Vice President JD Vance rejects the effort by Jewish pro-Israel activists like Ben Shapiro to get conservatives to "denounce and deplatform" each other, and argued that those who smear people as antisemites are trying to shut down debate about the U.S. relationship with Israel. He made the comments over the weekend, in separate remarks in a speech at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest (AmFest) 2025 event and an earlier interview with Unherd's Sohrab Ahmari.
Vance delivered the closing address at the AmFest event in Phoenix Sunday, where he urged conservatives to avoid internal conflict and refrain from denouncing one another, directly responding to Ben Shapiro’s earlier call for condemnation of certain conservative figures.
The vice president emphasized unity, saying he did not bring a list of conservatives to denounce or deplatform, and framed the refusal to engage in internal purges as a tribute to the late Charlie Kirk, who had invited all voices to the movement.
Vance opened his speech by expressing gratitude to Erika Kirk, the new leader of Turning Point USA following her husband Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September, and praised her leadership.
The vice president rejected the idea of "purity tests" within the conservative movement, asserting that President Trump built a coalition by inviting all Americans, regardless of race, class, or background.
In a direct rebuttal to Shapiro’s Friday speech, which criticized figures like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Candace Owens for promoting antisemitism and conspiracy theories, Vance declared, “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” and stated that the best way to honor Charlie Kirk was to continue welcoming all voices.
Vance reaffirmed his belief that the United States is a “Christian nation,” stating, “We have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be a Christian nation,” a line that drew a long standing ovation.
He highlighted the administration’s achievements, including ending the southern border crisis with seven months of zero releases, negative net migration, declining rents, rising employment, and reduced inflation.
Vance also announced the end of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, declaring they had been relegated to the “dustbin of history,” and affirmed that Americans no longer need to apologize for their race or gender.
The speech was preceded by a surprise appearance from rapper Nicki Minaj, who spoke about changing one’s mind and her personal journey with faith, and followed by a video message from President Donald Trump, who praised Charlie Kirk and Erika Kirk.
The event was marked by significant internal tensions, particularly after Shapiro’s speech, which led to a public clash with Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who accused Shapiro of being used in a “proxy war” intended to thwart Vance's chances to become the Republican nominee in the 2028 presidential election.
Vance’s speech was widely interpreted as a strategic move to unify the movement amid these fractures.
Vance also delivered a wide-ranging interview earlier with UnHerd's Sohrab, published late Sunday, addressing the ongoing debate within the conservative movement over the influence of Israel on American foreign policy, the influence of controversial figure Nick Fuentes, and the vice president's vision for American identity.
In the interview, Vance condemned all forms of ethnic hatred including antisemitism as having no place in conservatism, while downplaying Fuentes’s influence and framing concerns about him as a distraction from a more substantive debate about US foreign policy toward Israel.
“Antisemitism, and all forms of ethnic hatred,” he said, “have no place in the conservative movement. Whether you’re attacking somebody because they’re white or because they’re black or because they’re Jewish, I think it’s disgusting.”
Fuentes, an ardent critic of Israeli influence in the U.S. government, has called Second Lady Usha Vance a “jeet” and labeled the vice president a race-traitor for marrying her.
“Let me be clear,” Vance said. “Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is Jen Psaki [the former Biden press secretary] or Nick Fuentes, can eat shit. That’s my official policy as vice president of the United States.”
Vance argues that Fuentes and his Groyper fans function as a useful foil for pro-Israel hard-liners in the Right’s debate over America’s alliance with the Jewish state.
The vice president said: “I think that Nick Fuentes, his influence within Donald Trump’s administration, and within a whole host of institutions on the Right, is vastly overstated, and frankly, it’s overstated by people who want to avoid having a foreign-policy conversation about America’s relationship with Israel.”
Vance told Unherd that he thinks 99% of Republicans and 97% of Democrats do not hate Jewish people, arguing that the real issue is a backlash against the consensus view on Israel, not widespread antisemitism.
“99% of Republicans, and I think probably 97% of Democrats, do not hate Jewish people for being Jewish," he told Sohrab. "What is actually happening is that there is a real backlash to a consensus view in American foreign policy. I think we ought to have that conversation and not try to shut it down. Most Americans are not antisemitic, they’re never going to be antisemitic, and I think we should focus on the real debate.”
Vance defended Carlson against criticism for hosting Fuentes, rejected "purity tests" within the movement, and emphasized that the "America First" coalition should be a broad tent welcoming all who love America.
“Tucker’s a friend of mine,” he told Sohrab. “And do I have disagreements with Tucker Carlson? Sure. I have disagreements with most of my friends, especially those who work in politics. You know this. Most people who know me know this. I’m [also] a very loyal person, and I am not going to get into the business of throwing friends under the bus.”
