WSJ distorts Vance’s comments on Ukraine, Russia — but social media users quickly correct the record

Social media users quickly corrected the record after the Wall Street Journal appeared to grossly distort comments Vice President JD Vance made regarding Ukraine and Russia during a recent interview.

On Friday, Bojan Pancevski and Alexander Ward of the WSJ published an article based on an exclusive interview with Vance. The headline for the article — “Vance Wields Threat of Sanctions, Military Action to Push Putin Into Ukraine Deal” — has drawn severe criticism online.

‘As we’ve always said, American troops should never be put into harm’s way where it doesn’t advance American interests and security.’

William Martin, the communications director for the vice president, immediately tweeted out screenshots of a transcript of the interview, revealing that the headline did not accurately reflect Vance’s statements.

According to the screenshots, Vance admitted that President Donald Trump has an array of “instruments of pressure” he can use to convince President Vladimir Putin to abide by any agreement reached with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Among them are “economic” and “military tools of leverage.”

Vance also reiterated that whenever President Donald Trump walks into a negotiation, “everything is on the table.”

However, the vice president did not threaten sanctions or military action. Instead, he simply declined to eliminate any possible leverage Trump could use as he works to bring peace to the region.

There is also little chance that the interviewer misunderstood Vance’s point. A screenshot of the transcript showed that the interviewer asked a follow-up question to “make sure”: “So just want to make sure I understand you correctly. You’re saying that even though the possibility of a Ukraine NATO accession at the end of this process, or even the presence of U.S. troops in Ukraine is not officially off the table?”

Trump “wants to have a productive negotiation, both with Putin and with [Zelenskyy],” Vance told the WSJ, even as he “doesn’t like the idea of moving Ukraine into NATO.”

Martin claimed that the framing from the WSJ was “fake news.”

“This is pure fake news. Compare the transcript of @JDVance’s conversation with WSJ to the headline being run here. The Vice President didn’t make any threats. He simply stated the fact that no one is going to take options away from President Trump as these negotiations begin,” he wrote.

According to a post from Libs of TikTok, the WSJ article was even slapped with a community note denying the accuracy of the headline, but as of early Friday afternoon, no such community note is currently attached to the WSJ post.

‘Such liars. That’s not at all what VP Vance said.’

Vance reacted to the WSJ headline by quote-tweeting Republican strategist Andrew Surabian, who called the headline “one of the most intentionally dishonest things I’ve seen in a long time” and likened the WSJ to the Huffington Post.

Vance did not mention anything about the headline or the WSJ in his message. Rather, he reiterated the administration’s stance on the Ukraine-Russia war:

President Trump is the ultimate deal maker and will bring peace to the region by ending the war in Ukraine. As we’ve always said, American troops should never be put into harm’s way where it doesn’t advance American interests and security. This war is between Russia and Ukraine.

Other social media users have also excoriated the WSJ for the misleading headline:

• “Who wrote this headline?
  Whoever it was didn’t read the article because J.D. said nothing like that,” said Brick Suit, an eccentric figure frequently spotted wearing a brick-patterned ensemble at Trump campaign rallies.
• “Such liars. That’s not at all what VP Vance said,” said a user called Queen Isabel.
• “No one takes you seriously anymore. You’ve lied, yet again. You are just a bunch of partisan hacks, and the people who buy your bs are just as bad. Keep it up, you’re sending yourselves into an irrelevant oblivion,” came another popular response.

In an era in which news is regularly aggregated by other outlets, such a specious headline can have far-reaching implications. For instance, the New York Post similarly adopted the WSJ framing, writing up an article entitled “JD Vance threatens Russia with sanctions, possible military action if Putin doesn’t agree to end Ukraine war.”

Pancevski, Ward, and Victor Nava, author of the Post article, did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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