Don't we love it, folks?

JD Vance is great at the Sunday Show format, and he did not disappoint in his latest performance, opposite Margaret Brennan of CBS. This was his first interview since the inauguration.

There was a viral moment, of course, when Brennan argued about the specifics of the case of an Afghan refugee who went on to attempt to commit a terrorist attack, and Vance cut in: "I don't really care, Margaret. I don't want this person in my country."

But it was much richer than that. As always, Vance combined a "smart man's" defense of, and advocacy for, the President's policies, with a few "Vancian" touches here and there.

His defense of Pete Hegseth's appointment as Defense Secretary was interesting. The focus is usually on "wokeness in the military," which is certainly a problem that must be addressed, but he focused on two other things. The first is recruitment and morale, both of which are down in the US military. We have been having this thought since Secretary Hegseth was nominated: regardless of his ability to do the job in light of his unconventional credentials, he is certainly most likely to be the Defense Secretary most popular with the rank-and-file in the DoD in living memory, and this certainly presents significant opportunities. The second is procurement. Vance repeatedly pointed to procurement as an area that needs fixing. This is hardly news, but it's the first time we have seen either the President or the Vice President highlight it as a top priority. In this effort Hegseth will be seconded by (if all goes well) highly qualified senior figures like Cerberus Capital founder Stephen Feinberg as Deputy.

Other interesting point: the focus on energy as the Administration's main focus on how to reduce prices. Vance repeated his talking point from the campaign that all producers in the economy use energy, and therefore reducing energy prices doesn't just reduce prices at the pump but also at the store.

On FEMA reform, there was a very good rhapsody on (as we interpret it) the theme of strong and smart, as opposed to either big or small, government. Turning some part of the FEMA budget into block grants to states is surely a good idea, but it doesn't detract from the necessity of making sure that resources at both the Federal and state level are well-managed. He told a story of visiting North Carolina and finding out that FEMA had delivered resources such as medicines and food to a warehouse near the disaster zone, but then had no plan on how to deliver those resources from the warehouse to the people who needed them. "This is one of the fundamental premises of President Trump's leadership: the American people should expect more from their government. … I am sick of the American people having such low expectations of their government. They should demand more of us because it's the greatest country in the world."

Vance also defended the EO on birthright citizenship, drawing this distinction: immigrants who are in the US on a non-permanent basis should not have their children receive citizenship. Whether that's how the Fourteenth Amendment's famous "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" exception should be interpreted is a question for lawyers way above our pay grade.