JD Vance Stops Short of Calling Putin an ‘Enemy’ When Pressed By NBC’s Kristen Welker: He’s an ‘Adversary’ and a ‘Competitor’
Republican Presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance said he would not consider Russian President Vladimir Putin an “enemy” during a Sunday interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker.
The Ohio Republican and former President Donald Trump’s running mate instead said he would categorize Putin as an “adversary” and a “competitor” while cautioning against the language used against the country’s geopolitical foes.
On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Welker asked him, “Let me ask you this question, Senator, do you see Russian President Vladimir Putin as an ally or an enemy?”
Well, I think that he’s clearly an adversary. He is a competitor. But I think that we also have to be smart about diplomacy, too. Just because we don’t like somebody doesn’t mean that we can’t occasionally engage in conversations with them. And I think it’s important if we’re ever going to end the war in Ukraine fundamentally at some level, we’re going to have to engage in some sort of negotiation between Ukraine, between Russia, between our NATO allies in Europe. And that’s just a necessary part. Doesn’t mean we have to like it, by the way. It doesn’t mean we condone the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But I think that sometimes you do have to engage in diplomacy even with and maybe, especially with your adversaries.
Vance went into a diatribe about Vice President Kamala Harris and inflation before Welker directed him back to the issue of diplomacy with Russia.
She asked, “When you say that he’s an adversary, just to get back to the question, you’re not willing to go so far as to call him an enemy? Vance replied:
Well, we’re not in a war with him, and I don’t want to be in a war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I think that we should try to pursue avenues of peace. I’d also call China, certainly, a competitor. But we’re not in a war with China, either. I do think, though, that China constitutes the biggest threat that we have for the United States of America. And I think that we have to be serious about it. But I think we have to be careful about the language that we use, in international diplomacy. We can recognize, obviously, that we have adversarial interests with Russia. We can condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And I have and, of course, the president has. But we also need to engage in some smart diplomacy if we’re ever going to get out of the mess that Kamala Harris has left us in and get back to a posture of peace.
Watch above via NBC News.
