As consumers struggle with high gas prices and the White House quietly concedes that relief probably won’t arrive anytime soon, congressional Republicans, especially those running for re-election in the fall, are trying to figure out what to say about the issue.

They should probably avoid following the example set by Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas. The New Republic noted:

Republican Senator Roger Marshall wants Americans to stop complaining about gas prices because they’re necessary for ‘national security.’

Speaking on Newsmax’s ‘Wake Up America’ Tuesday morning, Marshall was asked about the Iran war, and the Kansas politician was dismissive of its negative economic effects on the American people.

“I’m sorry the gas prices are going up, but help is on its way, and your national security, yes, is even more important than your pocketbook,” Marshall said.

It’s worth emphasizing for context that the GOP incumbent 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 consumers in the U.S. are still paying less per gallon than European consumers, reinforcing the impression that Marshall believes American should quit their bellyaching.

At the heart of the Kansas Republican’s pitch was a simple proposition: The war in Iran is causing economic problems and pushing the cost of living higher, but the alternative is a nuclear-armed theocracy 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 latter above 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 a nuclear arsenal against Americans, our assets and our allies, his pitch might actually make some sense.

But that wasn’t the case. Iran did not have nuclear weapons. It’s never had nuclear weapons. It wasn’t especially close to having nuclear weapons.

Joseph Cirincione, the vice chair of the Center for International Policy and a longtime expert on nuclear policy, recently told MS NOW that even if Iran could have developed material to use in a nuclear weapon, that would be the first of multiple, time-consuming steps — steps that officials in Tehran had not yet taken before the American president launched this war of choice.

The day the war began, The New York Times reported:

He was not driven by an immediate threat. There was no race for a bomb. Iran is further from the capability to build a nuclear weapon today than it has been in several years, thanks largely to the success of the president’s previous strike on Iranian nuclear enrichment sites, in June.

While Mr. Trump claimed Tehran was ultimately aiming to reach to the United States with its array of missiles, even his own Defense Intelligence Agency concluded last year that it would be a decade before Iran could get past the technological and production hurdles to produce a significant arsenal.

With this in mind, the question is why the hapless junior senator from the great state of Kansas is so confused. It’s plausible to make a case that national security is more important than temporary hits to American wallets, but is Marshall prepared to make the case that illusory national security challenges are more important than consumers’ pocketbooks? Is this the message he’ll be emphasizing in the run-up to Election Day 2026?

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