You can always tell when the White House knows it has a problem, when its allies are turning against it, and it has an awkward proposition to sell: It sends out the vice president.
“All right. Good morning, everybody. Nothing to talk about,” a beaming JD Vance said as he hopped onto the podium of the briefing room with the hopeful demeanor of a punt returner looking at the ball rather than the ton of meat bearing down on him.
Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser, was no doubt too busy to discuss Iran. And Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, is far too sharp an operator to end her maternity leave while the administration is trying to pretend a memo signed at a Versailles dining table is going to rewrite the geopolitics of the Middle East.
And so it fell to the man promoting a book about Catholicism with an image of a Methodist church on the cover to do the honors.
“Slow news day here in Washington, D.C.,” he grinned before joking that Iranian negotiators were easier to deal with than the presenters of The View.
He addressed a packed briefing room, filled with reporters keen to poke holes in the 14-point memo.
One veteran arrived with a ream of printer paper tucked under his arm. An hour before the briefing, he placed it on the floor and stood on it, elevating himself an inch above his rivals. On such small margins are reputations built.
Half a dozen women wore red dresses or blazers, helping them stand out above the grays and navies of the crowd.
It was still chaos, as reporters squabbled about what color they were wearing and whether the vice president had pointed at them.
“There’s one in the white, and then one in, you know, orange. I think, sorry,” Vance said. “OK, maybe I’m, maybe I’m colorblind. It looks more orange to me. I don’t want to have a debate about that. Orange, pinkish.”
There was news committed in the room.
He said the clock had begun ticking on the 60-day negotiation during the early hours of Thursday, he is leading talks, sanctions on Iran can be lifted with going to Congress, and that 12.5 million barrels of oil had already passed through the Strait of Hormuz after the memorandum of understanding lifted the blockade.
His main message was that Americans were already reaping the rewards with gas prices falling.
And he delivered a stern warning to Israel, telling its leaders that Trump was their last powerful ally in the world, an ally that was crucial in intercepting missiles destined for Israeli soil.
“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” he said.
Yet for all the details, the week may well be remembered for the chaotic rollout of the messaging.
Officials had said the text of the deal would be released in 48 hours. Then Trump said it wouldn’t be until after Friday, before an official read it aloud on a briefing call on Wednesday.
Officials said the MOU had been signed electronically Sunday, ahead of a signing ceremony on Friday, before the president then signed it at the dinner table at the Palace of Versailles.
Not our fault, Vance said, as he explained that Washington’s officials had been engaged in a deep back-and-forth about timing and translations.
“I do wonder, Rob,” he said in response to a Secrets question. “This is pure conjecture. I’m just guessing at this.
“I wonder if part of it is that they wanted to have a Persian translation, a Farsi translation that they felt good about. And then, of course, once they translated into Farsi, our State Department has to confirm that the Farsi translation matches the meaning of the English.”
That didn’t explain why he was 25 minutes late for his own briefing.
All in all, it was no wonder that the vice president sounded a little hoarse. Although he admitted that it was only partly down to negotiating with a hard-line Islamist regime.
“I’ve been on a bit of a book tour the past couple of days, but I can’t promote my book here in the White House press briefing room,” he said, before making sure to mention his book again.
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