'They are celebrating that choice': Former GOP lawmaker says 'Moscow' wants JD Vance as VP

16 July 2024

One former Republican member of the House of Representatives is warning that Russia is rooting for Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who is former President Donald Trump's 2024 running mate, to become vice president.

The Hill reported that during a Monday night interview with The Late Show's Stephen Colbert, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) cautioned viewers that it isn't just Americans who are paying attention to Vance's pending nomination as the GOP's pick for vice president. He suggested Vance's ascension to become Trump's right hand was welcome news to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"They are celebrating that choice, both in Milwaukee tonight and in Moscow," Kinzinger said.

“JD Vance is the one that has … very loudly talked about how he doesn’t care what happens in Ukraine. He has opposed aid to Ukraine,” he continued. “At a time where, since World War II, the biggest defense of a country, of freedom, that is happening right now.”

Kinzinger, who served in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Vance's past opposition to supporting Ukraine in its ongoing war to defend its territory from occupying Russian forces could mean that the U.S. abandons the eastern European democracy should Trump win a second term. He accused the Ohio Republican of "aggressively parrot[ing] actual Russian talking points" in railing against funds for Ukraine.

"I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other," Vance told former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon — who is now serving a federal prison sentence — in a 2022 episode of his podcast.

Vance has already taken the position that disputed territories like Donbas in the east along with Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014 and resulted in Russia getting kicked out of the G8 (now G7), should be officially ceded to Putin to end the war.

"[The Russia-Ukraine war] ends the way nearly every single war has ever ended: when people negotiate and each side gives up something that it doesn’t want to give up,” Vance said in December. “No one can explain to me how this ends without some territorial concessions relative to the 1991 boundaries.”

A foreign policy expert told the Ohio Capital Journal last month that making territorial concessions to Putin would likely embolden him and that Russia is on the verge of relenting due to staggering losses.

“We need to flip the script,” said Charles A. Kupchan, who is an international affairs professor at Georgetown University . “We need to make it clear to the Russian leadership and the Russian people that we have more staying power than they do. Ultimately, the Russians are going to tire of this. They’ve lost somewhere around 350,000 people dead and wounded. This is a war that is imposing very considerable costs on Russia. The key here is to make sure that we convince Putin that we’re going to stay the course. It’s only then that I think you’ll see him cease and desist.”

Click here to read the Hill's report in its entirety.

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