Bulwark Takes - JD Vance's Shameless Surrender To Putin

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Tim Miller and JVL talk Vice President JD Vance’s comments on Ukraine, framing it as "Joe Biden’s war" and casted doubt on continued U.S. support.

Hello everyone, this is JVL here with my bulwark colleague Tim Miller. We got some stuff coming in hot on Monday. The Vice President of the Easy United States, J.D. Vance, is just doing a masterclass in geostrategery and explaining about how this U.S. President views wars as belonging not to America or to NATO or to our alliances, but to other people, past presidents. Joe Biden's war. Tim, should we start out by listening to J.D. explaining the birds in the breeze? I have a big rant cooked up on this one, so everybody just stick around. You got to suffer through 45 seconds of J.D. Vance first. I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war So everybody just stick around. You've got to suffer through 45 seconds of J.D. Vance first.

I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war, of course, that's been going on for a few years now. And I think there's also just a little bit of, look, there's fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West. It's one of the things the president thinks is frankly stupid, that we should be able to move beyond the mistakes that have been made in the past. But that takes two to tango. I know the president's willing to do that. But if Russia's not willing to do that, then we're eventually just going to have to say, this is not our war. It's Joe Biden's war. It's Vladimir Putin's war. It's not our war. We're going to try to end it. But if we can't end it, we're eventually going to say, you know what, that was worth a try, but we're not doing it anymore. There it is, Tim.

What a piece of shit this guy is, JBL. It's truly unbelievable. His condescending manner is just so unappealing to start with. But obviously, that's not the substantive issue here, but you can't go without mentioning it. The whole positioning he has here is just such a gift to Putin. This is the really important thing here. This is J.D. Vance saying directly to Putin, if you keep stalling, we'll just get out of your way. You can do whatever you want.

Yes. That is the message. That is the message from J.D. Vance here. He's saying that this war we view this as putin and joe biden's war why it's joe biden's war is unclear to me it's just like he's just got to take a shot at the guy you know uh off the prostate cancer diagnosis it's like joe biden didn't do any joe biden tried to warn zelensky yeah that the war was coming that's what joe biden tried to do he tried to warn them and tried to stop it but joe Biden, we didn't do any. We're not omniscient. You know, like this is like the whole thing. It's like, oh, it was the. Whereas if Joe Biden had been Donald Trump, he would have just sat there and Russians

would own Ukraine and there wouldn't be any war. Yeah, that's true. Vladimir Putin would be in Kiev and many more children would be kidnapped and there'd be a lot more, you know, total despotism in Eastern Europe, rather. So that's true. I guess that in that sense, Joe Biden does have some accountability for trying to help Ukraine protect itself from invasion. Look, I mean, this the message here that there's, there's the logical flaw. And then there's the strategic flaw, even though on the strategic side, I'm not sure it's actually a flaw might be their intention. But on the logical flaw, it's this notion that like, that there are these things

that happened in the past, these disagreements between Russia and the West. And Donald Trump is willing to move on from them. You know, he is not going to, you know, become all wrapped around the axle when it comes to the ways that, you know, Russia has tried to combat the West, interfered in our elections, invaded free democratic countries. Donald Trump's willing to let bygones be bygones and all of that. Currently massing troops near the border in Finland. Yeah.

That's a thing that's happening, by the way. Bygones be bygones. But Putin, if he doesn't want to let bygones be bygones, then I don't know what we can do. So that is the premise that is just totally flawed right like this notion that that was ever on the table that putin was ever interested in this like let's do happy happy joy joy and all past issues will be gone and we'll just all live together in peace and harmony in a massive global kleptocracy where if you guys give

me money and i give you money that everything will will be okay. That's not, Vladimir Putin's not motivated, like, purely by cash impulses like Donald Trump is. You can't just buy him off. We just can't just say, hey, Putin, we'll give you a new, you know, we'll give you a new golf course in southern Ukraine. You'll be able to make some money on that. We'll maybe do a Putin coin. You'll be able to make some money on that.

