I've noticed quite a few random social accounts pushing messages quite similar to J.D. Vance's nonsense. You can see some in the replies to
this post from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which he notes, among other things, that Ukraine's military successes in the Black Sea mean that Ukrainian "maritime exports have resumed, bolstering both our economy, which is now growing at 5%, and global food security."
A few weeks ago, David Frum
wrote this about funding for Ukraine: "If the president now asks for $75 billion over the next two years, that will represent about a 4 percent share of the defense budget for that period--or roughly one-tenth of one penny for every dollar of national output. The United States should be able to cope."
In fact, the amount that President Biden requested from Congress is $61 billion.
But Republicans are dragging their feet with demands for ever more concessions from the Biden administration on immigration. Biden's team has been negotiating on this, and as I have said before, Biden may have to compromise more than he wants in the end, but Greg Sargent of the
Washington Post points out that Democrats "are
already making a very good offer to Republicans on border security. Biden’s funding request would spend billions on security
and also help fix asylum." And even David Frum, who has been quite critical of Democrats' position on immigration,
asks, "How do you 'cave' when there isn't even a coherent demand to which to cave?"
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been supportive of aid for Ukraine,
said today that he doesn't expect matters to be resolved until at least January.
House Speaker Mike Johnson
says his party needs more details about what Zelenskyy plans to do with U.S. funding. Newsflash, Mike: they plan to use it to kill Russian invaders.
In the meantime, Biden dug through the couch cushions for spare change and
found $200 million in emergency funding, which he announced while meeting with Zelenskyy at the White House. I think that works out to about five weeks' worth of support.
The same report says that following a meeting with U.S. senators today, some of them said they appreciated that Zelenskyy addressed them entirely in (fluent) English, which they took as a "sign of respect." Here's a picture of Zelenskyy arriving:
Returning to David Frum, he responded to Bill Clinton's comments on Congressional Republicans with this
apt comparison: "If you think that's unfairly tough, just imagine what Republicans would have said if Democrats in Congress had refused to fund the war on al-Qaeda or ISIS unless the GOP 'caved' on single-payer healthcare funded by taxes on the rich."
I think that's what I should ask when I call Vance's office: why is their boss demanding that Zelenskyy cave to a terrorist like Putin?