JD Vance
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Summary
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) joins us to argue against a bill that sends another $60 billion to Ukraine, despite the fact that over 400,000 people have died in Ukraine since 2014. We also talk about why this bill is a terrible idea and why it needs to be killed. Guest: Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Special thanks to Tucker Palmer (Ohio) for his contributions to this episode, and to our sponsor, NPR, for making the case for why the bill should not be passed, and for the courage it took to stand up to Mitch McConnell's attempt to force a vote on the bill in favor of sending more money to Ukraine in the face of overwhelming opposition from the pro-EU and pro-Russia lobbies in both houses of Congress. Thank you to Tucker for joining us to make the case against the bill, and we hope you enjoy it! And, as always, thank you for listening to HYPEBEAST Radio and Business Insider. Please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to our other shows MIC/LINE, The Anthropology, The HYPE Report, and HYPETALKS! Subscribe to our newest podcast CRITIQUE! and Business of HYPE Subscribe on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices. Rate/subscribe to our new podcast, The HAPPY BIRTHDAY WHO CARES about YOU! Music: "Goodbye Outer Space" by SONG: "Space Traveler" by Jeff Perlaursen "Space Junkin" by Skynyr "Space Rover "Good Morning America" by John Rocha "Good Omens" by Haley & "Outer Space by Haley Shaw "Good Luck" by FOSTRider "Outtro" by "Mr. John Raldner "Outro" by Pizzi "Podcasts" by Tylor "PODCAST" by Chacho "Feat. & "The Best Way" by James "The Good News" by Krys "The White House" by Mr. John "Brujor "Bennie" & "Solo" (feat. "Bobby "Maggie" "Peech " "Sue" & Tucker "Breezy" "Bryan "Boyle " " " " ( ) and "The New York Times"
Transcript
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It became very clear to anyone paying attention several months ago that Ukraine cannot win its
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war against Russia. The Ukrainian military will not be able, even with Western backing,
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hundreds of billions of dollars of it, to expel the Russian military from parts of eastern Ukraine.
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Ukraine doesn't have the industrial capacity, neither does NATO or the United States,
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and it doesn't have the people. Russia has 100 million more in population than Ukraine does.
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And that means that further support from the West for the Ukrainian military only means more dead
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Ukrainians and a further degraded Western economy in the US and in Germany particularly. So it's not
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simply a fool's errand. It's self-destruction. It's insane. It's cruel. It's abetting the killing
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of an entire generation of Ukrainians. This is very obvious. No honest person at this point
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will deny it. And yet somehow the United States Senate, which is always several years behind
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reality in its perceptions just a few weeks ago, decided to send another $60 billion to the Ukrainian
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government, which is both corrupt and authoritarian. They've canceled elections. They banned an entire
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Christian denomination. And then they killed an American journalist for noting any of this.
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And yet the United States Senate proposed under Mitch McConnell, a plan to send another $60 billion
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to Ukraine. Well, imagine the surprise of all rational people around the world to wake up this
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morning and discover this could actually happen. And so with that in mind, we thought it'd be worth
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talking to one of the very few Republican senators who's bothered to make the counter case.
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And that would be J.D. Vance of Ohio, who joins us now from the United States.
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Senator, thanks so much for coming on. If you wouldn't mind telling us where
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this legislation is right now, what you expect to happen and what you think should happen.
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Yeah, Tucker. So there are two big things that will happen here. So tonight we will clear a major
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procedural vote or we won't. So this is really the best opportunity tonight to kill this legislation.
