GOP takes aim at Zelensky for Pennsylvania visit, Vance swipe

Republicans are hammering Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after he criticized Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in an interview and visited a Pennsylvania ammunition factory over the weekend with the state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro.

Zelensky is in the U.S. for the United Nations’s General Assembly this week. The GOP argued Sunday’s Pennsylvania stop amounted to Zelensky campaigning for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Harris and Democrats while using American taxpayer dollars. Zelensky was flown to Pennsylvania in an Air Force C-17 plane.

“Zelensky is openly campaigning for Democrats in battleground Pennsylvania today some 50 days out from our Presidential election. Unreal,” Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt (Mo.) wrote in a post on the social platform X.

Sean Parnell, a backer of former President Trump and onetime Senate candidate, said at a Trump-Vance campaign rally that Zelensky was in Pennsylvania “signing bombs with Gov. Shapiro.”

“Zelensky is also attacking JD Vance in the biggest, most important battleground state in the country during an election year. If that isn’t foreign election interference I don’t know what is,” Parnell said. 

In an interview with The New Yorker published Sunday, Zelensky called Vance “too radical” for his views on Ukraine, and suggested the senator study World War II. Vance has called to end U.S. support for Ukraine, and for Kyiv to cede territory to Russia in a peace deal.

“The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable,” Zelensky said in the interview.

Zelensky struck a more cautious tone toward Trump, saying he has had good conversations on the phone with the GOP presidential candidate. But Zelensky raised doubts about Trump’s plans to end the war by the time he takes office in January. 

“My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war, even if he might think he knows how,” he said.

Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., wrote in a post on X that Zelensky’s comments were “disgraceful.” 

“So a foreign leader who has received billions of dollars in funding from American taxpayers, comes to our country and has the nerve to attack the GOP ticket for President?” he posted Monday.

While Zelensky has not been immune from GOP barbs since Russia invaded Ukraine more than two and a half years ago, the latest Republican attacks on Zelensky are among the loudest yet.  

Zelensky has repeatedly called for the U.S. to stick by Ukraine in the fight against Russia, including when far-right Republicans held up security aid for months earlier this year, but he has generally refrained from choosing to side with Democrats or Republicans in his advocacy.

Matt Zierler, associate professor of international relations at Michigan State University, said the Zelensky visit was only political in the sense that he was trying to shore up support for his country in the U.S.

“He needs to be able to show to the American public [that] regardless of who becomes president next year, it’s in the U.S. interest to keep supporting the Ukrainians. And so you do this through going to the people, which is actually what he did,” Zierler said. 

“If it was purely … something for Democrats, that would be kind of not smart either, because he’d be risking his future with a possible Trump administration,” Zierler added. 

Still, Zierler said the Vance comments “could backfire” and that the Ukrainian president erred in making them public, though he added it did not amount to election interference because most countries, including the U.S., sometimes take political stances on other countries’ affairs. 

Zelensky met with Shapiro and Democratic Pennsylvania lawmakers Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Matt Cartwright on Sunday. 

“For us it’s very important to say thank you to all the people,” Zelensky said during the visit in Scranton. “Thanks to all Americans for such support.” 

The plant he toured, the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, is one of the few factories in the country producing critical 155 mm artillery rounds.  

Artillery has been one of the most crucial weapons in the war in Ukraine, with Russian and Ukrainian forces pounding each other across the front lines as they seek to defend territory or seize land by damaging enemy positions ahead of troop advances.

But Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) told a local radio station Tuesday that the timing of Zelensky’s trip to Scranton was “suspect.”

“We are a critical swing state, so when you talk about this brief visit, it was a political stunt,” he said. “Inviting foreign influence to come to Pennsylvania — again, it’s suspect. I don’t like the way it smells.”

Biden and Harris will meet with Zelensky on Thursday, when the Ukrainian leader is expected to present a victory plan to them. He is also expected to give the plan to Trump, but it’s not clear how or when.

In an interview with ABC News that aired Tuesday morning, Zelensky said it was important for the U.S. to remain “strong” and that his victory plan seeks an urgent end to the war. 

“We can’t now be weak. We can’t relax,” he said. “We are closer to the peace than we think. We are closer to the end of the war. We just have to be very strong, very strong.”