Senate GOP defense hawks went to battle with Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) over his opposition to a Ukraine aid package, warning that the Ohio Republican’s “isolationist” views were dangerous and short-sighted.
But the party’s hawks are downplaying the impact of former President Donald Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate, even though the freshman senator has become the face of the Trumpian “America First” foreign policy doctrine on Capitol Hill. Vance has led the charge against efforts to pass new Ukraine funding and hasn’t been afraid to antagonize the GOP’s more traditional defense hawks.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), for example, told us he had faith that Trump — not Vance — would be running things.
“I think that Team Trump is going to set the foreign policy of the next administration,” said Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I am very high on JD Vance and I think he’s for a strong national defense… Clearly we are not 100% together on the Ukraine issue, but I think President Trump is closer to my position.”
But Trump has fanned the flames of the anti-Ukraine right for years, and Wicker was among the loudest GOP voices pushing for the mega aid package that Congress passed earlier this year. Wicker and other Republicans routinely note, however, that Trump didn’t do much to try to block the Ukraine aid bill even as his allies excoriated the effort.
What about 2025? Trump has said that if reelected, he wants to push Ukraine and Russia toward peace talks. Ukrainian leaders and many Republicans in Washington oppose that because it would likely require Kyiv to cede territory to Moscow.
So it’s possible that a President Trump and a Vice President Vance could be at odds with a GOP-controlled Senate next year when the time comes to re-up Ukraine aid. In that case, it would require a strong majority of Republicans willing to stand up to Trump.
“This is a depressing thought, but the world is so primed for greater challenges that no one will be able to afford to be an isolationist as the world gets more dangerous for America,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who delivered an emotional plea for Ukraine in April while GOP opponents like Vance were trying to delay final passage of the aid bill.
Moran noted that Vance has argued the United States should prioritize the Indo-Pacific region. But the Kansas Republican said he hopes Vance “gets to the point in which we see” that the outcome of the war in Ukraine has a direct impact on would-be aggressors in the Indo-Pacific, including China.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who’s running to be the next Senate GOP leader, said these types of debates within the party aren’t new, and that they’re “healthy.”
Cornyn also knocked the Biden administration for its slow delivery of advanced weapons to Ukraine.
“I think that’s the biggest challenge right now,” Cornyn said “We’ll deal with the rest next year.”
The view from a Never-Trumper: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has said she’s voting for Nikki Haley for president this year. Collins criticized what she called the “more isolationist strain in the Republican Party right now.”
But Collins acknowledged the selection of Vance could help Trump with certain pockets of voters.
“JD Vance will help President Trump appeal to a lot of younger voters, people from military families, working families. And [he] brings some vibrancy to the ticket,” Collins told us. “And he’s a very skilled debater. I know that — having talked on the floor about Ukraine.”
