PHOENIX — In his speech to Turning Point USA’s year-end conference Sunday, Vice President JD Vance never uttered the word that has been tearing the MAGA base apart: “Israel.”
Vance has come under mounting pressure in recent weeks to condemn and bar from the conservative movement Nick Fuentes, a young podcaster who peddles white supremacist views and antisemitic tropes — underscoring the Republican Party’s divisions over the rise of fringe activists who were barely known by the public until recently. Some conservatives have also pushed for Vance, 41, to rebuke his longtime friend Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, who hosted Fuentes on his show this fall and whose calls for the U.S. to reevaluate its support for the state of Israel have helped fuel a raging fight among President Donald Trump’s staunchest supporters.
So far in the intra-MAGA war, Vance is treading cautiously. Trump has also stayed out of the fray lately. But some prominent conservative leaders who support Israel have criticized Vance, and not Trump, for failing to speak out against what they say is openly antisemitic rhetoric. Meanwhile, Vance’s restraint hasn’t stopped Fuentes and his followers, known as “groypers,” from calling the vice president insufficiently critical of the Jewish state.
Vance’s allies say he’s balancing a desire to keep in the fold young Republicans who are increasingly concerned about how much military aid the United States provides to Israel, while still embracing the Jewish state as a strategic U.S. partner in the Middle East. Last week, Vance wrote on X that there’s “a difference between not liking Israel (or disagreeing with a given Israeli policy) and anti-semitism.” He fired the post off shortly before making his entrance at a Hanukkah party he hosted at his home, where kippahs imprinted with the vice-presidential seal were distributed to attendees.
“The reasonable actors can see that JD is being a reasonable arbiter of this debate, and that’s a really important signal to send out — that Israel is our ally. They’re an important ally. They’re not our only concern, though,” said Andrew Kolvet, the spokesman of Turning Point USA and close confidant of the organization’s founder, Charlie Kirk, who was killed in September. “And I think JD understands the needs, wants and concerns of young Americans as well, if not better, than any other leading politician in the country.”
Another Vance ally, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive issue, said Vance is trying not to alienate either side of the current GOP divide on Israel.
“He’s walking a tightrope,” the ally said. “One hundred percent.”
Strong support for Israel has traditionally been a bedrock principle of Republican foreign policy, driven both by geopolitical considerations in the Middle East and by the presence of evangelical Christians and right-wing Jews in the GOP coalition. But the brutal war in Gaza — which polls show disillusioned many Americans in both parties — has helped fuel a growing backlash on the right against Israel not only from Hitler-praising Fuentes and his sometimes openly antisemitic “groyper” followers, but also from popular MAGA leaders like Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia).
At AmericaFest, Turning Point USA’s massive year-end conference here, critics of Israel accused its GOP supporters of being “Israel First” rather than Trump’s “America First” line. The same claims have been rattling around MAGA-friendly podcasts and talk shows for months. Pro-Israel activists have accused those critics of antisemitism, since the charges echo a longtime antisemitic trope that Jews aren’t loyal citizens of their countries.
Vance largely kept up his attempt to stay neutral on Sunday, though he did make clear he wouldn’t back calls to force any MAGA supporters out of the movement over the current Israel divide.
“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests,” Vance said. “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform, and I don’t really care if some people out there … denounce me after this speech.”
His remarks Sunday prompted a new wave of backlash from some traditional Republicans, pro-Israel MAGA supporters and Democrats who criticized Vance for not using his platform at the widely watched conference to denounce antisemitism.
A person close to Vance, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks, said it was “beneath” the vice president — or the president — to “play hall monitor to podcasters and people on Twitter,” calling the notion that Vance should condemn various internet personalities “laughable.” But Vance, the person said, “obviously hates Nick,” meaning Fuentes.
The vice president’s office declined to comment.
Vance has told those around him privately — and said publicly this month to NBC — that he does not believe antisemitism is a growing problem within the GOP.
