Vice President JD Vance delivered closed-door remarks to Jewish Republicans in Las Vegas on Monday night, covering a range of topics, including the Michigan Senate race, the influence of podcasters and the U.S. relationship with Israel.
The event, which was closed to the press, was hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition, a political-advocacy organization that works to strengthen the relationship between Republican lawmakers and the American Jewish community. Vance was interviewed by former Sen. Norm Coleman, the national chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition. A spokeswoman for Vance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Coleman asked Vance about the booming ecosystem of podcasters, some of whom have publicly criticized Israel, condemned the Iran war and platformed guests that espouse antisemitic views. Coleman specifically mentioned Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Joe Rogan, who have been increasingly critical of the Trump administration. The vice president this summer was a guest on both Rogan’s and Kelly’s podcasts. “I think the best approach is to actually go in there, and talk to him, and make the argument as best as you can. Many in the audience wanted to see Vance break with Carlson, a longtime friend, who is a critic of Israel and most recently called for Trump’s removal from office. Vance didn’t weigh in on Carlson. “Hurt people hurt people. Last weekend, he apologized to the state’s Jewish Democratic Caucus for the comments.
Vance is seen as likely to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028 and has at times been critical of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that—along with his relationship with Carlson—has led to concerns from Jewish donors about his potential candidacy.
“One area where I really do draw the line is on people who engage in what I call this blood guilt attitude,” he said, according to a person in the room, using a theological term for holding remorse for a tragedy that one didn’t have a personal part in. Vance said Rogan’s audience consists of the type of people that Republicans need to win over in the midterms. “I like Joe Rogan, but I think it’s a mistake to sort of say we’re going to write Joe Rogan off because he said something that we don’t like,” Vance said. He firmly denounced Nick Fuentes, who has said that Jewish people stand in the way of U.S. sovereignty and that the Holocaust is exaggerated, according to the Anti-Defamation League. “The rising antisemitism that you see, and I’m not saying you don’t see it among some podcasters, you obviously do, the Fuentes character who really does hate Jews and also by the way really hates me and my family so you’re in good company—like that is real, but it’s not common among most of our fellow citizens,” Vance said. He blamed the rise in antisemitism on immigration into the U.S. and said “what we see is [that] the worst antisemitism grows up when you allow the importation of large groups of people who bring their ethnic rivalries in the United States. Vance said the U.S. relationship with Israel is “one of our most important alliances in the world and certainly our most important regional alliance,” according to the person in the room. “Ayman Ghazali hurt people, there’s no justification for what he did, it was wrong and he never should have done it,” El Sayed said in a video message about the attack. “This is a guy who looks at you and says, ‘You’re a good person if you belong to this ethnicity, and you’re a bad person if you belong to that ethnicity,” Vance said Monday at the RJC, according to a person in the room.
young conservative voters have increasingly questioned that support While support for Israel has been a bedrock principle of the Republican Party for decades. Vance also praised the Trump administration’s foreign-policy agenda, praising the U.S. operation that ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and suggesting that the operation has helped offset the effect of the Iran war on energy prices. In March, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali rammed his vehicle into a synagogue in Detroit and died at the scene.
Vance called growing suspicion of the U.S.-Israel relationship from people under 40 one of the “obvious elephants in the room. Vance criticized El-Sayed’s response to a synagogue attack in Michigan and his association with online commentator Hasan Piker, who has said that America “deserved 9/11.
“My view is what we have to do is articulate why this is in the best interest of the United States of America,” Vance said, giving the example that the U.S. is working with Israel on “extremely top-secret technology that is very, very important for the North American Missile Defense Shield. “I can only speak for myself here, but I think it’s very, very important to talk about the concrete alignment of interest, and to hook the relationship on that, rather than something that may have made a lot of sense rhetorically 30 or 40 years ago,” Vance said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said that he had been inspired by Hezbollah propaganda. In early March, several of Ghazali’s family members were among those killed in a strike on Lebanon, local officials have said.
Vance also appeared to acknowledge he has disagreed with Israel previously, telling the audience “sometimes we do have different views on certain things. Vance, who spoke at a rally for Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers earlier in the day, described Rogers as the single most important candidate in the midterm election and called his Democratic rival, Abdul El-Sayed, disgraceful.
Evil is making people pay more for groceries and gas while pushing for trade wars and actual war. Evil is dividing people for your own gain. Evil is selling out your morals for a little bit of power. Write to Natalie Andrews at [email protected] , Marianne LeVine at [email protected] and Josh Dawsey at [email protected]
In a statement responding to Vance, El-Sayed said, “Evil is ripping healthcare away from working people in exchange for tax breaks for billionaires.
On the Iran war, a growing source of frustration for Republican voters, Vance said the administration had expected energy prices to rise higher than they had.
