3 things to watch from Vance’s RNC speech

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) is primed for the biggest moment of his young political life Wednesday night when he speaks at the Republican National Convention as former President Trump’s newly designated running mate.

Vance, who was officially chosen by Trump for the role on Monday, has only been in elected office for a year and a half, but his impact on Republican politics has been widely felt. Since his emergence on the political scene, he has become a leading voice in the former president’s “America First” agenda.

Here are three things to watch for when the Ohio Republican takes the stage tonight:

Welcome to the big leagues

Vance has worn many hats in his professional life, including venture capitalist, best-selling author and, most recently, junior senator from Ohio. But nothing will be as pressured as Wednesday’s speech, which will include his first in-person comments since he became vice president select.

Since Trump made the move official, Vance has largely kept a low profile, appearing two nights in a row in the Fiserv Forum presidential suite, walking through downtown Milwaukee alongside his children and his newly formed Secret Service detail at the quite.

But the stakes for him become real tonight, and Republicans have high expectations when he appears before delegates and attendees to deliver his speech.

Lawmakers since he was chosen have praised him on several fronts, but none more than his ability to be an effective messenger for Trump.

“He has been an incredible fighter since he saw this [Trump] it was real,” said Donald Trump Jr., one of Vance’s main supporters. “[T]That kind of energy for the movement, for the country, for jobs, for world peace – I couldn’t be happier.”

On Wednesday night, Vance will need to live up to the hype.

What does he say about Ukraine?

For all of Vance’s talk on a variety of issues, none stood out more than his staunch opposition to providing aid to Ukraine for its ongoing war with Russia, which has lasted more than two years – an issue that has sharply divided Republicans in the process.

Vance has been one of the most high-profile Republicans to consistently oppose providing more aid to the war-torn nation. He also argued that Kiev should cede land in the east to Russia in order to end the war.

According to Vance, the $60 billion in funding that President Biden and Congress greenlit in the spring merely maintains the status quo and is a bad decision no matter how it is divided. He argued that the US does not have the capacity to produce the necessary weapons that Ukraine would need to win the war, adding that the aid represents a “fraction” of what the nation would need. This doesn’t even account for what he said would be a gigantic cost to rebuild the country.

“By committing to a defensive strategy, Ukraine can preserve its precious military personnel, stop the bleeding and allow time for negotiations to begin. But that would require both the American and Ukrainian leadership to accept that Zelensky’s stated aim for the war – a return to the 1991 borders – is fantastic,” Vance wrote in an April op-ed inThe New York Times.

“The White House has repeatedly said it cannot negotiate with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. This is absurd,” he continued. “The Biden administration has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war. The sooner Americans confront this truth, the sooner we can resolve this mess and negotiate peace.”

Whether Vance addresses this topic tonight will be interesting in itself. Whether he does or not, his nomination to become Trump’s deputy also raises the question of whether future aid can be approved — and the answer is murky at best, despite the strong vote Republicans saw in April.

“It’s hard to say,” Sen. John Thune (RS.D.), potentially the next Republican leader, told The Hill on Monday when asked what his nomination means for the possibility of approving another batch of aid.

Trump’s attack dog

Since his election to the Senate, it has been difficult to find anyone more willing to defend the president on Capitol Hill with as much ferocity and precision as Vance.

A prime example came in December, after Trump said immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the country, a remark that infuriated Democrats and most Republicans backed away in response, refusing to comment or denounce them. .

The same was not true of Vance, who gave an impassioned defense of the former president, condemning the idea that he was borrowing rhetoric used by Adolf Hitler and maintaining that he was talking about the drug epidemic.

“First of all, he didn’t say that immigrants were poisoning the blood of this country. He said that illegal immigrants were poisoning the blood of this country, which is objectively and obviously true for anyone who looks at the statistics on fentanyl overdoses,” Vance said. “This is ridiculous. If you look at the speech in context and look at what’s happening, it’s obvious that he was talking about the very clear fact that Americans’ blood is being poisoned by a drug epidemic.”

“To accept this comment and immediately assume that he is talking about immigrants like Adolf Hitler was talking about Jews is absurd,” he said, adding: “You need to wake up. …It’s an absurd question. It’s an absurd framework.”

The back and forth ricocheted across the conservative media.

Now, Vance has a second full-time job: being Trump’s pit bull, and it’s a job he’s especially suited for.

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story