The Pentagon asks the White House for $200 billion to fund the next phase of the Iran war.

OK. Hold on a minute. Thursday morning. Capitol Hill. Senate hearing. The Director of National Intelligence, the FBI Director, and the CIA Director are all in the room, in suits, on the Annual Threat Assessment.

Same Thursday, hon, separate news cycle. The Pentagon, through the Department of War, asks the White House for more than two hundred billion dollars to fund the next phase of the Iran war.

Two. Hundred. Billion.

Hon. Two hundred billion dollars, by any standard of comparison, is the single largest war supplemental requested in the past forty years outside of the peak years of Iraq and Afghanistan. Two hundred billion is most of the entire federal Department of Education annual budget. Two hundred billion is the GDP of New Zealand. Two hundred billion is more than every state government’s transportation budget combined.

The Defense Secretary, asked about the figure on Thursday, did not deny it. He also did not confirm it. He did the thing, hon, he does, where he says the administration is committed to giving our warfighters everything they need and then walks off the podium.

The administration, hon, is also the administration that has been advertising the war for five days as way ahead of schedule. The administration that says the war is almost over is the administration that needs two hundred billion to fund the next phase.

Pick one, hon. The war cannot be almost over and also require a two-hundred-billion-dollar supplemental for the next phase. Either the next phase is not the end of the war, in which case the almost over line is a lie, or the almost over line is correct and the two hundred billion is not for the war, it is for something else. Pick the something else, hon, and tell me what it is. I am at the counter. I will wait.

In the Senate hearing, the Director of National Intelligence, asked by a member about her previous claim of foreign meddling in Georgia’s 2020 election, could not name a specific piece of evidence. She had been at the FBI’s seizure of ballots in Fulton County the year before. She had said, on the record, that the seizure produced evidence. On Thursday, in the hearing, she could not cite the evidence.

The same hearing, hon, the FBI Director and the CIA Director both confirmed they do not take Russian President Vladimir Putin at his word. The Special Envoy on Russia, the same week, had said on separate appearances that he does take Putin at his word. Pick, hon. Pick. You cannot have two senior officials in the same administration on the same week on the opposite side of whether you take Vladimir Putin at his word.

Joe Kent, a senior administration appointee, the day before the hearing, resigned over the Iran war. He cited, in the resignation letter, misgivings about the war. The senators, in the hearing, did not ask about Kent’s resignation. The resignation, hon, was quiet news. The two-hundred-billion-dollar request, hon, was louder news. They are both, hon, on the same Thursday.

Two hundred billion. For the next phase. Of the war that is almost over. You ever try to pay a bar tab, hon, where the guy says the next round is on me and also, in the same breath, asks the bartender for two hundred dollars, and also, in the same breath, says the bar is closing? That is, hon, not a guy you give money to. That is a guy you cut off.

Funny how that works.