Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Washington’s Secrets. Today, JD Vance is due up to take his turn in the White House briefing room, and we ask whether his position as Donald Trump’s explainer-in-chief puts him in an awkward position, more vulnerable to being undercut by the president than say Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to pick a 2028 rival at random… Also, we get the inside story of how British diplomats steered around a potentially awkward moment during the King’s visit, thanks to Fox & Friends … It is the toughest job in the administration. And JD Vance is finding out there is nowhere to hide when your role is playing cleanup, getting in front of the cameras to defend the president.It happened again this month when Donald Trump was asked whether Americans’ financial struggles were part of his thinking in negotiations to end the war in Iran.
“Not even a little bit,” the president said. “The only thing that matters, when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.”
It was a politically problematic comment for a president who campaigned on bringing down prices above everything else.
Cue the president’s cleanup guy.
“I don’t think the president said that,” Vance told reporters a day later at a White House press conference. “I think that’s a misinterpretation.”
