Cowardly Senators Whine About Vance's America First Policy

A handful of cowardly Republican senators anonymously whined to Jewish Insider about Vice President J.D. Vance’s America First foreign policy viewpoints, coughing up a dying gasp of the war-obsessed GOP establishment.

The neocon senators glommed onto Vance’s skepticism of immediately taking military action against the Houthis in Yemen disrupting trade in the Suez Canal, despite saying he was “willing” to support it and then ultimately did. Vance expressed concern that the action would be difficult to justify to the American public, which elected him and President Donald Trump in part to stop endless wars and at least justify military action in terms of American interests.

“JD Vance is one of the most active and popular Vice Presidents in living memory,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told The Federalist. “The fact that a few haters in Congress have to anonymously whine to the media is further proof that the American people agree with his vision for our country over that of his detractors.” 

The Republican senators cited by Jewish Insider attempted to paint Vance’s “mindset” as “perplexing,” and the article referred to Vance as an “isolationist” multiple times.

“This morning, @JoshKraushaar ran a hit piece against me in Jewish Insider, which has become an anti-JD rag. It has many problems, including seven anonymous quotes from cowardly Republicans,” Vance wrote on X Thursday, further pointing to an inaccuracy in the article that has since been corrected. “Now, you might say this is evidence of Kraushaar being the biggest hack in Washington, and you *may* be correct. Another very plausible explanation is that he’s the dumbest journalist in Washington. Either way, shocking an error like this could get through his vaunted editorial process!”

The only senator to express direct disagreement with Vance on the record was Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who said, “[Vance] does not like to see the deployment or the projection of American power outside of a direct threat to the United States. He’s at least consistent on that. I disagree with him, but he is consistent.”

Others anonymously divulged their concerns about what Europeans might think of the United States, how apparently important it is for America to support “Ukrainian freedom fighters,” or the idea that Vance wanting to justify the use of military force to the American people is somehow a “worry” about “the party’s direction.”

“The editor-in-chief of Jewish Insider, Josh Kraashaur, openly loathes Vice President Vance, which is why this outlet constantly runs anonymously sourced smear jobs like this against the Vice President,” Republican strategist Arthur Schwartz told The Federalist. “It’s sad that Kraushaar has abdicated his role as a journalist and instead allows his personal policy views to drive this outlet’s supposed ‘news coverage.’”

Ned Ryun, founder and CEO of American Majority, told The Federalist that “Some people clearly haven’t gotten a memo that a lot of us view the neocons as a cancer on the Republican Party.”

“We’d like to exorcise that movement from the party — it needs to be completely dismissed from an American First party. No more nation building. No more blowing up everything that moves. No more American empire,” he said. “The fact that these gutless wonders wanted to go on the record anonymously to attack the vice president of the United States of their own party, tells you how gutless they are. If they really believe in what they are doing, and believe it’s the correct approach, go on the record.”

Ryun said neocons will commonly attack an America First foreign policy as “isolationist.” This is “a crass attempt to explain” a foreign policy, which “shows that [these] people are deeply unthoughtful,” he said.

“We’re not into nation building, and yet, we’re not isolationists, but we’re beyond tired of spending American resources, to the tune of trillions of dollars, trying to do empire building” if it does not have “anything to do with American interests,” Ryun continued. “We would really like to see compelling arguments as to why some of these things that we have done, even in recent times, had anything to do with U.S. interests. Where U.S. interests are at stake, where it requires us to enter forcefully and address the issue with military or resources, we’re all for that.”

Vance’s consideration of the strike displays quite a bit more nuance than the bomb-first-ask-questions-later wing of the Republican Party. He simply raised concerns and noted implications about a military action.

“There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.,” he said according to the leaked Signal chat messages. Considering how significantly more European trade runs through the Suez Canal than American trade, “There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary,” he wrote. “The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”

He ultimately told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

“All Vance was wanting to do was [make] sure that we’re consistent. We’re telling Europe to stop freeloading, and then we’re stepping in and basically doing their dirty business with the Houthis,” Ryun said. “I don’t understand why anyone, anywhere thinks that wasn’t a very thoughtful, rational approach.”

Breccan F. Thies is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.