Politics
WATCH: Vance Responds To Biden’s Criticisms With Scathing Takedown
Vice President J.D. Vance offered a scathing response to former President Joe Biden’s criticism’s of the Trump Administration’s foreign policy agenda while speaking with Fox News on Thursday.
As part of a quest to rehabilitate his public image and salvage his legacy, Biden joined ABC’s “The View” for his first live interview since leaving the White House earlier this year.
The interview was eventful, as the former president delivered a number of signature gaffes and malfunctions, at one point stating that he was “not surprised” by former Vice President Kamala Harris’ electoral defeat.
“I wasn’t surprised, not because I didn’t think the vice president was the most qualified person to be president. She is. She’s qualified to be president of the United States of America,” Biden claimed. “I was surprised, I was surprised because they went the route of, the sexist route, the whole route.”
Predictably, Biden also continued with the same lines of attack he has used against his predecessor, and successor, for the last several years.
“Anyway, make a long story short, all kidding aside, think about it. Liberal democracies lost last time out, all across America,” Biden said Thursday. “I think we underestimate the phenomenal negative impact that COVID had, and the pandemic had on people, on attitudes, on optimism, on a whole range of things, so I was very disappointed and – but I wasn’t surprised. The only thing that surprised me was the excess to which they’ve gone in some of the attacks they’ve made.”
In a separate interview with the BBC earlier this week, Biden commented on the contentious Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Zelensky and senior members of the Trump Administration, including President Trump and Vice President Vance, back in February. The former commander-in-chief described the meeting as a “total disaster” even though the two sides have made enormous progress since then.
Vance offered a cordial, yet blunt response to the former president’s comments while speaking with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum on Thursday.
“Well, I think it’s rich for Joe Biden to comment on anything that we’re doing when it comes to Russia and Ukraine because of course under Biden’s administration, Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And if we wanted to take advice from anybody on foreign policy, especially foreign policy in Europe, it would not be Joe Biden,” the vice president said.
“So I wish Joe Biden the best. I don’t really care what he has to say about American foreign policy, because so much of what he actually did was a total disaster.”
He went on to say that the most effective foreign policy the Trump Administration could muster would to simply do the opposite of everything their predecessors did. “So he can spend his time on the beach or doing whatever Joe Biden does, we’ll continue trying to fix the problems that he created.”
Ukraine and the United States recently came to an agreement on a long-awaited economic agreement after months of negotiations. Trump and Zelensky also met face-to-face at Pope Francis’ funeral, with both sides describing the meeting as a positive and constructive development.
President Trump has also adopted a tougher stance against Russia in the days following the agreement, with Trump expressing doubt over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to negotiate.
To that end, Vance has suggested that the U.S. may be scaling down its role as chief negotiator in ending the conflict, though he did stress that the administration remains committed to defending Ukraine’s sovereignty.
“We obviously want Ukraine to remain a sovereign country,” Vance said. “We knew that the Russians’ first offer would be too much. We knew that they would ask for more than was reasonable to give. That’s how negotiations often work. I’m not bothered by that.”
“What would bother me is if we conclude that the Russians are not engaging in the negotiation in good faith. And if that happens, yeah, we’re [going to] walk away,” he added.
