Transcription
Is there any vice president in modern history less informed about American history than JD Vance? It seems like every time he opens his mouth on a big topic, he's confused or disoriented. He's like the freshman who skipped the lectures and skimmed a Wiki article or something like that.
Yesterday, JD was interviewed on NBC News by Kristen Welker, and she asked him about Ukraine, and in the middle of his answer, Vance decides to give the audience a history lesson. The very humble and not at all condescending. JD, Vance says, "I'm going to give the audience a history lesson." Unfortunately, it was the kind of history lesson that makes actual historians pound their heads on their desk or maybe their microphone.
JD said about the Ukraine, Russia war, "if you go back to World War Two and other conflicts, they end up being settled by negotiation." The only problem is that has nothing to do with what happened in World War Two. I want to get to security guarantees, but very quickly, if Russia is allowed to keep any of the territory that it illegally seized, what message does that send to China? Does it give China a green light to invade Taiwan? Does it give Russia a green light to invade other European countries, which is what your European allies are concerned about. First of all, the Ukrainians are going to ultimately make the determination about where you draw the territorial lines in their own country. But Kristen, this is how wars ultimately get settled. If you go back to World War Two, if you go back to World War One, if you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all end with some kind of negotiation. We're actually not active parties in the negotiation. We're effectively mediating. We're trying to mediate the Ukrainians and the Russians to come to some agreement."
That is not how World War Two ended. World War Two ended with the surrender of Germany, not through negotiation. It simply didn't. Germany did not negotiate. They fought until the bitter end. They fought even when they knew that the war was lost. There were, you know, post-war peace talks about terms and how will specific issues be handled. But the war did not end because of a negotiated settlement. And JD Vance has no idea what is going on. The Allies didn't sit down with Hitler's team, or, you know, Tojo's government in Japan, and say, "Let's compromise. Let's figure out a compromise." They defeated them on the battlefield and forced them to surrender. And then later, after the fighting was over, they said, "Okay, now we're going to figure out some of the logistics. Who accepts what, and how are we going to arrange this?" That the other thing, this is not an obscure detail. This is a core fact that Americans are taught about World War Two. You don't have to be a history professor to know this. You just have to have paid attention. I guess when you were 11 or something like that.
Vance was not done embarrassing himself, by the way. Kristen Welker asked, "Were you furious when you learned that Russia targeted an American company in Ukraine?" And JD basically goes, "Oh, you know, this is war." Just another one of these downplayings of Russia's belligerence. President Trump, were you enraged when you learned that Russia targeted an American company based in Ukraine? "I don't, I don't like it, Kristen, but this is a war, and this is why we want to stop the killing. The Russians have done a lot of things that we don't like. A lot of civilians have died. We've condemned that stuff from the get-go. And frankly, President Trump has done more to apply pressure and to apply economic leverage to the Russians, certainly, than Joe Biden did for three years, when he did nothing but talk but do nothing to bring the killing to a stop. So it's Biden's fault."
Understand JD's answer here. These people are just pathetic. They are feckless. The Vice President downplays an attack on an American company by a hostile foreign power because his real anger is at Joe Biden, because Biden didn't push some imaginary settlement to a one-sided war where Russia is trying to wipe Ukraine off the map. This is the sort of shallow isolationist playbook over and over. Pretend every war ends with a handshake, ignore historical reality, and make the conflict sound like it's a scheduling problem that Biden could have just snapped his fingers and fixed, even though Trump said, "I'll have it solved in 24 hours," which hasn't happened. And meanwhile, this is not like a random podcast rant, right? I mean, we have to contend with the reality that this is the, arguably the second most powerful person in the country talking about global conflict with less accuracy than you find in the Reddit comments. And defense is this careless with history and is this sort of quick to defend Putin and attack Joe Biden. Imagine if he were to end up in charge of foreign policy decisions if Trump died, which, by the way, more and more people are concerned is going to happen before the end of Donald Trump's term. So that's JD, not the guy, I guess, who paid attention in history class.