Latest news with #AlexanderVindman
CBS News
18-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman confirms US Senate run in one-on-one interview
One-on-one with retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman Jim devotes the entire half hour to a sit-down interview with retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. During the interview, Jim breaks the news that Vindman is considering a run to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate as a Democrat. Vindman, who was the director of European Affairs for the National Security Council during President Donald Trump's first term, reported a conversation he heard between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in which Trump asked Zelenskyy to investigate the Biden family as a favor to him, while also threatening to withhold military aid. Vindman reported what he heard, and it was because of him that Trump was impeached by the House.. Jim and Vindman also discuss the war in Ukraine and threats at home. Guest: Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman/U.S. Army (Ret.)
CBS News
16-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Trump whistleblower Alexander Vindman eyeing Florida Senate run
Alexander Vindman, the whistleblower who triggered Donald Trump's first impeachment, is considering a run for the United States Senate next year against Florida Republican Ashley Moody. In an exclusive interview with CBS News Miami, the retired lieutenant colonel said he was approached about running and was discussing it with close friends and advisors. "I think that the Democrats need to win in some very, very difficult places in order to wrestle control back," he explained during an interview scheduled to air Sunday morning on Facing South Florida. "I'm not sure if Florida is the place to do that. It might be. My worldview is that Trump is going to hurt a lot of people, and this will be a referendum [on Trump] and there'll be an opportunity for people power to manifest. Folks will show up that stayed on the sidelines last time, or that got more than they bargained for with Donald Trump. So, I don't think the state is too far gone by any means. I certainly don't believe that. I just don't know if I'm the right person to do that or if that's the right role for me." Moody, the state's former attorney general, was appointed in January to the Senate by Governor Ron DeSantis to replace Marco Rubio after Rubio became Trump's Secretary of State. Moody has won statewide office twice, when she was elected AG in 2018 and 2022. But she has never had a serious contender in any of her elections and politically she had tended to fade into the background, often standing in the shadows during press conferences. The Senate election in 2026 will be to finish the remaining two years on Rubio's term. The winner of that election would have to run again in 2028. Vindman, 49, who has lived in Broward County since 2023, admitted that the path in Florida would be a difficult one as Republicans currently outnumber Democrats by more than 1.2 million voters. "I don't shy away from a challenge, so it wouldn't be that," he said, referring to the state's Republican bent. "But I also, don't want to be some sort of sacrificial player. I'd want to do something that actually is meaningful because the costs are pretty high." "Costs meaning being away from my daughter, being able to provide for my family," he continued. "So, I'd want to do something I think could achieve some results." In November, his identical twin brother, Eugene, was elected to Congress from Virginia. Alex Vindman said he worked closely on that campaign and learned a great deal. "I think my twin brother's campaign gave me a healthy sense of how hard you have to work in order to reach your community," he said. "And he went to places that were hard, that were resistant to somebody that had a D at the end of their name. But he did the hard work, and he was successful. And he's doing a great job of representing his community now, focusing on constituent services. So, I think it gives me certainly a better understanding for my work right now – helping veterans get elected." Vindman is working with the group Vote Vets, an organization seeking to elect more veterans to public office. "I think veterans, by and large, get things done," he said. "They are not extreme voices. They tend to be more moderate voices. Because they work in an environment that's representative of the country, having to bring teams together to compromise in order to achieve a common mission. I think veterans in that regard are very, very strong. They deliver for the public." If he did get into the race, Vindman may not be alone in the Democratic primary. CBS News Miami has also learned that Josh Weil, who ran for Congress in the special election last month against Randy Fine, is also considering a statewide run. Weil proved to be an adept fundraiser in his campaign, raising more than $10 million in small dollar donations. Weil lost by 14 points – but many Democrats saw it as a positive sign, since the last Republican who ran in that seat had won it in November by 33 points. In a statement to CBS News Miami, Weil said: "Voters want leaders who will stand up and fight for regular people against billionaires and corporations, and focus on lowering the cost of living. That message resonated with voters across all backgrounds in the recent special election. I'm now considering how I can take the enthusiasm we generated and best serve Florida moving forward." Given his connection to Donald Trump, a Vindman candidacy would immediately nationalize, and potentially energize, a race in a state that many national Democrats have written off. Vindman was born in the Kyiv in 1975 when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. His father fled Russia when Alex and his twin brother, Eugene, were four years old. They were part of a wave of Soviet Jews who settled in the United States in the late seventies. Vindman grew up in Brooklyn, joined the military, was awarded a Purple Heart when an I-E-D blew up his convoy in Iraq, and ultimately rose through the ranks to become the director of European Affairs for the National Security Council during President Trump's first term. An expert on Russia and Ukraine, Vindman was in the situation room on July 25, 2019, when he heard what he considered a deeply troubling phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski, in which Trump asked Zelenski to investigate the Biden family as a favor to him while also threatening to withhold military aid. Vindman reported what he heard, and it was because of Vindman that Trump was impeached by the House for the first time. Trump was acquitted by the Senate and shortly afterwards Vindman was fired from the NSC staff. After 22 years in the military, he eventually resigned his commission. Since then he has been an outspoken critic of Trump. He's written two books, including "Here, Right Matters," which chronicles his family story and why he felt a sense of duty to report what the President said during the call with Zelenski. Evan Power, the chair of the Republican Party of Florida, dismissed Vindman as a viable candidate. "Donald Trump won Florida by 13 points," he said. "The last thing our state wants is someone who was part of the obstruction of the first Trump Administration. Vindman should take his lies and his political opportunism elsewhere." Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried told CBS News Miami, "Alex Vindman has been an incredible example of what it means to selflessly serve our country. As we fight back against Donald Trump's extreme agenda, Alex is a perfect example of the caliber of Democrat that we need stepping up to lead."
