As consumers struggle with high gas prices and the White House quietly acknowledges that relief likely won’t come anytime soon, congressional Republicans, especially those running for re-election in the fall, are scrambling to figure out what to say about the issue.
They should avoid following the example set by Sen. Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas. New Republic Notes:
Republican Senator Roger Marshall wants Americans not to complain about gas prices because they are necessary for ‘national security’.
Speaking on Newsmax’s ‘Wake Up America’ Tuesday morning, Marshall was asked about the Iran war, and the Kansas politician dismissed its negative economic impact on the American people.
“I’m sorry gas prices are going up, but help is on its way, and your national security is, yes, more important than your pocketbook,” Marshall said.
It’s worth emphasizing for context that the GOP term will be on the ballot in Kansas in the fall.
Hours later, during an appearance on CNN, the same senator tried to argue that it’s “good news” that US consumers are still paying less per gallon than European consumers, reinforcing Marshall’s view that Americans should stop aching their stomachs.
At the heart of the Kansas Republican’s pitch was a simple proposition: A war with Iran is causing economic problems and raising the cost of living, but the alternative is a nuclear-armed theology in the Middle East. Your pocketbook is important, Marshall argues, but national security is more important. To hear the senator tell it, Donald Trump made the responsible choice by prioritizing the responsible over the former.
And if Marshall was right and Iran either had nuclear weapons or was on the verge of having nuclear weapons, with plans to use nuclear weapons against Americans, our assets, and our allies, his pitch might actually mean something.
But that didn’t happen. Iran did not have nuclear weapons. It never had nuclear weapons. It was not particularly close to having nuclear weapons.
Joseph Cirincione, vice president of the Center for International Policy and a longtime expert on nuclear policy, recently told MS NOW that even if Iran could develop the material to be used in a nuclear weapon, that would be the first of multiple, time-consuming steps — not taken by officials in Tehran before the US president launched this war of choice.
On the day the war began, The New York Times reported:
He was not motivated by immediate threats. There was no race for the bomb. Thanks in large part to the success of the president’s earlier strike on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites in June, Iran is further ahead of its nuclear weapons capability today than it has been in many years.
While Mr. Trump has claimed that Tehran aims to eventually reach the United States with its array of missiles, his own Defense Intelligence Agency also concluded last year that it would be a decade before Iran overcomes technical and production hurdles to produce a significant weapon.
With this in mind, the question is why the hapless junior senator from the great state of Kansas is so confused. It’s reasonable to make the case that national security is more important than temporary hits to American wallets, but is Marshall ready to make that case? delusional Are national security challenges more important than consumers’ pocketbooks? Will he emphasize this message on Election Day 2026?
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