Nobody calls out a Republican coward like Lawrence O'Donnell:

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: It is a recess week for the United States Senate, which means for some senators, it is time to go on a codel. Codel is shorthand for a congressional delegation trip. That is the most common way for United States senators to travel to foreign countries. A group of senators gets together, almost always a bipartisan group, and designs a trip that they think will help them do their jobs better. It's a good idea. Most codels are legitimate. Gone are the days when codels would turn into junkers to Paris, some other fun spots where the United States government doesn't exactly have a lot of difficult decisions to make. Senators have a duty to participate in all of the events scheduled for the codel. If they don't, then they have used the taxpayers'money to travel somewhere where they then failed to do their job. And it, who knows what instead. That's what the junior senator from Ohio did this weekend. We, the taxpayers of the United States, very much including Ohio taxpayers, all paid for Republican Senator J. D. Vance's trip in a codel of ten senators to the Munich Security Conference. The most important meeting scheduled for the codel was a meeting with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and J. D. Vance decided to go do something else at your expense, instead of attending that meeting with Ukraine's president. The purpose of the codel was to consider issues of national defense involving our allies. It is an annual codel, named after Senator John McCain, that is called Codel McCain. J. D. Vance defied the very purpose of the codel, the very justification of his using taxpayer money to travel to Europe by refusing to meet with President Zelenskyy; the reason he gave for that is, of course, a lie.

Punchbowl News reports, "Vance said he had other meetings and didn't think he would learn anything new."

The truth is, of course, J. D. Vance is afraid of facing President Zelenskyy because J. D. Vance opposes aid to Ukraine. He has all the courage it takes to say that in right-wing media, but he is afraid to say that to President Zelenskyy. If he could listen to President Zelenskyy in a meeting and learn nothing, then that tells you everything you need to know about J. D. Vance's learning capacity.

Meanwhile...