Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the threats Russian President Vladimir Putin would invade NATO countries if he won in Ukraine was “preposterous.”
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “And what do you make if the U.S. and NATO and they cede part of Ukraine or all of Ukraine to Putin, that all we’re doing is putting out the welcome mat to invade a country in the NATO alliance such as Poland?”
Vance said, “Putin has showed he’s much weaker than they’ve feared and they’re stalling him relative to the entire country. The idea that he could march to Poland or Berlin is preposterous. And what this misses here is we have to remember our NATO allies with a exception of a few Eastern Europeans, most don’t spend 2% of GDP on defense. If Putin is a threat to Berlin, that means the Germans should be changing something about their defense policy. It doesn’t mean we could write indefinite checks to Ukraine.”
Tapper said, “But Russia is a paper tiger because the U.S. has been helping Ukraine. That is the reason.”
Vance said, “Well it is also because the Ukrainians have fought very bravely and look, you cannot occupy an entire territory the size of Ukraine with the amount of troops that Russia has. The idea that you could go even further and control multiple European nations is I think a scare tactic to get people distracted from the fact that our Ukraine policy just doesn’t make a ton of sense. I listen to Secretary Blinken, what are we trying to do, Jake? What is the end goal here? How long does this go until the president could articulate the answer to those questions, I don’t know why we would write another blank check.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