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Encourage everybody to do everything that they can. Contact everyone they can to ensure that we
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actually do kill the legislation. It is very close. The Democrats have banded together with
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17 Republicans. We only need eight of those Republicans to flip their vote to kill this
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thing. And I think that we'll get at least one who will in fact flip their vote. So that's where
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it sits in the Senate. The second thing, and frankly, the best opportunity we have to kill this
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is in the House. And that's part of what I'm trying to do is notify people about how bad this
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legislation is so that after it clears the Senate, if it does, then it goes to the House and the House
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has a real opportunity to at least make it better, but hopefully kill it. And I want to say just a
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couple of things here, Tucker, that are extremely important to know about this legislation. Number
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one is that it sends $61 billion to Ukraine to fund, as you said, a hopeless war in Eastern Europe
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that will decimate the Ukrainian population even more than it's already been decimated. So it's a
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terrible, terrible piece of legislation on the policy. The second thing I want to say, Tucker,
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though, is that it doesn't just fund Ukraine in 2024. And this is the most important point. It
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actually funds Ukraine in 25 and 26. Now, what's the problem with that? Say, for example, that we
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have a new president in 2025, that president would be handcuffed by the promises that we are making in
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law to Ukraine today. If you go back to 2019, Tucker, to try to give you a sense of why this matters,
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in 2019, the U.S. House impeached then-President Donald Trump on the theory that they had appropriated
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money to Ukraine and Donald Trump refused to send it to Ukraine. So if Trump is elected president
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again and become president on January of 2025, he will conduct diplomacy. And if that diplomacy does
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not include sending additional billions to Ukraine, there is a theoretical argument, a predicate,
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if you will, for impeaching Donald Trump because they have tried to tie his hands. And the final
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point I'll make on this, Tucker, is that the Washington Post has already said, based on leaks
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from inside the intel community, the purpose of this legislation is to tie a future President Trump's
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hands. We're not just sending billions to Ukraine in 2024. We're trying to make it impossible for the
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next president to conduct diplomacy on his terms. It's anti-democratic, and it will lead to endless
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So the political calculation behind this seems incredibly dark. So does the humanitarian effect.
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I noticed that no one on Capitol Hill seems interested in finding out how many have died in
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this war. Reliable estimates in the area, these are not partisan, are that about 400,000 Ukrainians have
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died. That's about as many Americans as died in the entire Second World War over the entire duration.
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And it's, of course, a much smaller country. So how do senators, Republican senators,
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get away with saying, we're doing this on behalf of the Ukrainian people, on behalf of democracy,
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when it's destroying an entire generation and it's not a democracy? Like, what's the thinking here?
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Well, Tucker, they bought into the propaganda that what is in the best interest of Ukraine
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is to prolong this war. And so Zelensky comes to Washington. You know, he's tougher than a lot of
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them are. And I think they get, you know, a little bit of excitement from that. And Zelensky tells them
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a story that his war is in the best interest of the whole of Ukraine. Now, never mind that there
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are people within Ukraine protesting the draft. Never mind that the average age of a soldier there
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is pushing 45 years old. And never mind that the 650,000 wealthiest Ukrainians left the country at
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the beginning of the war. They didn't stay and fight. So the idea that this is unanimously supported
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by the Ukrainian population is, of course, preposterous and absurd. No one believes it.
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But here's the really crazy, and I think ultimately the very cynical thing that's going on, Tucker,
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is that everyone knows that this war will lead to the destruction of Ukraine. I've had conversations
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with Democratic colleagues where they get this sort of dark look in their eyes and they say,
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effectively, that they want to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian drop of blood. I think if you
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really ask these guys, they recognize that this is not in the best interest of Ukraine.
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This is fundamentally in the interest of military contractors and people who think
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that America's most pressing challenge is to defeat the Russians. Of course,
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that's not a preoccupation that I share. I don't think Russia should have invaded,
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Tucker, but I also think that we've got to be much more focused on more pressing problems,
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like the demographic collapse of the United States, like the open borders, and like what's going on
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East Asia. So it's a massive campaign, Tucker, to distract people from the real problems in the
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world and the real problems that exist in this country. And underlying it all, as you just said,
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is an impulse that's indefensible and I think deeply immoral. So I'm so grateful for you having
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the courage to talk about this in public, and I hope common sense in your position prevails.