapsed.”

Instead, Trump seemed to indicate he wanted action, then left it to his officials to figure out what he really meant. Or whether they should do whatever they thought he meant. In his questioning of Trump’s understanding, Vance also texted, “I think we are making a mistake. … There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. …There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices.”

Hegseth wrote that if he had the final say, he'd vote to “go.” But instead of anyone contacting Trump for that final say, Hayes pointed out that Waltz brought in White House aide Stephen Miller. “As I heard it, the president was clear, green light,” Miller said.

“Wait a second,” Hayes said, incredulous – as we should all be. “’As I heard it?’ … It couldn’t have been that clear if you have to say, ‘As I heard it’ and people are debating what he said.”

“This is just a colossal failure of everyone up to and including the president,” Hayes concluded.

I’d argue it’s worse than that. Trump has outsourced his job to Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, Project 2025 and maybe even Vladimir Putin. So Trump can golf, make himself chairman of the Kennedy Center, play-act the role of president and turn the White House into a reality TV show that’s all too real for the rest of us.