JD Vance said he jokingly warned Volodymyr Zelensky to ‘behave’ before his pivotal summit with Donald Trump this week as the vice president revealed the future for MAGA and the Republican party.
Vance addressed the summit with the Ukrainian leader during an interview with Fox News on Wednesday while also talking about a recent Wall Street Journal report that Tesla billionaire Elon Musk is preparing to back him for president in 2028.
‘Zelensky walked into the Oval Office. I was chatting with him and I said: “Mr. President, so long as you behave, I won’t say anything,”‘ Vance joked. ‘It was a good little icebreaker.’
Vance joined the summit with Zelensky and a group of European leaders on Monday as they discussed a path forward to end the years long conflict in Ukraine with Russia.
The VP tried to lighten the mood after a previous White House meeting spiraled into chaos after Vance chided the Ukrainian president not saying ‘thank you.’
Vance has been tasked with coordinating a meeting between Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. Ingraham asked him his opinion on dealing with the Russian leader.
He said that the stereotype of the Russian president many have as a cold, ruthless man are misguided.
‘He’s more soft spoken than you’d necessarily expect. The American media has a particular image of him,’ Vance said. ‘He’s soft spoken in a certain way. He’s very deliberate, he’s very careful. Fundamentally, he’s a person who looks out for the interests as he sees it of Russia.’
Vance also implored Musk to abandon his quest for a third party as he responded to 2028 speculation and prepares to stump for the crucial midterms elections.
‘If he doesn’t like things the Republican Party’s doing, my advice to Elon would be try to fix the Republican Party,’ Vance declared.
‘Try to push it in your own way. Disagree with me all you want, disagree with the president of the United States but don’t pretend that you can make a big difference with a third party.’
Vance said Musk should get on board with Donald Trump’s GOP agenda because third parties are difficult to start and liberals don’t like him anyway.
‘My argument to him is whether you like it or not, you are perceived by the far left as part of the American right,’ Vance said.
‘The idea that Elon is ever going to go back to being in the middle where Democrats and Republicans both like him, that’s just not going to happen, he is perceived as being on the American right.’
Vance will head to Georgia on Thursday where he plans to hold a rally to tout Trump’s successes while taking on Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, who is up for re-election.
‘We will have fun and talk about the successes of the big beautiful bill,’ he said.
Ossoff’s race could be the difference between Republicans keeping their 6-seat majority in the Senate. The Republican nominee in the race has not yet been decided.
The speech is the first of a series of talks Vance will give selling the One, Big Beautiful Bill to voters as he takes the campaign once blazed by Trump to boost Republicans downticket, CNN reported.
Perhaps leaning into that role, Vance sounded off on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new act of pretending to tweet like President Trump on social media.
‘This idea that Gavin Newsom is somehow gonna mimic Donald Trump’s style – I think that ignores the fundamental genius of President Trump’s political success, which is that he’s authentic,’ he said.
‘You’ve gotta be yourself, you’ve actually gotta’ talk to people honestly about the issues. Don’t be a crazy person, be authentic,’ he added, noting that he doesn’t believe Newsom to have moved away from any of the Democrats ‘crazy’ positions on immigration and transgender people in sports.
Speculation started heating up in June, Vance made a secret trip to Rupert Murdoch’s Montana ranch, but it wasn’t to ride horses or about tasting wine.
The vice president spoke with the 94-year-old media mogul, his son Lachlan Murdoch and a group of other Fox News executives at the $280 million estate on June 11, to the talk up Trump agenda.
The specifics of the meeting and Vance’s conversation with the group was not disclosed – but it appeared to be brief. Murdoch and other top executives are known for hosting powerful politicians across the summer at their sprawling estates.
After the Murdoch meeting, the vice president and his wife, Usha, then took a hike, Montana State Auditor James Brown, who helped plan the trip, told Montana Talks.
Now, Musk has reportedly decided to join other tech titans and rally behind the person they believe is the likely successor to Trump: Vice President JD Vance, who has made recent moves that suggest he will run in 2028.
The former DOGE head spent nearly $300million helping to elect Trump in 2024, but the duo has a spectacular fallout earlier this year with Musk eventually writing on X that ‘Trump is in the Epstein files.’
With Trump term-limited as president, Musk is considering using his financial largesse to help Vance win the next presidential election.
He would join other tech honchos who have doled out money to Vance such as Palantir CEO Peter Thiel, former PayPal COO David Sacks, Roku CEO Anthony Wood and entrepreneur Palmer Luckey.
Recent polls show Vance as a clear front runner for the 2028 Republican nomination.
Musk has been speaking to Vance in recent weeks, the Journal said, and believes launching the so-called ‘America Party’ for the 2026 midterms might jeopardize their relationship.
The vice president has been in the news all week after his role in the Trump-Zelensky showdown.
Vance’s advice to Zelensky to ‘behave,’ combined with his demand that Zelensky ‘say thank you’ to the president, may have had an effect on his blockbuster Monday love-fest with Trump.
In fact, The Washington Post noted that Zelensky thanked Trump approximately 11 times in a nearly five-minute public address Monday.
He thanked Trump another seven times in 50 seconds as they addressed the press in the Oval Office, the site of their infamous showdown in March.
‘Thanks so much, Mr President. If I can, first of all, thank you for the invitation, and thank you very much for your efforts, personal efforts, to stop killings and stop this war. Thank you,’ Zelensky said.
Beyond pleasantries, Zelensky had come prepared to speak in the language that Trump made famous: the art of the deal.
He announced that Ukraine plans to buy $100billion in American weapons in exchange for the ‘major step forward’ toward peace Zelensky believes Trump has offered.
The European allies will be helping Ukraine finance the deal, as well as a $50billion deal between Washington and Kyiv to help Ukrainian companies produce drones, The Financial Times reported.
Trump told Zelensky on Monday that the United States would help guarantee Ukraine’s security in any deal to end Russia’s war there, though the extent of any assistance was not immediately clear.
‘When it comes to security, there’s going to be a lot of help,’ Trump told reporters, adding that European countries would be involved. ‘They are a first line of defense because they’re there, but we’ll help them out.’
Trump refused three times to rule out putting American boots on the ground though any assistance is more likely to come in the form of air support.
Zelensky hailed the promise as ‘a major step forward,’ adding that the guarantees would be ‘formalized on paper within the next week to 10 days.’
However, Zelensky clearly saw charming the president as key to getting any deals done.
The president said on social media Monday that he and Putin discussed plans for a summit between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, at a location to be determined.
Following that diplomatic showdown, Trump said he will then sit down with both leaders in an attempt to make peace in the war torn country.
‘This was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years,’ he said.
Zelensky responded by saying ‘we are ready’ for any leader-level meetings while speaking to reporters after the White House. He said it’s the only way to solve these ‘complicated and painful issues.’
The Ukrainian leader was reluctant to set conditions for the meeting, regarding a potential ceasefire or other matters, to prevent Russia from making their own demands, potentially jeopardizing those talks.
‘That’s why I believe that we must meet without any conditions,’ he told reporters.
The president specifically thanked Vance, who will be coordinating between Russia and Ukraine alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.