And then we'll call it good. Like, that's not his motivations. Okay. He has hegemonic territorial motivations. Okay. Putin actually knows about history and cares about his history is wrong, but like he reads books, you know, like there's a lot of different elements. He's a very different person than Donald Trump. Okay. That's one. The second thing that is wrong is then the strategic side, which maybe it isn't wrong. Like I said, maybe he wants to just send this message to Putin. But by saying that if you don't come to the table, we're just going to give up, that's just incentivizing Putin not to come to the table. Why would Putin come to the table now? And this is ahead of, so today, Monday, Putin is going to have a phone call with Donald Trump.

Afterwards, Trump will have a phone call with Vladimir Zelensky. Over the weekend, Zelensky offered to meet with Putin. Putin refused. The Ukrainians have tentatively agreed to a 30-day ceasefire. Putin has not. Over the weekend, the Russians launched their largest drone and missile attack on Ukrainian territory since the first day of the invasion. So escalating, not de-escalating. But you're right. I mean, I think it's important to understand here, let's dispose the idea that J.D. Vance doesn't know what he's doing. Okay. Let's dispense with the idea. Was that the Marco Rubio?

Was that the line? Let's dispense with the idea that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing. J.D. Vance does know exactly what he's doing. And what he's trying to do is give Russia whatever it wants in a way that appears to be America first. And so by saying, well, they weren't willing to negotiate with us and it's not our war. America first. we walk away. That is the way that he's trying to do what they really want, which is just let Putin have whatever he wants.

Putin is their ally. Zelensky is not. They want Putin to have whatever he wants because they want whatever they want at home. And they are trying to normalize the idea of dictatorship. That is that is what this is all about. And that's great. J.D., it's the condescension from this guy who is I'm sorry, like he's facile, but he isn't that smart. And this puffed up, look what we tell you.

I've been studying international relations for 15 minutes, and I read the entire Wikipedia entry on the Ukraine. Fuck you. Fuck you, J.D. Piece of shit. He's such a piece of shit. He's the worst. One more element on this, just because you mentioned the phone call.

They are. They're still slightly slightly as you're pointing out like they're trying to get people comfortable with this you know kind of like warming up the water a little bit at the time a time putting the toe right kind of dipping your toe in the hot tub and like slowly getting little elements of your skin in and um and so it's possible that after that phone call today that the trump and vance you'll try to spin this as though we're making progress right because like this is because they know that like that there's still potential for backlash right if they just like ripped the band-aid off right now right that's why jd is kind of putting the toe in the hot tub with this comment right and so they still have they're still republicans in the senate that want them to try to do a good faith deal. And there's still, you know, people in the public.

Right. And so I wouldn't be surprised. Who knows what will happen today? I wouldn't be surprised, though, if Trump does the phone call and they try to, you know, kind of spin it as some we're making small progress. We're making a deal. We have a sub deal or whatever. And like that is why actually this, the vance comments are so important this morning because putin can almost let them do that right yeah like and putin has the benefit of time now

like jd vance has just said once again they said this before they've reiterated that like time is on your side if you keep kicking the can you know if you keep coming up with pretextual like post-textual reasons why you can't follow you know the ceasefire agreement if you just you know if you keep coming up with pretextual like post-textual reasons why you can't follow you know the ceasefire agreement if you just you know you agree to something and then blame zelensky for it like the longer you do that the more likely it is that these guys just walk away and give up and so you're incentivizing putin to do that right and so as far as both sides are concerned like continuing to announce little fake deals and slow rolling the abandonment is actually in everybody's interest. And so that's what I think is probably the most likely outcome of the call today.

And I think that's important. And it's very hard for NBC Nightly News to contextualize that appropriately. He's just trying to butch up right so that when when we finally walk it can be like see see we walked because we're showing that we're we don't and we won't just sit around and be ignored we're doing it we're abandoning through strength that's great all right well abandonment through strength the trump doctrine that's your little taste of jd vance i don't think we should make people listen to him for That's great. All right. Abandonment through strength. The Trump Doctrine. That's your little taste of J.D. Vance.

I don't think we should make people listen to him for another day or two. That's enough. Please no. That's enough for me. It's going to be great when he's president in 2032. Horrible. Stay with us on the channel where we cover all the news to make you vomit.