Vance Denies and Confirms Atlantic Reporting in One Breath

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Staying in Donald Trump’s good graces while also protecting your own political future requires supreme political agility, and most people who try end up failing at both. Just ask Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Paul Ryan, and any number of other faded GOP stars—if you can find them. Vice President Vance hasn’t mastered this balance either.

Earlier this week, The Atlantic reported that during private meetings, Vance “has repeatedly questioned the Defense Department’s depiction of the war in Iran and whether the Pentagon has understated what appears to be the drastic depletion of U.S. missile stockpiles.” Vance’s inquiries echo concerns from some others inside the administration, as well as voices in Congress and elsewhere, who warn about American military readiness.

Public figures occasionally deliver what’s known as a “non-denial denial,” in which they try to throw cold water on a claim without actually saying it’s false, but yesterday on Will Cain’s Fox News show, the vice president delivered something that might be entirely new: a confirmation-denial. Vance called The Atlantic’s reporting false and then pivoted instantly to verifying that it was true.

“Most of these reports I ignore. This one I actually read because it ascribed views to me and things that I had allegedly said that I am just 100 percent certain that I have never said,” Vance stated. “Now to answer your question, Will, of course I am concerned about our readiness, because that is my job to be concerned.” He added: “It’s of course my job to ask these questions.”

(Vance has a hot-and-cold relationship with The Atlantic. On Fox News he said, “Don’t believe everything you read, especially in papers like The Atlantic.” But he knows full well that this is a magazine, not a newspaper. After all, he pitched an article here in July 2016. In the essay, he portrayed himself as a thinker who could stand up to Trump’s demagoguery—so perhaps he has a point about not believing everything you read in The Atlantic.)

This is Vance’s latest attempt to stake out a sustainable position on the war in Iran. He hasn’t succeeded yet. Although the vice president has displayed a great deal of ideological flexibility during his career, one of the few consistencies has been his opposition to foreign military interventions. At the start of the campaign against Iran two months ago, Vance made himself scarce, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared often with Trump. When the vice president eventually emerged, it was to give tepid defenses of the war. Trump even acknowledged that Vance was “maybe less enthusiastic” about it than other advisers. That’s one reason that Iran specifically requested Vance as an interlocutor for negotiations, in which Tehran has so far obtained a cease-fire without relinquishing control of the Strait of Hormuz or giving up its nuclear program.

In asking questions about munitions, Vance is trying to quietly shape the war. (He’s right to say that a prudent vice president should be raising issues such as the adequacy of missile stores.) And if he wants to have a future in politics after Trump leaves office, he needs to maintain his long-held political identity as an anti-war politician, and would be wise to keep some distance from this deeply unpopular war, which threatens to torpedo the global economy, leave Iran’s regime in a stronger strategic position, and set back American interests in the region for years or decades. But Vance has to do those things in a way that maintains his publicly sycophantic stance toward Trump and echoes the president’s bombastic attacks on the press.

This would challenge even a skilled communicator, and Vance—as he demonstrated once more yesterday—is not one of those.

Related:

• The Pentagon may not be giving Trump the full picture of the war.
• J. D. Vance learns what Mike Pence already knows.

Here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

• The era of normie extremism is here.
• The Iran war’s ramifications have only just begun.
• All the sad young Chinese professionals

Today’s News

1. The House passed legislation to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, ending a partial shutdown that began in February after disagreements over immigration- enforcement funding stalled negotiations in Congress. The measure funds most DHS operations through September 30.
2. President Trump withdrew Casey Means’s nomination for surgeon general after concerns emerged that she lacked enough Senate support for confirmation, instead nominating Nicole Saphier, a Fox News contributor, radiologist, and breast-imaging specialist.
3. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said the state will delay its May 16 House primaries after the Supreme Court struck down the current congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. State lawmakers are expected to redraw the district lines, which could reshape Louisiana’s congressional delegation and affect control of Congress ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Dispatches

• Time-Travel Thursdays: Americans’ dream house is smaller than you think, Lily Meyer writes.

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Evening Read

Micah Lasher, Child Magician

By Joel Stein

I’m meeting with Micah Lasher at a diner on the Upper West Side. The last time I saw him was also at an Upper West Side diner. That was 32 years ago. He was 12. I was 22. He was interviewing me for a job.

Lasher is running for Congress in the June 23 Democratic primary for the smallest, richest, most educated district in the country, the one that Jerrold Nadler is leaving after 34 years. New York’s Twelfth District jaggedly stretches all the way across Manhattan from the top of Central Park down to 12th Street. It is so liberal that whoever wins the primary will likely get to keep the seat as long as they want. It’s so rich that whoever wins will have considerable power in Congress, thanks to Manhattanites’ ability to donate to other campaigns.

In his Yankees jacket over a white button-down, Lasher doesn’t look that different than the last time I saw him, which is strange because he has since undergone puberty.

Read the full article.

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• The secret weapon against AI dominance
• Radio Atlantic: The “great man” presidency

Culture Break

Read. Eva Holland recommended seven death-defying books for the adventurous reader.

Explore. Last year, Patti Smith spoke with Amy Weiss-Meyer about her memoir, Bread of Angels. In the book, Smith reflects on her lifetime of reinvention—and the twists in her story that have surprised even her.

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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.

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