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<\/a><\/p>\nVice President JD Vance delivers remarks to members of the military on Nov. 26, 2025 in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. (Brett Carlsen\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI do think it\u2019s important to call this stuff out when I see it. I also, when I talk to young conservatives, I don\u2019t see some simmering antisemitism that\u2019s exploding,\u201d Vance told NBC News in an interview marking his first year in office. <\/p>\n
Vance said antisemitism is wrong, stating that \u201cjudging anybody based on their skin color or immutable characteristics, I think, is fundamentally anti-American and anti-Christian.\u201d (Vance himself is a convert to Catholicism who recently said he hopes his Hindu wife chooses to become a Christian in the future.)<\/p>\n
Vance added, \u201cIn any bunch of apples, you have bad people. But my attitude on this is we should be firm in saying antisemitism and racism is wrong. \u2026 I think it\u2019s kind of slanderous to say that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, is extremely antisemitic.\u201d<\/p>\n
These remarks amount to Vance\u2019s most direct response to Sen. Ted Cruz and other prominent figures on the right who have in recent weeks have warned of rising antisemitism among conservatives especially after Tucker Carlson, a Vance ally, hosted Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes on his podcast.<\/p>\n
Vance\u2019s comments land amid a larger, unresolved debate inside Republican circles over how seriously to treat the rise of explicitly antisemitic figures such as Fuentes, whose online \u201cgroyper\u201d movement has attracted a following among young GOP staffers and activists. Jewish conservatives and other right-leaning commentators have expressed alarm at Fuentes\u2019 influence, estimating that significant numbers of junior Republican staffers consume his content. Fuentes has described \u201corganized Jewry\u201d as a threat to American unity.<\/p>\n
Vance\u2019s silence on antisemitism was a prominent topic of conversation at a recent confab for Jewish conservatives, where speakers questioned his close association with Carlson.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump recently defended Carlson after the podcast host interviewed Fuentes, saying, \u201cYou can\u2019t tell him who to interview.\u201d Carlson campaigned for Trump in 2024 and remains influential within the administration. Trump himself met with Fuentes and Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, later claiming he did not know who Fuentes was.<\/p>\n
Vance has taken a similarly restrained approach. He defended Carlson\u2019s son, Buckley, from accusations of antisemitism without addressing Carlson\u2019s interview with Fuentes. In October, he was criticized for responding to a college student\u2019s question about Jews and Israel without acknowledging its antisemitic framing.<\/p>\n
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