Though he didn’t discuss Fuentes, Carlson or antisemitism onstage earlier in the day, Vance told the news outlet UnHerd in a Friday interview published Sunday night that “antisemitism, and all forms of ethnic hatred, have no place in the conservative movement.”
He has made similar comments before.
“Of course it doesn’t have any room in the MAGA movement,” Vance told CBS in August 2024, after Fuentes had mocked the race of Vance’s wife Usha, whose parents immigrated from India. “Look, I think the guy’s a total loser. Certainly, I disavow him.”
In an emailed response to a request for comment, Fuentes called Vance’s remarks to UnHerd “performative” and said he was waiting to see what Vance’s “actual posture” would be toward Israel and tech policy if he runs for president. Fuentes suggested he would be open to supporting Vance if he proposed banning immigration and decided to “restrain Israel.” He closed his email with a racist comment about Usha Vance.
Vance has gone farther than Trump in endorsing the idea that conservative critics of the U.S. relationship with Israel should be heard, particularly the youngest voters. Vance himself has largely affirmed his support for Israel, while occasionally criticizing the country’s leaders, as Trump has.
Vance agitated some pro-Israel activists and donors this fall when he didn’t push back on a college student’s incorrect and inflammatory claim about Judaism’s teachings on Christianity during a Turning Point question-and-answer event at the University of Mississippi, where he fielded multiple questions from students who said U.S. policy was too deferential to Israel. Shortly before that, Vance had refused to condemn members of a Young Republicans group chat who had made jokes about gas chambers and Hitler.
His delicate dance may not last long, said Ari Fleischer, a media consultant and former White House press secretary for George W. Bush. A presidential primary in 2028, Fleischer said, will force candidates to pick a clear lane.
“I don’t think that’s sustainable. He’ll get smoked out,” Fleischer said. “We’ll see what side he’ll come down on it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up being vociferously pro-Israel, but none of us know that right now.”
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a 26-year-old Jewish activist and political commentator for the conservative PragerU platform, accused Vance of “making a political calculation” of how to “maintain allyship in both camps.”
“He’s trying to have it both ways,” Kestenbaum said. “He wants to host a nice Hanukkah party and tell the Jews how much he loves them, while at the same time, winking and nodding to the terminally online groypers.”
Vance’s approach was on display this summer in a conversation with Theo Von, a comedian and podcaster popular with young adults. Von said he believed Israel’s war in Gaza amounted to “a genocide.” Vance pushed back, saying he did not believe that was Israel’s intention, while defending U.S. support for Israel. But Vance also criticized some Republicans’ lack of concern for Palestinian children killed by Israel, saying they should “have a soul.”
Vance and Von remain on good terms, said the person close to Vance.
“The neocons are going to hate him because he’s not a neocon, but he’s also not a hater of Israel,” said the person close to Vance. “It’s like he is somebody who has the ability to bridge some of that gap, particularly with younger people.”
Plenty of young conservatives here in Phoenix for the Turning Point event said they liked how Vance was handling the issue.
Matthew Webb, a 21-year-old at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, Tennessee, described himself as “generally pro-Israel” due to his Christian faith, and said he believes Vance leans the same direction. But Webb said he is against politicians taking money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or any other foreign-aligned interest group, Vance included. And unlike some proponents of support for Israel, Webb said he doesn’t think Vance should condemn Carlson, Fuentes or anyone else: “That’s not his job.”
And Jefferson Davis, the 22-year-old chairman of Valdosta State College Republicans, said he was still working out his own feelings about the U.S. relationship with Israel, even though students at his university in south Georgia are “much more heavily Zionist than a lot of other young Republican groups.” But he likes what he has seen from Vance, including the vice president’s refusal to join other conservatives in condemning members of the Young Republicans group chat that included racist remarks, with Davis noting that other young people know they have “said or done something stupid in the past.”
Vance being personally active online means he “gets the culture too.”
“He has the best grasp of the coalitions within the party,” Davis said.
The post JD Vance is ‘walking a tightrope’ on raging Israel debate within MAGA appeared first on Washington Post.
