Vice President JD Vance’s cousin, Nate Vance, who has served in Ukraine, joined CNN’s Erin Burnett to share his thoughts about his cousin’s behavior during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting at the White House with Vance and Trump.
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00:00Tonight, an out front exclusive,
00:02J.D. Vance's cousin, my guest,
00:04and a former U.S. Marine standing up
00:06to the vice president over his stance on Ukraine.
00:09Nate Vance is a Texas native.
00:11He fought on the front lines in Ukraine
00:12for nearly three years as part
00:14of the elite Da Vinci Wolves Battalion,
00:17seeing some of the war's bloodiest,
00:19most horrific battles all the way
00:20from 2022 until just this January.
00:25This video shows him in a trench
00:26as Russian artillery rounds were raining down
00:30on him and his battalion.
00:33These images show the two cousins back
00:35in the day vacationing together.
00:36Through the years, Nate and J.D. share grandparents.
00:39J.D.'s mother and Nate's father are siblings.
00:42And Nate Vance is out front now.
00:45Nate, I really appreciate your talking,
00:47and I wanna get to exactly why you're speaking out,
00:50because I know you do so after careful consideration.
00:54So, Nate, I know you call yourself
00:56a Republican-leaning independent.
00:58I know you've been supportive at times
01:01of the Trump administration,
01:02but on this issue of Ukraine,
01:04where you have put so much of your life
01:06over these past few years,
01:08you think your cousin is misguided.
01:10How come?
01:14Excuse me.
01:15Well, I think my experience in Ukraine
01:18has given me a unique perspective
01:22that most Americans don't have.
01:25There are certainly cultural differences
01:27both between the Ukrainians and Americans and the Russians.
01:29And I think if you try to deal with Russia
01:34through an American lens, it will come back to bite you.
01:37They don't necessarily think like we think.
01:40And I'm talking about their political class.
01:44I've personally witnessed them shooting their own troops
01:47on enough occasions that it wasn't just
01:50an isolated incident.
01:52It's happened quite a bit,
01:54enough to the point where you could consider it
01:55to be policy if troops are retreating.
01:59So these people, as a policy, will eat their own.
02:05So they will not hesitate to eat an American president
02:09or an American vice president.
02:11They don't care what we think.
02:12They're not our allies, and they never will be,
02:14not at least for a generation.
02:17I know that you've tried to reach out to your cousin
02:20since he took office, but haven't been successful.
02:22I mean, what were you planning to say to him?
02:25I mean, what do you wanna say to him now in this moment?
02:29Well, look, I mean, there's more than one reason
02:32why you could make the argument for supporting Ukraine.
02:35There's the kind of emotional argument,
02:37the human element argument part of it, which, fine.
02:41If that's the argument you wanna make
02:43in order to support Ukraine, then I support that.
02:46There's also the element of how it will affect
02:50the United States long-term, right?
02:52So if you're just more transactional in nature
02:54and you are concerned,
02:55what is the benefit for the United States?
02:59I don't think there's any scenario where a,
03:02you know, like if this war pauses and sanctions are lifted,
03:07you know, Russia has spent the last three years
03:09kind of beefing up their military-industrial complex,
03:12and if you lift those sanctions,
03:14you're gonna see a massive influx of funds
03:16into that military-industrial complex,
03:18and they're gonna build a war machine out of it, right?
03:20That's what they're gonna do.
03:21And the concept of an imperial,
03:24an imperialistic, aggressive, modernized military Russia
03:30who has learned their lessons about modern combat
03:32is problematic for our future.
03:35And if the Russians are given significant concessions
03:38in this ceasefire,
03:40they will spend that as a victory of sorts.
03:42But their view is they're not done.
03:45So to them, it's just a chance to regroup,
03:48build up and modernize, and they'll come back.
03:50And when they do come back,
03:50there'll be more of a problem than they are now.
03:53Right now, they're at the weakest they will ever be.
03:57As soon as the ceasefire starts,
03:58they will immediately start to get stronger
04:00and continue to get stronger every day thereafter.
04:02So the way this ends is important.
04:07You know, in that context, obviously,
04:12I think I'm thinking of the moment
04:14when your cousin, Vice President Vance,
04:17publicly reprimanded Ukraine's president, right?
04:20It's an unforgettable moment in the Oval Office
04:23when your cousin's sitting on the couch
04:24and Zelensky is next to Trump sitting in those chairs.
04:28Let me just play it.
04:31I think it's disrespectful for you
04:32to come into the Oval Office
04:33and try to litigate this in front of the American media.
04:35You should be thanking the president
04:37for trying to bring an end to this conflict.
04:39J.D. Vance was seen as the,
04:41I mean, widely seen as the instigator,
04:43you know, in that moment, right?
04:44When he got a, you know, you should show appreciation,
04:46and he was angry.
04:47Yeah.
04:48You obviously have known him his whole life.
04:50Did it surprise you, the way he acted in that moment?
04:55I was surprised.
04:56I think what surprised me the most
04:58was regardless of the situation,
05:01there's a certain level of decorum
05:03that should be reached.
05:07And, you know, I'm not naive enough to think that,
05:10you know, national leaders don't debate behind closed doors.
05:14But when you do that and you publicly, you know,
05:16kind of ridicule someone in public,
05:18that they have to almost defend themselves.
05:24So it was just, it was really disappointing to see it,
05:27for me, I disagreed with that tact.
05:30No.
05:31There's a much more diplomatic way
05:33to say, wait, I think we're getting off
05:34on the wrong foot here.
05:35Maybe we can kind of, you know,
05:38readdress what our positions are and things like that.
05:40There's much, much better ways to handle that.
05:42I know, Nate, that you and Vice President Vance
05:45have not spoken about this issue, right?
05:48Since you've come back.
05:50But I know you've reached out to him.
05:52I just, I'm curious, you did share some photos
05:55of the two of you growing up at his grandmother's house.
06:00He's in the Superman shirt there on the tractor.
06:03And then J.D. spent time with your family in California.
06:05And, you know, so these are all the times
06:08you spent together.
06:09What was he like then?
06:11And how do you feel now that,
06:15I guess, I don't know how to put it.
06:16He's not returning your call on this issue
06:18that you know so much about.
06:21Well, I can't, in all fairness to J.D.,
06:25say that he received that message and then ignored it.
06:27I can't, I can't do that
06:28because I don't know that he got it.
06:30But I did reach out.
06:32But regardless of whether or not I reached out or not,
06:34I mean, he definitely knew I was there
06:35and at no point tried to make contact
06:38and there were ways to do that.
06:41So when, you know, if a wise person,
06:46if they're gonna make a decision,
06:47tries to find every available piece of information
06:50to kind of come to a conclusion about something,
06:53and this is such a dramatic issue,
06:56such a serious issue that, you know,
06:58why not seek out every piece of information?
06:59And he certainly doesn't have to take my advice,
07:02but I do find it a little strange
07:03that he never sought the advice in the first place.
07:06Well, Nate, we really appreciate your taking the time.
07:08I, again, as I said to everybody,
07:09I know it, you did this after careful consideration,
07:12but we appreciate it and thank you.
07:15No, I appreciate it too, thank you.