Vice President JD Vance hit back hard against the notion that talks with Russia were useless. He noted that wars do not end with weapons but with peace treaties signed under “energetic diplomacy.”
“We’re going to eventually be successful, or we’ll hit a brick wall,” Vance told Sunday’s NBC News “Meet the Press.” “And if we hit a brick wall, then we’re going to continue this process of negotiation, of applying leverage.
“This is the energetic diplomacy that’s going to bring this war to a close.”
NBC host Kristen Welker, a longtime antagonist of President Donald Trump, suggested Russia’s Vladimir Putin was merely “stringing” Trump along.
To which Vance said, “Not at all.”
“I think the Russians have made significant concessions to President Trump for the first time in 3½ years of this conflict,” Vance added. “They’ve actually been willing to be flexible on some of their core demands. They’ve talked about what would be necessary to end the war.
“Of course, they haven’t been completely there yet, or the war would be over.
“But we’re engaging in this diplomatic process in good faith. We’re trying to negotiate as much as we can with both the Russians and the Ukrainians to find the middle ground to stop the killing.”
According to Vance, Trump remains committed to a lasting peace — and that means engaging with adversaries.
“What the president has tried to do here is engage in very aggressive, very energetic diplomacy, because this war is not in anyone’s interest,” Vance said. “Not in Europe, not in the United States’ interest: We don’t think its in Russia’s or Ukraine’s interest to keep going.
“So we’re going to keep on pushing for a diplomatic solution.”
In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump expressed optimism that peace with Putin could allow the Russian leader to attend the 2026 World Cup in the U.S., but he also voiced displeasure over a Russian strike on a U.S. company’s factory in western Ukraine.
“I don’t like it,” Vance said. “But this is a war, and this is why we want to stop the killing. The Russians have done a lot of things that we don’t like. A lot of civilians have died.
“We’ve condemned that stuff from the get-go and, frankly, President Trump has done more to apply pressure and to apply economic leverage to the Russians, certainly, than Joe Biden did for 3 ½ years, when he did nothing but talk, did nothing to bring the killing to a stop.
“So you asked me what I’m enraged by? What I’m enraged by is the continuation of the war.”
Among the concessions from Russia achieved by Trump peace talks, according to Vance:
- Territorial integrity for Ukraine post-war
- No installation of a “puppet regime” in Ukraine
- Some security guarantees for Ukraine
“We have pushed for a ceasefire, but again, we don’t control what Russia does,” Vance said. “If we did, the war would be over seven months ago.”
Vance acknowledged the talks have not met every White House objective and reiterated that Putin should never have invaded Ukraine.
“What I admire about the president in this moment is he’s not asking 3 ½ years ago, he’s not trying to focus on every nitpicky detail of how this thing started 3 ½ years ago; he’s trying to focus on the nitpicky details of now,” Vance said. “Of what do the parties disagree on, what do they agree on, and how do you build a foundation of one side of that ledger to the other so you can stop the killing.”
The vice president also commented on domestic politics, backing GOP-led redistricting efforts in Texas and dismissing speculation about his own 2028 presidential ambitions.
“I see myself as a vice president who’s trying to do a good job for the American people,” Vance said.
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