JD Vance, the anti-Ukrainian provocateur who was itching for a fight
The vice president, who seemed doomed to irrelevance, has managed to make a name for himself with his Eurosceptic stance
WashingtonTo stop a trap, you need a lure, a stimulus that makes the prey jump on it. Sometimes it's a pleasant element that makes it fall on all fours, other times it's hunting dogs that push it into an open area where it's within range. Vice President JD Vance was the provocateur who pushed Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky into Donald Trump's sights. at the catastrophic meeting in the Oval Office. Vance had no trouble embracing his role as a bulldog given his stance against NATO and Ukraine. The president's deputy, who seemed doomed to irrelevance under the shadow of Elon Musk, found a way to secure a prominent position in the new administration.
Since Trump took office on January 20, the new vice president - one of the youngest in US history, at 39 years old - had been relegated to a secondary role. Especially after Musk monopolized all the attention with his cuts and even made a joint statement with Trump from the Oval Office. The stay in the White House did not start on the right foot either when his boss said in an interview on the Fox network that he did not see him as his successor in the next elections. "Do you see Vice President JD Vance as your successor, the Republican candidate in 2028?" asked journalist Bret Baier, and Trump responded: "No. But he is very capable". He No was damning and the mandate was just beginning.
The Fox interview aired on February 10, three days before Vance attended the Munich Summit and became a diplomatic agitator announcing Washington's old partners that now "there is a new sheriff" in the capital. The monumental booing left Europe in shock as attacks came from all sides. "If you are running away in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you," said Vance, confirming his Euroscepticism and accusing the European Union of being "undemocratic" and of "trampling" on freedom of expression. The officer was creating an unprecedented scene so that the sheriff could feel him out and see what he was capable of.
Vance was looking for trouble in Munich, goading his partners by prodding them to see when they would jump. But they did not fall into the trap. At that moment, Kaja Kallas, the head of foreign policy of the European Union, said: "Listening to that speech... they are trying to pick a fight with us and we do not want to fight with our friends."
A Zelensky exhausted by the war and Washington's rapprochement with Moscow could not overcome all the traps that Vance kept setting for him throughout the meeting, which lasted 50 minutes. A meeting that, after cornering the Ukrainian live, ended with a "this is good television" from Trump. The attack dog had done its job and the president now had one more argument with which to justify his distancing from Ukraine. The suspension of military aid and the cut in the supply of intelligence, despite being punitive measures, no longer caught anyone off guard.
The line was crossed and the booing in the Oval Office became a turning point for Vance, who managed to regain positions within the president's court. The same could not be said of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was sunk in the sofa and staring into space while the farce was taking place. On Tuesday he already took a swipe from Trump during his speech to Congress: "Now we know who to blame if something goes wrong."
The candidate most opposed to Ukraine
When Trump tapped Vance as vice president for the election, the Republican Party took care to highlight its working-class profile to collect votes in the industrial belt of the Midwest. The focus on his story turned into Bestseller (Hillbilly Elegy) and his ties to Silicon Valley elites overshadowed the fact that the Republican had chosen the most anti-NATO and anti-Ukraine profile possible.
"He will surrender to Russia and sacrifice the freedom of our allies in Ukraine," warned former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, one of the few critical voices left within the new Republican Party that had become Trump's party. During the electoral race, the tycoon attacked her saying that He would not be so brave in his foreign policy stances if he had rifles pointed at him..
After Russia invaded Ukraine and images of massacres by Putin’s soldiers began to emerge, Vance told Steve Bannon’s podcast: “I don’t care what happens to Ukraine.” As a senator from Ohio, Vance was one of many Republicans who joined Trump’s boycott of Ukraine aid packages.
In social media posts and interviews, he had not only been staunchly anti-Ukraine, but had also complained about US aid to Europe and echoed some of the Kremlin’s key messages. In September last year, Vance argued that the US should reconsider its support for NATO if the EU adopted regulations on social media, such as Musk’s Platform X.
"What the United States should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue to support them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don't they respect American values and respect freedom of speech?" he said on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast, referring to efforts to regulate efforts. Vance came to Trump through Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, who is who has driven Silicon Valley's shift to the far right.