Irish Times
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself about Russia and Betrayed Ukraine by Alexander Vindman – An unsparing critique of US ‘crisis management' policy
The Folly of Realism. How the West Deceived Itself about Russia and Betrayed Ukraine Author : Alexander Vindman ISBN-13 : 978-1541705043 Publisher : PublicAffairs Guideline Price : £25 In 2014, when he was an attaché at the US embassy in Moscow , Alexander Vindman began making weekly trips to the border with Ukraine . The Kremlin was denying to the world that its forces were helping separatists seize regions of eastern Ukraine. Vindman was sure they were lying. One day he came across a military convoy, bristling with heavy weapons, heading for the frontier. He drove behind. A security service car tried to force him off the road. But Vindman got the smoking gun: photographs of Russian forces entering Ukraine. The American response to this proof of Russian chicanery, was, he recalls, one of crisis management rather than a recognition of looming disaster. There were no sanctions placed on Russia, no delivery of arms for the Ukrainians to defend themselves. In fact, writes Vindman, who was born in Ukraine to a Jewish family, 'from the Ukrainian perspective all the Americans ever did was take weapons away from them'. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States helped negotiate the transfer to Russia of Cold War nuclear weapons positioned in Ukraine (and Belarus and Kazakhstan). Washington's prime concern was that they should not fall into the hands of a possible rogue state. READ MORE The US never considered, Vindman reflects, that Ukraine might best retain the missiles, heavy bombers and warheads as a hedge against Russian attacks. He contends that policymakers failed to see Ukraine as a separate entity as distinct from Russia 'as Ireland is from England and Portugal from Spain'. This was signalled as far back as 1991, in president George HW Bush's 'Chicken Kiev' speech, in which he warned Ukrainians against suicidal nationalism. As an independent country, on which Moscow had imposed its will for 300 years, Ukraine managed 'to land neither in the East nor the West'. It was an unloved buffer state, with oligarchs and Russia-style corruption, and divisions between pro-Russia and western aligned populations. The other newly independent countries in Europe could join Nato, but not Ukraine. For most of the first two decades after 1991, US presidents behaved as if grounds for optimism existed about a democratic post-imperial Russia. It saw the Kremlin as a stable, responsible player, not threatening its neighbours. Dick Cheney was a lone voice constantly challenging the priority given to Kremlin interests in the post-Soviet space. The soft response to the Russia-provoked war on Georgia in 2008 exposed the fundamental flaw in the American 'Russia-first' policy: an inability to make hard decisions in the face of Russian exceptionalism. This crisis management strategy continued even after the Maidan Revolution of Dignity in 2014, and the seizure of Crimea and the start of the Ukraine border war. [ Life in Spite of Everything by Victoria Donovan: A sad and angry history of Donbas Opens in new window ] The theme of Vindman's unsparing critique of US policy is one of lost opportunities that could have prevented today's war. In his opinion, the short-term problem-solving approach taken over the last 30 years cost the United States a strong relationship with a strategically critical and pro-western Ukraine which could have deterred Russian aggression. There are so many what-ifs in history. What if Ukraine had been admitted to Nato in 2002, when Russian president, Vladimir Putin , declared that he would not see 'anything controversial or hostile' in Ukraine making its own choices to secure its security? What if Nato had embraced Russia itself, as Boris Yeltsin favoured as far back as the 1990s? What if the US had not provoked Russia by placing ballistic missile defence systems in Poland and Romania after 9/11? [ International Literature Festival 2025: 200 events offering energising conversations and informed perspectives Opens in new window ] Vindman acknowledges that Washington was distracted by its military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans. He might have made more of the corrosive effect on American diplomacy of waging war without United Nations authorisation. Putin could say to the West: who are you to lecture us when you show contempt for international rules? It is also evident that the eventual emergence of a democratic, western-leaning and law-based Ukraine was an existential threat to the neighbouring authoritarian dictatorship. Underlying Putin's belligerence against Ukraine was a deep fear of a Maidan in Red Square. A veteran of the Iraq War, decorated for physical courage, Vindman was the Russia expert in the National Security Council during the first Trump presidency in 2018. He showed moral courage when he testified to Congress that Donald Trump had tried to bully Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy into investigating Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden . It cost him his job . While US military help for Ukraine has always been 'a day late and a dollar short', the Trump doctrine, he says, takes American missteps to 'an entirely different level'. That's Vindman's diplomatic way of saying it is now an unmitigated disaster. Conor O'Clery is a former Moscow Correspondent of The Irish Times and author of Moscow, December 25, 1991, the Last Day of the Soviet Union
