Vice President J.D. Vance came out swinging over the “moralistic garbage” being spewed by a historian trying to shame President Donald Trump over remarks about Ukraine.
In a scathing reality check on social media, the vice president dropped the “facts” on Niall Ferguson, a Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution who actually quoted former President George H.W. Bush in his attack on Trump.
“Future history students will be asked why this stopped being the reaction of a Republican president to the invasion of a sovereign state by a dictator,” Ferguson wrote in his post on X which was soon torched by Vance.
This is moralistic garbage, which is unfortunately the rhetorical currency of the globalists because they have nothing else to say.
For three years, President Trump and I have made two simple arguments: first, the war wouldn’t have started if President Trump was in office;… https://t.co/xH33s6X5yf
— JD Vance (@JDVance) February 20, 2025
“This is moralistic garbage, which is unfortunately the rhetorical currency of the globalists because they have nothing else to say,” Vance wrote.
“For three years, President Trump and I have made two simple arguments: first, the war wouldn’t have started if President Trump was in office; second, that neither Europe, nor the Biden administration, nor the Ukrainians had any pathway to victory,” he continued.
“What is Niall’s actual plan for Ukraine? Another aid package? Is he aware of the reality on the ground, of the numerical advantage of the Russians, of the depleted stock of the Europeans or their even more depleted industrial base?” Vance demanded. “Instead, he quotes from a book about George HW Bush from a different historical period and a different conflict.”
The vice president called out the critics’ “reliance on irrelevant history.”
He proceeded to drop five facts for the left to digest in the incessant pearl-clutching over Trump’s views on ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Trump referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator” this week for withholding elections in the nation and the Ukraine leader has commented that Trump lives in a “disinformation space.”
Some reports indicated that Trump’s social media platform has been blacked out in the nation that has state-controlled media.
JUST IN: According to widespread reports, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has*BLOCKED* Truth Social.
However, Truth Social is NOT available in Ukraine to the general public. The social media company is not listed on Ukrainian-based app lists, such as on DownDetector.… pic.twitter.com/7Ttojp0EG0
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) February 20, 2025
“It is lazy, ahistorical nonsense to attack as ‘appeasement”‘ every acknowledgment that America’s interest must account for the realities of the conflict,” Vance wrote on X. “That interest–not moralisms or historical illiteracy–will guide President Trump’s policy in the weeks to come.”
“And thank God for that,” he concluded.
Ferguson soon responded in a lengthy post as he added, “thank God also for free and open debate.”
“I repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for its failure to deter Putin in 2021 and failure to end the war while Ukraine still had some leverage. I have said more than once in the past three years that the war would not have happened if President Trump had been reelected in 2020,” he insisted, saying he supported Trump’s re-election.
Well, thank God also for free and open debate.
Having visited Ukraine every year but one since 2011, I think I have an informed and realistic view.
I repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for its failure to deter Putin in 2021 and failure to end the war while Ukraine…— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) February 20, 2025
“So I am not sure I really qualify as a globalist,” he told Vance. “In fact, I agree with all five of the points you make.”
After pressing that he did not agree with “conceding so many crucial points to Russia,” he dropped his own facts in the post.
“I earnestly hope that the Trump administration can negotiate an end to this war. But if we end up with a peace that dooms Ukraine first to partition and then to some future invasion, it will be a sorry outcome,” Ferguson wrapped up, wishing the administration “luck.”
