The Tucker Carlson Show - JD Vance

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

The Ukrainian government canceled elections and killed an American journalist. Congress is about send them another $60 billion. J.D. Vance is trying to stop it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It became very clear to anyone paying attention several months ago that Ukraine cannot win its war against Russia. The Ukrainian military will not be able, even with Western backing, hundreds of billions of dollars of it, to expel the Russian military from parts of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine doesn't have the industrial capacity, neither does NATO or the United States. And it doesn't have the people. Russia has 100 million more in population than Ukraine does. And that means that further support from the West for the Ukrainian military only means more dead Ukrainians and a further degraded Western economy

in the US and in Germany, particularly. So it's not simply a fool's errand, it's self-destruction. It's insane, it's cruel, it's abetting the killing of an entire generation of Ukrainians. This is very obvious. No honest person at this point will deny it. And yet somehow the United States Senate, which is always several years behind reality in its perceptions, just a few weeks ago decided to send another $60 billion to the Ukrainian government,

which is both corrupt and authoritarian. They've canceled elections, they banned an entire Christian denomination, and then they killed an American journalist for noting any of this. And yet the United States Senate proposed under Mitch McConnell a plan to send another $60 billion to Ukraine. Well, imagine the surprise of all rational people around the world to wake up this morning and discover this could actually happen. And so with that in mind, we thought it'd be worth talking to one of the very few Republican senators who's bothered to make the counter case. And that would be J.D. Vance of Ohio, who joins us now from the United States. Senator, thanks so much for coming on. If you wouldn't mind telling us where this legislation is right now, what you expect to happen and what you think should happen. Yeah, Tucker. So there are two big things that will happen here. So tonight we will clear a major procedural vote or we won't. So this is really the best opportunity tonight to kill this legislation. Encourage everybody to do everything that they

can, contact everyone they can to ensure that we actually do kill the legislation. It is very close. The Democrats have banded together with 17 Republicans. We only need eight of those Republicans to flip their vote to kill this thing. And I think that we'll get at least one who will in fact flip their vote. So that's where it sits in the Senate. The second thing, and frankly, the best opportunity we have to kill this is in the House. And that's part of what I'm trying to do is notify people about how bad this legislation is so that after it clears the Senate, if it does, then it goes to the House and the House has a real opportunity to at least make it better, but hopefully kill it. And I want to say just a couple of things here, Tucker, that are extremely

important to know about this legislation. Number one is that it sends $61 billion to Ukraine to fund, as you said, a hopeless war in Eastern Europe that will decimate the Ukrainian population even more than it's already been decimated. So it's a terrible, terrible piece of legislation on the policy. The second thing I want to say, Tucker, though, is that it doesn't just fund Ukraine in 2024. And this is the most important point. It actually funds Ukraine in 25 and 26. Now, what's the problem with that? Say, for example, that we have a new president in 2025, that president would be handcuffed by the promises that we are making in law to Ukraine today. If you go back to 2019, Tucker, to try to give you a sense of why

this matters. In 2019, the US House impeached then President Donald Trump on the theory that they had appropriated money to Ukraine and Donald Trump refused to send it to Ukraine. So if Trump is elected president again and become president on January of 2025, he will conduct diplomacy. And if that diplomacy does not include sending additional billions to Ukraine, there is a theoretical argument, a predicate, if you will, for impeaching Donald Trump because they have tried to tie his hands. And the final point I'll make on this, Tucker, is that the Washington Post has already said, based on leaks from inside the intel community, the purpose of this legislation is to tie a future President Trump's hands. We're not just sending billions to Ukraine in 2024. We're trying to make it impossible for

the next president to conduct diplomacy on his terms. It's anti-democratic and it will lead to endless war in all over the world. So the political calculation behind this seems incredibly dark. So does the humanitarian effect. I noticed that no one on Capitol Hill seems interested in finding out how many have died in this war. Reliable estimates in the area, these are not partisan, are that about 400,000 Ukrainians have died. That's about as many Americans as died in the entire Second World War over the entire duration. And it's, of course, a much smaller country. So how do senators, Republican senators, get away with saying we're doing this on behalf of the Ukrainian people, on behalf of democracy, when it's destroying an entire generation and it's not a democracy? What's the thinking here? Well, Tucker, they bought into the

propaganda that what is in the best interest of Ukraine is to prolong this war. And so Zelensky comes to Washington. He's tougher than a lot of them are. And I think they get a little bit of excitement from that. And Zelensky tells them a story that his war is in the best interest of the whole of Ukraine. Now, nevermind that there are people within Ukraine protesting the draft. Nevermind that the average age of a soldier there is pushing 45 years old. And nevermind that the 650,000 wealthiest Ukrainians left the country at the beginning of the war. They didn't stay and fight. So the idea that this is unanimously supported by the Ukrainian population is, of course, preposterous and absurd. No one believes it.

But here's the really crazy, and I think ultimately the very cynical thing that's going on, Tucker, is that everyone knows that this war will lead to the destruction of Ukraine. I've had conversations with Democratic colleagues where they get this sort of dark look in their eyes and they say effectively that they want to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian drop of blood. I think if you really ask these guys, they recognize that this is not in the best interest of Ukraine. This is fundamentally in the interest of military contractors and people who think that America's most pressing challenge is to defeat the Russians. Of course, that's not a preoccupation that I share. I don't think Russia should have invaded, Tucker, but I also think that we've got to be much more focused on more pressing problems like the demographic collapse of the United States, like the open borders, and like what's

going on in East Asia. So it's a massive campaign, Tucker, to distract people from the real problems in the world and the real problems in the world and the real problems that exist in this country. And underlying it all, as you just said, is an impulse that's indefensible and I think deeply immoral. So I'm so grateful for you having the courage to talk about this in public. And I hope common sense in your position prevails. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio. Thank you.