Saagar Enjeti

Trump recently compared him to Eliot Ness, the mob-busting federal agent.

Trump has long conducted running focus groups on his closest aides and appears to enjoy needling them and keeping them off balance.

When it comes to Vance, the stakes are higher.

As the default frontrunner, Vance's fortunes ride to a substantial degree on the enthusiasm and support he gets from Trump.

And Trump's regular polling of people of whether they prefer Vance or Rubio has become one of the most closely watched early indicators of how power in the Republican Party might pass to the next generation.

When he conducts these polls in private, Trump often compares Vance's performance to his own achievements.

He has told several allies Vance has never won a tough race without his help.

He has brought up the number of vacations that Vance has taken as vice president.

Here, I just want to do a quick fact check.

They write, Mr. Trump generally does not take them.

Oh, really?

That would be news to every single weekend of Mar-a-Lago, which I guess is apparently a word.

Yeah, literal life is living on Air Force One in Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago, Beau.

whatever.

I'll move past that one.

But this was the key line.

He has repeatedly mentioned the vice president's initial opposition to starting the war with Iran and has done so in front of Vance, quote, I'm more of a peace person than you are, but I had to do it.

The president has also questioned his decision to send a Vance-led delegation to a negotiation session in Pakistan that failed to end the war.

And I think what this does is it combines with Trump's obvious preference, or at least more recently, with Marco Rubio, because basically all of what Trump has done in the second administration, on a foreign policy level at the very least, it's Rubio copy and paste.

War with Iran, Venezuela Maduro, Cuba being our existential threat.