“I support the president in Iran,” Kennedy said. “We all need to do a better job messaging. I may end up with a sombrero on my head by saying this, but we all know the president. He exists loudly. He grows anxious when he has an unexpressed thought. He’s not always disciplined in his messaging. I’m not saying he should stop talking. He’s the president, and I’m not.

“But I would put [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan] Caine and [CIA Director John] Ratcliffe and [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth out there, either in a speech or in a long press conference, to explain what’s going on in Iran. Why we went in, why we’re still there.”

It’s a pitch rooted in a simple idea: The unpopular war would enjoy greater public support if the White House had better “messaging” and spokespeople who could simply “explain what’s going on.”

If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because it has become a go-to stance for Republicans in response to all kinds of challenges. Vice President JD Vance, for example, said earlier this month that the administration should have done a better job on “the communications” of the Epstein scandal.

Earlier this year, the president acknowledged his weak public support on the economy, but he brushed off the polls by saying, “Maybe I have bad public relations people.” Around the same time, as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement faced backlash after two Americans were shot and killed, Trump again argued that ICE and other federal immigration agencies simply had a PR problem.

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Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

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• Senate Republican thinks White House needs better ‘messaging’ on war with Iran