Vance took the advantage by attacking Zelensky. Because?

The remarkable JD Vance dressing for Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval office on Friday showed the US vice president that he was not afraid to take the center of the stage as an attack dog, instead of serving as some of his predecessors as a moderate political substitute.

It was Vance who directed the attack on Zelensky before Donald Trump joined the fray at the White House in a meeting that had been cordial until the vice president spoke to praise the president for looking for what he described as a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine-Russia.

“What kind of diplomacy, JD, are you talking?” Zelensky said, who has criticized the direct conversations between Washington and Moscow. “What do you mean?”

“I am talking about the type of diplomacy that will end with the destruction of their country,” Vance replied, tearing the stunned Ukrainian leader.

“Mr. President, with respect, I think it is disrespectful that you enter the Oval office to try to litigate this in front of the US media.”

He also accused Zelensky of campaigning on behalf of the Democrats during the presidential elections of 2024. The Ukrainian leader visited a ammunition factory in the critical state of Pennsylvania last September and met Trump’s rival, Kamala Harris, in the White House.

Vance’s rebuke of Zelensky received broad support among Republicans.

“I was very proud that JD Vance defended our country,” said South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a defender for a long time from Ukraine and a Falcon of Foreign Policy. He suggested that Zelensky should give up.

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville referred to Zelensky as “that Ukrainian comadreja.”

Congressman Mike lawyer in New York was more measured, saying that the meeting was “a lost opportunity for the United States and Ukraine.”

Vance’s remarkable attack against a visiting head of state is not typical for an American vice president.

His work is often, but not always, to help the president be elected and then sit in silence next to his boss. Being a loyal lieutenant who represents the president on foreign trips, standing, a beat, for what they say, of the presidency.

The contrast to Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence much more modern, could not be greater.

But Vance, which is widely seen how to serve to articulate the logic behind Trump’s foreign policy instincts, has long been skeptical of American help to Ukraine.

When he ran for Ohio’s Senate in 2022, Vance told a podcast: “I have to be honest with you. I really don’t care what happens to Ukraine in one way or another.”

The vice president ridiculed Trump as an idiot eight years ago, before a political evolution that culminated that he became apparent for the Make America Great Again Again movement.

Despite Vance’s popularity among conservative voters, Trump recently said in a Fox News interview that it was “too soon” to say if the vice president would be the next online for president in 2028.

Without flinching, Vance seems to be developing a role as a political fighter for Trump, going even beyond the president in his criticisms open to the enemies of the administration.

A common thread is that many victims of Vance’s language are the United States allies.

It began at the Munich Security Conference last month, a regular scale port for an American vice president. Kamala Harris frequently pronounced immemorial speeches there.

But Vance used the occasion to launch an abrasing assault on the state of European democracy, accusing continental leaders of censoring freedom of expression and not controlling immigration.

“If you are running for fear of your own voters, there is nothing that the United States can do for you,” he said.

The audience of politicians, generals and diplomats was horrified.

This was not the usual argument, and now widely accepted, that Europe should do more to pay its own defense and security.

This was a complete ideological assault: a sign that the United States under Trump is not only turning from Europe, changing its security approach to China, but is also trying to promote its own populism in the Trump style in the European continent.

No, for nothing, Vance had dinner after his speech with the leadership of the AFD party of the extreme right of Germany.

His speech caused a violent reaction from European leaders, writers and academics.

However, Vance decided to take them online, participating in detailed exchanges in X with several, including the historian, Niall Ferguson.

Vance accused him of “moralistic garbage”, “historical illiteracy” and, worst of all, of being a “globalist.”

And if that were not enough, Vance even chose to test the United Kingdom Prime Minister in the Oval office earlier this week.

Out of nowhere, he told Sir Keir Starmer that “there have been infractions in freedom of expression that really affect not only British, of course, what the British do in their own country depends on them, but also affect US technology companies and, by extension, US citizens.”

The prime minister firmly withdrew, saying “in relation to freedom of expression in the United Kingdom, I am very proud of our history there … we have had freedom of expression for a long time, a long time in the United Kingdom and will last a long time, a long time.”

This was an echo of the criticism that Vance made in Munich, criticizing European regulations on artificial intelligence and social media platforms.

The objective is to address the misinformation and hate discourse that can encourage restlessness and radicalize people. Vance sees it as a threat to political travel companions and commercial interests of the United States, especially in great technology.

Several questions are presented. Was Vance’s attack against Zelensky premeditated, how do some diplomats believe?

White House sources have told us documents that it wasn’t.

Is the new role of Vance emerging at the instances of Trump, sharing the burden with Elon Musk to distribute the punishment to the president’s opponents?

Or Vance is independent, is already drawing a role that will form the basis of an electoral campaign in three years that Trump cannot be again?

Whatever the answers to those questions, Vance is emerging as more than Trump number two.