JD Vance in The Cincinnati Enquirer
On Principles & Values:
2016: Trump makes people I care about afraid
He was publicly critical of Trump during the 2016 election cycle--calling him "noxious" in an interview with NPR--and ultimately voted for independent Evan McMullin that year. He cast Trump supporters as unmarried, uneducated and less
likely to attend church. "Trump makes people I care about afraid," Vance said in October 2016. "Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible."
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer on 2022 Ohio Senate race
Jul 1, 2021
On War & Peace:
Iraq War was ill-advised years-long overseas entanglement
Vance has recently compared U.S. Ukraine involvement to the Iraq War, including in an April 23 Senate floor speech. The George W. Bush administration attacked Iraq in 2003, citing the perceived growing threat of Saddam Hussein as part of what Bush
called an "axis of evil" and hyped claims that Iraq was arming itself with "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Vance, who enlisted in the Marines out of high school that year, was later deployed to Iraq for two years. In the years after his service, he
concluded it was an ill-advised and costly years-long overseas entanglement with negative consequences."Like any self-respecting hillbilly," he had wanted to go to the Middle East to kill terrorists in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on
New York City, Vance wrote in his 2016 bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy." He now sees unsettling similarities between the run-up to the Iraq War and current calls for more U.S. support to Ukraine.
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer on 2024 Vice-Presidential hopefuls
May 15, 2024
On Foreign Policy:
Putin is a bad guy, but there's no Domino Theory in Europe
Some in favor [of US support of Ukraine] warn that unless the United States helps repel Russian invaders there, they will conquer Ukraine and Russian leader Vladmir Putin will then seek to take more of Europe, as Adolf Hitler did nearly nine decades
ago. Vance rejects the 'Domino Theory' in Europe: "The domino theory of politics that I guess probably goes back to the Vietnam War certainly was true in Iraq and now is definitely true with regards to Ukraine; there's kind of like this sense that we're
constantly back in the 1930s: if you don't stop the bad guy, he's going to keep on taking territory."Of the threat of Russian expansion into other European countries, Vance said: "We have to analyze these things in their own historical context.
And Vladimir Putin might be a bad guy, and in fact I think he is, but he's not nearly as powerful in relative terms as Hitler‘s Germany was in the late 1930s. So the idea that he poses a risk to the broader European continent is just absurd to me."
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer on 2024 Vice-Presidential hopefuls
May 15, 2024
On Homeland Security:
Facilitate peace in Russia-Ukraine, instead of US support
Vance sees unsettling similarities between the run-up to the Iraq War and current calls for more U.S. support to Ukraine. He said some of the same people who are most hawkish on Ukraine were the most hawkish on Iraq, showing lack of humility
about their previous misjudgment. Vance had previously been making the Iraq comparison in private with his Washington colleagues, he said, and thinks there is growing skepticism about U.S. Ukraine involvement and more belief that our
European allies should do more."I've been trying to make sure we don't take an escalatory posture," Vance said. The best role for the United States, he said, is to help facilitate a peaceful resolution to the
Russian-Ukraine conflict--which Trump claims he could do as president--and "prevent this thing from escalating into World War III."
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer on 2024 Vice-Presidential hopefuls
May 15, 2024
On Jobs:
Put more people to work by rebuilding our industrial base
Vance urges more focus on China: "We have to pivot to Asia. China is the most powerful competitor the U.S. has had since we became a world power. We need to focus on Asia; we need to let the Europeans focus on Europe.""Hillbilly Elegy" describes the
impact of globalization on Cincinnati, where many of the once-plentiful steel and other factory jobs had moved offshore and left a community struggling economically and with substance abuse issues. "I think the most important lesson is that
America is like a house, and the foundation of that house is our own people and our own manufacturing base; we've allowed that industrial base to atrophy," Vance said. "Until that foundation is repaired, I don't want to hear about us being
the policeman of the world."
That means "putting more people to work, rebuilding our industrial base, building more stuff, producing more of the things we can rely on--is a better use of American dollars."
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer on 2024 Vice-Presidential hopefuls
May 15, 2024
Page last updated: Jul 21, 2024