Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) will not admit that Vladimir Putin is an “enemy” of the United States during an interview that aired Sunday, in which he asserted that the country must be strategic about the way it speaks about the Russian president .
The Republican vice presidential candidate told NBC’s “Meet The Press” that Putin is “obviously an adversary” and a “competitor” but suggested it would be wrong to antagonize him by using stronger language against him that would undermine diplomacy efforts could hinder when it comes to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“Well, we’re not at war with him, and I don’t want to be at war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I think we should try to pursue paths to peace,” he said.
Vance noted that the US “clearly” has “conflicting interests” with Russia.
“We can condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and I did, and of course the president did too. But we also need to use smart diplomacy if we ever want to get out of this mess [Vice President] Kamala Harris has abandoned us and returned to an attitude of peace,” he continued.
Former President Donald Trump has blamed both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Joe Biden for the outbreak of the war. He has also said that negotiating a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine would be one of his first orders as president-elect if he secures re-election.
Trump has also criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to continue sending aid to Kiev while reportedly maintaining a cozy relationship with Putin, raising concerns among Democratic lawmakers and U.S. allies about the future of U.S. aid to Ukraine will be fueled if he wins in November. The two men are said to have spoken on the phone several times since he left office, and Trump is said to have sent Putin COVID tests for his “personal use” in 2020, according to journalist Bob Woodward’s new book “War.”
Although Trump’s campaign has denied the allegations in the book, the former president declined to answer whether he has spoken to Putin since January 2021.
“I don’t comment on that,” Trump told Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief John Micklethwait earlier this month. “But I’ll tell you, if I did, it was smart. If I am friends with people, if I can have a relationship with people, that is a good thing and not a bad thing in terms of a country.”
Meanwhile, Vance insisted in the NBC interview that the US would remain in the NATO military alliance under Trump’s presidency.
But he also went on to say that Americans “cannot be the world’s police officers,” and claimed that some NATO members, including Germany, need to spend more on defense, echoing Trump’s words.
“I think a very important difference between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is that Kamala Harris would like to use our tax dollars and our troops to subsidize Europeans who do not take care of their own security,” Vance said. “Donald Trump wants Europe to take a big step to become a real ally of the United States and not just a dependent one.”
According to Reuters, Germany this year met NATO’s target for members to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense spending in response to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
