Since becoming vice president, JD Vance has not always been on hand for Oval Office meeting with foreign leaders, but the Ohio Republican eagerly participated in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s White House visit. In fact, Vance played a direct role in the meeting’s descent into an ugly shouting match.
One of the core problems stemmed from the fact that the vice president did not appear to know what he was talking about.
At one point during the Oval Office ugliness, for example, Vance told Zelenskyy: “You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October.” (In context, he was referring to Democrats, not Russians.)
If you’re trying to remember the point in the 2024 campaign in which the Ukrainian president hit the campaign trail in support of the Democratic ticket, go ahead and stop. That never happened. Zelenskyy visited an ammunition factory that made weapons Ukraine used against its Russian invaders, but it wasn’t a campaign event and Zelenskyy made no reference to the candidates.
That was not, however, Vance’s only factual error.
The vice president also asked Zelenskyy: “Have you ever said ‘thank you’ once?” President Donald Trump added around the same time, “You have to be thankful.”
As NBC News reported, Zelenskyy thanked the United States repeatedly in his speech before a joint meeting of Congress in December 2022, when he delivered a passionate appeal for more American aid.
“Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that. Thank you. It’s too much for me. All this for our great people. Thank you so much,” Zelenskyy said. “Dear Americans, in all states, cities and communities, all those who value freedom and justice, who cherish it as strongly as we Ukrainians in our cities, in each and every family, I hope my words of respect and gratitude resonate in each American heart.”
Those remarks were not at all unusual. I spent roughly 20 seconds on the Ukrainian leader’s social media feed, and I found an avalanche of instances in which Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to the United States and the American public. It happened over and over and over and over and over and over again.
Indeed, after the Oval Office fiasco, the Ukrainian president again wrote online, “Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit. Thank you @POTUS, Congress, and the American people. Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.”
It’s difficult to speculate about Vance’s motivations. Maybe the vice president hasn’t kept up with messaging on Kyiv. Maybe he thought he’d take a cheap shot at a U.S. ally based on nothing but ignorance. I’m not in a position to say.
But to answer Vance’s question — “Have you ever said ‘thank you’ once?” — the Ukrainian leader has said “thank you” far more than once.