Dan Pfeiffer

Just imagine the world where J.D.

Vance is running in the Republican primary.

So Donald Trump serves his full term, doesn't go to prison.

J.D.

Vance is running.

Other people will run, right?

And the most likely candidate who is not J.D.

Vance is someone who is running against Trump, either from the right or the left, or maybe both.

And so J.D.

Vance wins by being the Trump candidate, not by splitting the difference between the Trump candidate and the non-Trump candidate.

Because if he's something different than Trump, he's never going to be the purest version of something different than Trump.

And so the worst thing that can happen to him is being seen as so disloyal by Trump that Trump does not back him because he needs Trump to back him to win.

It's probably the same person.

Let's come back to supplemental funding because I do want to get to Trump's messaging on the war.

Because I think that is the precursor to the larger political conversation about how it's going.

And it also, I think the messaging is also a proxy for the entirely...

messed up policy process that brought us to this.

Because if you can't explain why you did it, it's possible you didn't know why you were doing it.

But let's take a listen to some of the varying Trump administration explanations for what we're doing in Iran.

I think that was your old sparring partner, Peter Doocy, at the end asking that question.