'Absolute bad faith': JD Vance’s cousin slams VP as one of 'Putin’s useful idiots'

10 March

After U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance angrily berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a White House Oval Office meeting on February 28, the backlash from Democrats came swiftly.

Many Democrats were quick to attack Trump and Vance for, they argued, siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin over a European ally of the United States. Quite a few Never Trump conservatives were highly critical as well, and the term "useful idiots" was used to describe Trump and Vance on both the left and the right.

One of the people using that term to criticize Trump and Vance is Texas resident Nate Vance, a first cousin of the vice president.

Nate Vance, like VP Vance, is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. But unlike the vice president, he volunteered to fight alongside Ukrainian forces in their conflict with Russia.

During an interview with France's Le Figaro published on March 10, Nate Vance described Trump and his cousin as "Putin's useful idiots."

Nate Vance told Le Figaro, "I was disappointed. When JD justified his distrust of Zelenskyy by the 'reports' he had seen, I thought I was going to choke. His own cousin was on the frontline. I could have told him the truth, plain and simple, without any personal agenda. He never tried to find out more."

Nate Vance also said of his first cousin, "You're family, but that doesn't mean I'm going to accept the fact that you're getting my comrades killed…. JD is a good guy, intelligent. When he criticized aid to Ukraine, I told myself that it was because he had to please a certain electorate and that it was a political game. But what they did to Zelenskyy was an ambush of absolute bad faith."

The New Republic's Hafiz Rashid, reporting on Nate Vance's Le Figaro interview, explains why Nate Vance is no longer fighting in Ukraine.

Rashid notes, "Nate Vance left the Ukrainian War in January after his cousin was sworn in as vice president, having kept his relationship to JD under wraps until then, due to the risk of being captured because of his famous relative. The lifelong Republican is at odds not only with his cousin, but with other members of his family — his mother, Donna, called Zelenskyy a 'pretentious little s---' on Facebook. Vance has tried to contact his cousin multiple times, going back to JD's time in the Senate, to no avail."

Read Le Figaro's full interview with Nate Vance at this link and The New Republic's analysis here.

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