WASHINGTON—Vice President JD Vance on Friday hailed the Trump administration’s foreign policy as an effort to protect “Christian rights all over the world,” hours before the president is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
“Where I think President Trump’s policy is the most in accord with Christian social teaching and with the Catholic faith, is that more than any president of my lifetime, President Trump has pursued a path of peace,” Vance said at the 20th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
“One of the things that I am most ashamed about is that in the United States of America, sometimes it is our foreign misadventures that lead to the eradication of historical Christian communities all over the world,” Vance added.
“When President Trump talks about the need to bring peace, whether it’s in Russia and Ukraine, whether it’s in the Middle East, we of course have to recognize that as a policy oriented towards saving lives and carrying out one of Christ’s most important commandments.”
“That is, in my view, perhaps the most important way in which Donald Trump has been a defender of Christian rights all over the world, as he has a foreign policy that is oriented towards peace.”
Vance’s comments come just hours before Trump and Zelensky meet at the White House for a highly-anticipated conversation on the future of American aid to Ukraine. Trump raised the stakes ahead of the meeting, saying that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine will “either be fairly soon or it won’t be at all.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Trump administration officials met with a Russian delegation to begin negotiations earlier this month, without any Ukrainian representatives present. In response, Zelensky said that he “will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine.”
After touching on foreign policy, Vance largely focused on the role of Christian faith in public life. The vice president joked about his recent conversion to Catholicism, calling himself a “Baby Catholic” and noting that “sometimes, the bishops get mad at me.”
“If you ever hear me pontificating about the Catholic faith, please recognize it comes from a place of deep belief, but it also comes from a place of not always knowing everything all the time,” he said.
Vance briefly touched on Pope Francis’s criticisms of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, gently but firmly holding his ground in the face of papal rebuke.
“You obviously know my views, and I will speak to them consistently because I think that I have to do it because it serves the best interest in the American people,” Vance said. But rather than launch into a lengthy defense of the White House’s immigration policies, the vice president urged American Catholics to avoid fighting about the Pope’s exhortation.
“I think that sometimes a lot of conservative Catholics are too preoccupied with the political criticisms of a particular clergy member or the leader of the Catholic Church,” Vance said. “It’s not in the best interests of any of us to treat the religious leaders of our faith as just another social media influencer.”
“Frankly, that goes in both ways, if I could be so bold,” Vance added, saying it was “incumbent upon our religious leaders to recognize that in the era of social media, people will hang on every single word that they utter, even if that wasn’t their intention, and even if a given declaration wasn’t meant for consumption in the social media age.”
Vance stressed that, for all their disagreements, he believes that “the pope is fundamentally a person who cares about the flock of Christians under his leadership.” He recalled fondly Pope Francis’s speech during the height of the COVID pandemic, praising him “as a great pastor, as a man who can speak the truth of the faith in a very profound way at a moment of great crisis.”
The vice president then led the crowd in a prayer for the Holy Father’s health.
Around 1,400 people attended the 20th annual breakfast, the theme of which was “hope.” Among the guests were newly-confirmed Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.
Philanthropist Terry Kaster and Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker were also briefly honored, though they did not deliver any remarks.
Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) was honored with the “Christifideles Laici Award,” given every year to honor a Catholic layman who has served the Church. Smith was hailed for his work fighting the global AIDS pandemic and advancing pro-life policies in the United States.
“More people are alive today, more people live with a greater sense of dignity today…because of the work of Chris Smith,” National Catholic Prayer Breakfast board member Tim Saccoccia said in his introduction.
During his speech, Smith praised Trump for appointing the judges who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and taking steps to defend the pro-life movement during his second term.
“We are moving towards a culture of life: coming to America, and coming to the world,” Smith said.