New York Post
24-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Dem Rep. Eugene Vindman's campaign dropped nearly $39K at Florida bookstore where his bro held signing events for his bestseller
Rep. Eugene Vindman's campaign shelled out $38,783 in what it labeled a 'fundraising expense' last month at a Florida bookstore where his brother held signing events for his best-selling book criticizing Western policy toward Russia, financial disclosures reveal. Vindman's twin brother, Alexander — a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was a key figure in President Trump's first impeachment — bragged about signing hundreds of copies of his tome 'The Folly of Realism' at Books & Books around the time of his brother's mysterious campaign outlays. Books & Books has multiple stores around the Miami area, but an employee at the Coral Gables store confirmed to The Post Wednesday that Alexander Vindman had book signings at that location, which is where the campaign payments were directed. That individual also said that Eugene Vindman's team had asked earlier in the day what the store would do if a reporter came around asking questions. Freshman Rep. Eugene Vindman just won former Rep. Abigail Spanberger's old seat last November. Getty Images Federal Election Commission records do not specify what the purported 'fundraising expense' entailed, or whether those funds went to bulk purchases of Alexander Vindman's book, which briefly cracked the New York Times 'hardcover nonfiction' bestseller list for the week ending March 16. 'The Folly of Realism' was released Feb. 25 from Hachette Book Group at an initial cost of $30. Ten days later, on March 7, the Eugene Vindman campaign made a $7,809.55 payment to Books & Books. A second payment, for $30,972.97, was processed March 20. Over the past 15 years, there has been no FEC record of major political fundraisers at Books & Books, with only a few expenses for meals totaling no more than $54 listed by groups such as Emily's List and former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferré's unsuccessful 2010 campaign for the US Senate. Alexander Vindman provided key testimony in the first impeachment over President Trump's pressure campaign against Ukraine to dig up dirt on the Bidens. Patsy Lynch/REX FEC records show that Books & Books was the only Florida-based company that received payments from Vindman's campaign during the first quarter of 2025. On March 9, two days after the $7,810 payment to Books & Books, Alexander Vindman posted a photo of himself signing scores of copies of 'The Folly of Realism.' On March 21, a day after the second payment of $30,973 was made, Eugene Vindman posted photos on social media showing him at a Chili cookoff in Caroline County, Va. the prior day. On April 12, Alexander Vindman announced he had signed 800 more copies of his book at the Florida store. The Post reached out to reps for both Vindman brothers for comment. The Post also contacted Books & Books management to inquire about whether a political fundraiser took place at the store. Eugene Vindman narrowly won the race to represent Virginia's 7th District on a message of fighting against corruption, touting his efforts to aid his twin brother against Trump. 'Eugene Vindman's hypocrisy is rich,' National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Maureen O'Toole told The Post. 'Vindman is in Congress to advance his own out of touch agenda and, apparently, bail out his family's abysmal literary endeavors,' she added. 'Virginians will kick this lying loser to the curb next November.' The Post previously reported that the now-congressman declined to answer questions last year about whether his taxpayer-funded trips to Ukraine played a role in his business ventures of trying to sell weapons to Kyiv. Eugene Vindman had bragged to the Prince William Times in late 2023 about making 14 trips to the war-torn country, funded by the 'Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group' State Department program. During that timeframe, his company, Trident Support LLC worked to sell the Ukrainian government a weapons system. That company also used the same PO box as Vindman's congressional campaign. Vindman took in $125,000 from Trident in early 2024 despite reports that he did not earn a salary from the company, financial disclosures show.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alexander Vindman: Trump repeats past US mistakes with Russia
Alexander Vindman served as the director of European affairs for the United States National Security Council in 2018-2020, during U.S. President Donald Trump's first administration. The Kyiv Independent's Kate Tsurkan sits down with Vindman to discuss how Washington has historically misjudged Russia, "succumbing to hopes and fears," and why there is no real prospect of peace between Ukraine and Russia now. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
