Nearly six months into the U.S. war with Iran, it’s not unreasonable to think that the White House would have its story straight about the conflict’s principal goal. And yet, that’s clearly not the case.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump and leading members of his team have moved the goalposts<\/a> so frequently since late February when communicating to the public about the purpose of the war that it’s no longer clear if even the Republican administration itself understands why the conflict is ongoing. JD Vance added an unexpected twist to the problem last week.<\/p>\n During a Fox News appearance<\/a> on Thursday, the vice president falsely claimed that oil prices are “way down from the highs in the early days” of the war, before adding, “That’s goal No. 1 \u2014 keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country.”<\/p>\n It was a curious message, even for the Ohio Republican. For one thing, it was bizarre to see the vice president concoct an entirely new “goal” for the war. For another, if keeping gas prices “cheap” for American consumers really is “goal No. 1,” the administration is failing quite spectacularly<\/a> at its main task.<\/p>\n One day later, Donald Trump headlined a rally in New York, where the president pushed a very different line on the same issue.<\/p>\n “For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember you’re doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a [nuclear weapon],” Trump told the crowd<\/a> at the Nassau County Police Academy Center for Training and Intelligence. He added, “So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you’re at $4. It’s OK.”<\/p>\n Of course, Americans aren’t just paying “a tiny little bit more” \u2014 average prices at the pump have gone from just under $3 a gallon to more than $4 a gallon<\/a>, an increase of more than a third \u2014 and Iran didn’t have, and wasn’t poised to have, a nuclear weapon when the U.S. military offensive began.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, it’s far from clear what the White House wants people to believe. Is keeping gas prices “cheap” for consumers “goal No. 1” for the White House, or is it “OK” for Americans to pay more for gasoline? As this week got underway, Trump published an item to his social media platform that was apparently intended to resolve the contradiction.<\/p>\n “The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon,” he wrote<\/a>. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”<\/p>\n Trump’s specific phrasing suggested he was deliberately contradicting his own vice president’s on-air message from late last week.<\/p>\n In any normal White House, presidents and vice presidents are expected to read from identical scripts. But Trump had a weird knack for contradicting Mike Pence<\/a> during his first term, and in his second, the problem has persisted.<\/p>\n On everything from immigration<\/a> to religion<\/a>, National Guard deployments<\/a> to election denialism<\/a>, Trump and Vance are routinely not on the same page.<\/p>\n The post Nearly 6 months into the war with Iran, Trump contradicts Vance on the ‘No. 1 goal’<\/a> appeared first on MS NOW<\/a>.<\/p>\n