Senator JD Vance (R-OH) joined Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream to discuss America’s military-industrial capacity, the need for European nations to step up in providing for their own defense, the war in Ukraine, America’s need to focus on China, and the Hamas hostage crisis.
Watch Senator Vance’s remarks here and read excerpts below:
Senator Vance on America’s limited capacity to support simultaneous conflicts:
The argument that I’m making is quite simple. It’s not that we don’t admire the courageousness of the Ukrainians. We certainly do. It’s that America is stretched too thin. We do not have the industrial capacity to support a war in Ukraine, a war in Israel, potentially a war in East Asia if the Chinese invade Taiwan, so America has to pick and choose.
And by the way, Shannon, some of the very people who shipped America’s manufacturing base overseas to China in the first place, who weakened our ability to manufacture our own weapons, are now the same people who say we can get involved in three wars at once. The math doesn’t make sense, we’re stretched too thin. We’ve got to focus.
And the last point I’ll make on this is if we focus on East Asia, if we focus on containing the Chinese, the Europeans can step up in Europe. Germany still, after Donald Trump demanded it, still doesn’t spend 2% of GDP on defense. A lot of the NATO countries have allowed their own industrial might to atrophy.
So why are Americans subsidizing European security? We should be focused on our own problems, and that’s mostly China.
Senator Vance on the threat of China to United States:
You have to ask yourself, is China going to be more dissuaded by us thumping our chests and acting tough in Europe, or are they going to be more dissuaded by us having the weapons necessary to prevent them from invading Taiwan?
My argument is the Chinese are focused on real power. They’re not focused on how tough people talk on TV or how strong our alleged resolve is. They’re focused on how strong we actually are, and to be strong enough to push back against the Chinese, we’ve got to focus there, and right now, we’re stretched too thin.
Senator Vance on the need for Europe to take more responsibility for its own defense:
People who want us to put limitless resources into Ukraine, they want us to believe two things at once. On the one hand, they want us to believe the Ukrainians are on the verge of victory in the far eastern part of Ukraine. On the other hand, they want us to believe that Vladimir Putin is about to march all the way to Paris. You can’t believe both of those things at the same time, and the reality is the Ukrainians have shown that Putin is a lot weaker than people feared.
And importantly, they’ve shown that if the Europeans are willing to step up and take more responsibility for their own defense, they can handle Putin, let [the U.S.] focus on China.
Senator Vance on American hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza:
If you want to get these hostages released, you’ve got to, first of all, enable Israel to actually finish the job, and second of all, put America’s diplomatic weight behind and on Hamas.
Pressure Hamas to release these hostages. Don’t use America’s diplomatic leverage to effectively cause the Israelis to pull back here. I think it’s really shameful and shows, frankly, that a lot of folks don’t respect the United States of America, that we still have citizens that are being held hostage, and our President, instead of focusing on getting those hostages back, is focused on micromanaging one of our ally’s war efforts, I guess, so that he can placate these crazy people who are protesting on college campuses.
It’s such a confused policy and it makes people, I think, recognize that America with Joe Biden at the helm is unfortunately too weak.
Senator Vance on the protests at college campuses:
These guys have the right to peacefully protest, even if we criticize the message. They do not have the right to set up tent cities on our public spaces and turn our cities into garbage dumps. That is what I think we should not allow, and I think the police should be able to handle that job pretty easily.
