Sasse criticized Vance over the weekend over his claim that the U.S. should prioritize the evacuation of Americans over Afghans.
Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) accused Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance of “lying to get attention” amid an ongoing split in the party on whether and how to evacuate Afghans who helped the U.S. military during the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
“J.D. Vance version 6.0 is lying to get attention and Ben’s trying to save Americans and our allies. Everybody has their priorities,” Sasse communications director James Wegmann said in a comment to National Review. The remark was an apparent reference to Vance’s change in stance from former critic to supporter of President Trump.
The comment came in response to a video posted by Vance on Twitter on Monday, in which Vance accused Sasse of ignoring dangers of allowing unvetted Afghan refugees into the U.S.
Here is my message to Ben Sasse and other establishment Republicans who seem to care more about bringing 30,000 unvetted Afghan refugees into our country than getting our own people out safely. pic.twitter.com/PSfoc2swdC
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) August 23, 2021
Vance said it was “very sweet” of Sasse to say he would welcome Afghan refugees “with open arms,” but insisted that the question is how to help Afghan refugees “in a way that doesn’t destroy our own sovereignty.”
“Yes, let’s help Afghans that helped us, but let’s ensure that we’re properly vetting them, so that we don’t get a bunch of people who should blow themselves up at a mall because somebody looked at their wife the wrong way,” Vance said. “Real leadership is accepting the tradeoffs of the situation, putting our own citizens first, and not dealing with fake platitudes because it gets people in the media to say nice things about you.”
Vance wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that he would “like to hear zero about Afghan refugees until we get every single American out first.” Sasse was asked to respond to those comments in an interview on Fox News Sunday.
“First of all, a great nation is a nation that keeps its word,” Sasse said. “We’re talking about men and women who risked their lives to protect Americans. They fought hand in hand with our troops, and we made promises to them.”
Sasse added, “When you fought on behalf of Americans to protect our people, you’re welcome in my neighborhood.”
A bipartisan majority of Americans believes the country should help Afghans who worked with the U.S. military to come to the U.S., according to a CBS News-YouGov poll conducted from August 18-20. Among respondents, 80 percent of conservatives and 91 percent of liberals called to evacuate Afghans who helped the U.S.