Vice President JD Vance spoke out against Sen. Mitch McConnell’s, R-Ky., vote against confirming Elbridge Colby to serve as undersecretary of defense for policy.
‘Mitch’s vote today—like so much of the last few years of his career—is one of the great acts of political pettiness I’ve ever seen,’ Vance declared in a post on X.
Colby was confirmed in a 54-45 vote on Tuesday. McConnell was the only Senate Republican to vote against confirmation, while three Democrats voted in Colby’s favor.
President Donald Trump announced Colby as his pick for the Pentagon post when he was the president-elect.
‘Elbridge Colby’s long public record suggests a willingness to discount the complexity of the challenges facing America, the critical value of our allies and partners, and the urgent need to invest in hard power to preserve American primacy,’ McConnell said in a statement.
‘The prioritization that Mr. Colby argues is fresh, new, and urgently needed is, in fact, a return to an Obama-era conception of a la carte geostrategy. Abandoning Ukraine and Europe and downplaying the Middle East to prioritize the Indo-Pacific is not a clever geopolitical chess move. It is geostrategic self-harm that emboldens our adversaries and drives wedges between America and our allies for them to exploit,’ the senator asserted.
McConnell has voted against multiple Trump nominees this year.
‘Mr. Colby’s confirmation leaves open the door for the less-polished standard-bearers of restraint and retrenchment at the Pentagon to do irreparable damage to the system of alliances and partnerships which serve as force multipliers to U.S. leadership. It encourages isolationist perversions of peace through strength to continue apace at the highest levels of Administration policymaking,’ McConnell said.
Vance spoke out in support of Colby last month at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Colby’s nomination.