Brian Kilmeade Challenges J.D. Vance on Ukraine Aid Skepticism: ‘What Don’t You Understand?’

Brian Kilmeade challenged newly-minted Ohio senator J.D. Vance (R) over his skepticism about the United States continuing to provide aid to Ukraine in a back-and-forth on Fox and Friends.

“It feels sometimes to me like we’re just shoveling money over there without any clear plan for what it’s meant to accomplish,” asserted Vance, who said he wanted the U.S. to articulate and pursue specific objectives in Ukraine. Kilmeade took with issue with Vance’s professed confusion over American goals.

“So we’re trying to get these fighters, who clearly know how to fight and adapt, and crushing one-on-one the Russians, giving them what they need to be successful, Senator. What don’t you understand about that?” asked Kilmeade.

Vance replied by arguing that the war in Ukraine was stuck in a “strategic quagmire” that could result in escalation and asking if the “objective here” was to “kill as many Ukrainians and as many Russians as possible” or “to bring some sort of resolution to this conflict.”

After Kilmeade pressed on what Vance would have the objective be, the author turned legislator said it would be to “de-escalate the conflict.”

“The risk of further escalation here, whether it’s nuclear, whether it’s further out in Europe, the risk here is that we get into a situation where everything becomes uncontrollable,” he continued, before being cut off by Kilmeade.

“So let them have what they took, Senator? Think down the line, though. You let Russia take 20% of a country, what about the next country?” inquired Kilmeade rhetorically.

“‘Give them another 20. Give them Georgia…. We don’t want to waste money'” said the host, paraphrasing Vance’s position. “You gotta play this out and not just look at our dollars today. What about our dollars 5 years from now, 10 years from now?”

Vance said Kilmeade made “a fair point” but expressed concern that the U.S. was depleting resources in Ukraine that would be better saved for a conflict with China which he deemed more “likely.”

“That’s what worries me: That the focus on Russia comes at the expense of [attention on] China,” said Vance.

Last year, Vance was widely criticized for telling MAGA star Steve Bannon that, if he was being “honest,” he didn’t “really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” just prior to the commencement of the Russian invasion.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.