Vice President JD Vance quashed Poland’s request that President Donald Trump transfer U.S. nuclear weapons to eastern Europe and said he’d be “shocked” if the president agreed in an interview on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle on March 13.
Newsweek reached out to Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment via email.
Without the U.S. deployment of nuclear weapons into eastern Europe, an area closer to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the U.K. and France are Europe’s only nuclear powers under French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to extend France’s “nuclear umbrella,” and they may not have enough weapons to fend off future Russian aggression.
Trump’s possible refusal to aid eastern European allies by deploying U.S. nuclear weapons could further strain relations between Washington and Europe, as they have become fraught over the subject of Ukraine.
In response to a question about sending nuclear weapons to eastern Europe to aid defense against Russian aggression, the vice president said, “I haven’t talked to the president about that particular issue, but I would be shocked if he was supportive of nuclear weapons extending further east into Europe.”
He continued, “We have got to be careful, Laura [addressing Ingraham]. We are playing literally with the lives of future of human civilization. This is one of the most important reasons why President Trump sees himself and in fact is a peace president.”