Vance calls Russia an American adversary but won’t label Moscow as an enemy

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance says Russia is a U.S. adversary but suggests it’s counterproductive to approach Moscow as an enemy.

The Ohio senator also said Donald Trump is committed to NATO, the transatlantic military alliance seen as the bulwark preventing further Russian aggression in Europe, although the former president has pledged to “finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.”

Vance, in a series of television interviews that aired Sunday, nine days before the election, made clear that Trump, if back in the White House, would press European members to spend more on defense and that their administration would work to quickly wind down Moscow’s war in Ukraine that began in February 2022 when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops across the border.

“We’re not in a war with him, and I don’t want to be in a war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” Vance said when pressed during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on whether Russia is an enemy. Vance said “we have to be careful about the language that we use in international diplomacy. We can recognize, obviously, that we have adversarial interests with Russia.”

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U.S. officials this past week confirmed that North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for training before potentially being deployed in Ukraine. U.S. officials say Russia has ramped up a disinformation campaign aimed at sowing distrust in the results in U.S. election on Nov. 5.

Officials on Friday confirmed Moscow’s role in creating a video that appears to show the destruction of mail ballots in Pennsylvania, in what was the latest effort linked to Russia on spreading false information on social media.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has argued that Trump is too cozy with Putin and that Trump’s return to the White House would be calamitous for Ukraine and America’s European allies.

Vance was circumspect about supporting further sanctions against Russia, saying the Biden administration’s use of the tool for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been as effective as a “wet firecracker.”

“I don’t think that we should overreact to anything. What we should do is encourage our fellow Americans to be careful,” Vance told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Don’t trust everything that you see on social media. And of course, we should push back where appropriate. But that’s the big question is, what is an appropriate response to a country making social media videos? I’m not going to make a commitment to that sitting right here.”

Trump has boasted of having had an effective relationship with Putin when Trump was in office. The former president has praised the Russian leader, suggested cutting U.S. money for Ukraine and repeatedly criticized NATO.

The former president has said he would not defend NATO members that failed to meet defense spending targets, and warned he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to alliance countries that he considered “delinquent.”

Vance underscored that a Trump administration would continue to support NATO but that it would lean on Europe to increase defense spending.

NATO announced in June that a record 23 of the 32 member nations were reaching the alliance’s defense spending target, 2% of GDP, this year. That’s a nearly fourfold increase from 2021, when only six nations were meeting the goal.

“Of course, we’re going to honor our NATO commitments,” Vance said. “But I think it’s important ... that we recognize that NATO is not just a welfare client. It should be a real alliance.”

Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a prominent Republican critic of Trump who has endorsed Harris, said Trump’s approach to Putin demonstrates “a total lack of understanding of the importance of our allies in keeping the peace.

Trump “talks about our allies as though he were a mafia boss,” Cheney said on CNN’s State of the Union. “He seems to completely fail to understand that, in order to keep peace, we have to have allies with us.”

In the wide-ranging interviews, which included with CNN, Vance also played down recent comments by Trump about ending the federal income tax.

Trump said in a Fox News appearance last week “there is a way, if what I’m planning comes out” to do away with it. He told podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday that he was serious about replacing revenue the income tax by raising tariffs.

Trump has pledged to also end taxes on tips, Social Security and overtime pay if elected.

“He’s talking aspirationally about something that he himself thinks is less of a focus than cutting taxes on tips,” Vance said of Trump’s call to eliminate the federal income tax.