Vance continued: “The idea that Tucker Carlson — who has one of the largest podcasts in the world, who has millions of listeners, who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election, who supported me in the 2024 election — the idea that his views are somehow completely anathema to conservatism, that he has no place in the conservative movement, is frankly absurd. And I don’t think anybody actually believes it.”
He argued that the political feud within the American Right is really about “gatekeeping,” and people “trying to settle their own ideological scores” — especially with respect to Washington’s policies in the Middle East.
“I happen to believe that Israel is an important ally, and that there are certain things that we’re certainly going to work together on,” Vance said. “But we’re also going to have very substantive disagreements with Israel, and that’s OK. And we should be able to say, ‘We agree with Israel on that issue, and we disagree with Israel on this other issue.’ Having that conversation is, I think, much less comfortable for a lot of people, because they want to focus on Nick Fuentes.”
Regarding racial politics on the fringe Right in recent years, Vance believes there have been far worse offenders who got away with it, because their version was aligned with elite prerogatives and left-wing moral hierarchies.
“Let’s say you believe, as I do, that racism is bad, that we should judge people according to their deeds and not their ethnicity,” Vance said. “Is Nick Fuentes really the problem in this country? He’s a podcaster. He has a dedicated group of young fans, and some of them have been shitty to my friends and family. Does that annoy me? Of course. But let’s keep some perspective. For the past five to 10 years, I’ve watched one-half of our political leadership go all in on the idea that discriminating against whites in college admissions and jobs is not just OK, but affirmatively good.”
He continued: “If you believe racism is bad, Fuentes should occupy one second of your focus, and the people with actual political power who worked so hard to discriminate against white men should occupy many hours of it.”
Right-wing racialism is, in large part, a reaction against bipartisan elites who for decades maintained a porous border, with the flow of newcomers surging to a flood under the Biden administration. “That necessarily leads to the destruction of social cohesion in the country that I love,” Vance told Unherd. “Ethnic rivalry and balkanization is the inevitable consequence of these things. You don’t have to think it’s a good thing. I certainly don’t, but it’s a predictable consequence.”
Responding to question about racist Groypers who troll him online over his mixed race children Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel, Vance said: “If you look at my kids — half white, half-South Asian — they were among the most discriminated against in the entire elite-college and jobs hierarchy under Joe Biden. And the Left explicitly promises to bring that hierarchy back if they ever again get power.”
Vance pointed out that elected left-wing politicians have far worse impactful racist policy preferences. “It pisses me off that Fuentes calls my kids ‘jeet,’ and I appreciate that Ro Khanna would never do that. You know what pisses me off a million times more? That Ro Khanna, AOC, and Chris Murphy would deny them jobs and opportunities because they have the wrong skin color.”
The vice president further discussed his views on national identity, advocating for a blend of credal nationalism and cultural assimilation, and asserted that Christianity provides a crucial moral foundation for American unity.
"Do I think that somebody who came to the United States 15 minutes ago has the same understanding of American culture and American identity as somebody whose family has been here for 10 generations? No. Of course, I don’t believe that, because human beings are complex, and part of knowing a culture isn’t just believing certain things, but actually living in a culture, absorbing it,” Vance argued.
The vice president argues that Christianity is the common culture binding Americans together through turbulent times of the Republic's history
“When I talk about America having some common culture,” Vance said, “I think Christianity is very much at the heart of that. With the exception of Jefferson and a couple of others, most of our Founding Fathers were devout Christians. . . . There’s a lot about Christianity that is very useful, even if you’re not a Christian. I think Christianity gives us a common moral language. You saw that in the Civil Rights Era, you saw that during the Civil War. It was one of the ways that we were able to actually come together as a nation, post-Civil War: that shared Christian identity.”
However Vance rejects the prescriptions to governance given by some liberal Religious leaders. The vice president’s own spiritual leader as a Roman Catholic, Pope Leo XIV, takes a much more universalist approach to questions of immigration and assimilation, and has reportedly deputized the US bishops to counter the Trump administration’s strict border policies.
While he welcomes the Vatican’s voice in international affairs, Vance argued that the Bishop of Rome “is not going to be looking at an immigration policy with the same prudential lens that I have on.” The “dignity” of would-be migrants is part of it. So are “the wages of workers” and “the social cohesion of the United States of America.”
“Balkanization and ethnic hatred,” reflected in the rise of anti-immigration sentiment across the West., are mostly symptoms, to Vance’s mind, of the reckless open-borders policies of western left-wing leaders.
