Last night, Vice President JD Vance made remarks at a Turning Point USA event in Mississippi and then took questions from the crowd. It was inevitable that one of those questions would be a provocative statement about nefarious Jewish influence masked as an innocent question about American foreign policy.
“I’m just confused,” the stammering MAGA-hatted student repeated a couple of times. What was this poor chap confused about? “I’m a Christian man, and I’m just, uh, confused why—that there’s this notion that we, uh, might have or, uh, owe Israel something or that they’re our greatest ally or that we have to support this multi-hundred billion dollar, um, foreign aid package to Israel…. I’m just confused why this idea has come around, considering the fact that not only does their religion not agree with ours but also openly supports the prosecution of ours.”
Now, there are a few possible ways to answer this type of “question.” Vance could have been combative and rejected the premise forcefully, deterring any other clowns from trying to hijack the vice president’s event. That would have been a show of strength. He also could have ignored the sniping about Judaism to appear diplomatic while trying to show that he won’t take such bait. In that case, he could’ve just answered the policy part of the question by correcting the kid’s warped description.
The third option would be the weakest: accept the premise of both parts of the question and try to convince the young man that the White House knows what it’s doing.
As you can probably guess, the vice president chose the third option:
“First of all, when the president of the United States says America First that means that he pursues the interests of Americans first. That is our entire foreign policy. And that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have alliances, that you’re not going to work with other countries from time to time…. In this example, the most recent Gaza peace plan that all of us have been working on very hard for the past few weeks, the president of the United States could only get that peace deal done by actually being willing to apply leverage to the State of Israel. So when people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they’re not controlling this president of the United States.”
A good follow-up question might have asked Vance which specific presidents he had in mind when he suggested that other presidents have been controlled by Israel.
Vance then treated the other part of the question as equally legitimate:
“Now you ask about, you know, sort of Jews disagreeing with Christians on certain religious ideas. Yeah, absolutely. It’s one of the realities is that Jews do not believe that Jesus Christ is the messiah. Obviously, Christians do believe that. There are some significant theological disagreements between Christians and Jews. My attitude is: Let’s have those conversations. Let’s have those disagreements when we have them. But if there are shared areas of interest, we ought to be willing to do that, too.”
Vance said he was fine with, for example, working with Israel to maintain open access to Christian holy sites. Then he concluded: “What I’m not OK with is any country coming before the interests of American citizens.”
Vance was plainly unprepared for this question, even though he should have known it was coming. In the end, he came off as a guy who really wants the vote of a college-age groyper who came to troll him that night.
In recent weeks, there has been a growing chorus on the right calling on Vance to state clearly where he stands on the mainstreaming of rabid right-wing anti-Semites. That mainstreaming has been orchestrated by, among others, Tucker Carlson, who recently hosted Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist with nice things to say about Hitler.
That chorus will only grow louder after Vance’s performance in Mississippi. I join them: I’d love some clarification and straight talk from the vice president and prospective heir to President Trump, now that Vance has gotten that question publicly and flubbed it.
Meanwhile today, in the “not helping” department, we have the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts. He posted a video responding to “speculation” that the pathbreaking conservative think tank is distancing itself from Carlson. He managed to defend Carlson while doing so in JD Vance’s name, quoting the vice president’s comments last night.
This came at the end of Roberts’ statement. The preceding two minutes had been filled with dog whistles about “the globalist class or their mouthpieces in Washington.” Carlson is a friend, Roberts reaffirmed, calling Carlson’s critics a “venomous coalition” who are “sowing division” on the right.
To sum up: According to Roberts, free and open debate is important, which is why Carlson’s critics should shut up.
I think the vice president is playing a cynical game. I imagine he thought he could put off having to choose between the traditional conservative mainstream and the groypers until much closer to the election he plans to run in 2028. He miscalculated, and the anti-Semitic right is giddy over it because Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson see this entire public debate as a victory for them.
It would be spineless to let Fuentes and Carlson think they’ve won if Vance disagrees with them and opposes their continued ability to set the terms of the debate. The microphone is yours, Mr. Vice President.
