When Vice President JD Vance’s team was mulling whether to accept an invitation to speak to the Republican Jewish Coalition, intermediaries reached out to a few prominent Jewish donors for a gut check: What type of reception would he get, exactly?
Many Jewish conservatives had major reservations about Mr. Vance, which had only escalated in recent months as Mr. Vance became the public face of the administration’s diplomatic efforts with Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy. So his appearance at the group’s biannual conference in Las Vegas, where he would face one of the Republican factions most skeptical of him, his ambitions and associations, would be a risk.
The outreach by Mr. Vance’s allies, described by two people with knowledge of it who were granted anonymity to discuss private communications, reflected a delicate balancing act. An all-but-certain presidential candidate next year, Mr. Vance is trying to hold together a coalition that has been bitterly divided over antisemitism, the place of Jews in American politics, and the U.S.-Israel relationship before the Republican primary contest takes off in earnest next year.
In closed-door remarks on the fifth floor of a Vegas Strip casino, the vice president defended his relationships with divisive influencers, noted parallels between his Catholic faith and Judaism, and called for rewriting the playbook for how Republicans make the case for the U.S.-Israel alliance, according to audio of his question-and-answer session obtained by The Times.
Mr. Vance flew to Las Vegas from Michigan, where he called Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee and an outspoken critic of Israel, “very, very evil” at a rally for Dr. El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Representative Mike Rogers.
The vice president’s stop in Las Vegas was widely understood, including by members of the coalition’s board, as an attempt to smooth things over with an influential community that remains one of the holdouts in the Republican donor class and commentariat. Even before he addressed the group on Monday evening, the tension was palpable in the room.
“I’ve gotten about 100 texts the last two days: ‘Why Vance?’” Sid Rosenberg, a conservative radio personality, told the group earlier in the day before imploring the crowd to “give Vance a chance.”
The reasons for Jewish Republicans’ unease with Mr. Vance include some of his pronouncements on Israel and Iran and his close connection to Tucker Carlson, an influential conservative commentator who has repeatedly antagonized American Jews.
“People are concerned about the Tucker Carlson relationship and the question about whether the vice president’s support for Israel and opposition to antisemitism will be as strong as what we’ve seen from President Trump,” said Kenneth L. Marcus, a former Trump administration official who attended the coalition meeting.
A former Fox News host who regularly interviewed Mr. Vance on his show, Mr. Carlson was instrumental to his ascent, boosting Mr. Vance’s 2022 campaign for the Senate and later pushing for him to become Trump’s running mate in 2024.
Mr. Carlson has also hosted Holocaust apologists on his popular podcast; cordially interviewed Nick Fuentes, the country’s most prominent white nationalist influencer; and produced a video series that falsely claimed Israel had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks but kept the information from the United States.
Mr. Carlson has assailed notable Jewish conservatives and questioned their loyalties to the nation. Speaking about the prominent Jewish commentator Ben Shapiro in 2023, he said, “I can’t imagine how someone like that could get an audience of people who claim to care about America, because he doesn’t, obviously.”
Norm Coleman, a former senator from Minnesota and the Republican Jewish Coalition’s national chairman, condemned Mr. Carlson from the stage in Las Vegas. “Platforming Holocaust deniers, smearing Jews who stand with Israel and dressing up old hatred as just asking questions is not MAGA, and it’s not conservatism,” he told the gathering on Monday morning, before Mr. Vance arrived.
Eric Levine, a longtime member of the coalition’s board who has been critical of Mr. Vance, called Mr. Carlson part of a group of “cancers” and “Jew haters” who “all deserve to be condemned.”
“I don’t really fundamentally know what his relationship is with Tucker Carlson. I prefer he not have one,” Mr. Levine said of Mr. Vance in an interview before the vice president’s remarks. “I prefer that he would speak out and condemn him by name.”
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Mr. Carlson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Vance has sought to keep a foot in both of these camps even as they have gone to war with each other. On the one hand, he has defended his relationship with Mr. Carlson, calling him a “friend” with whom he has “disagreements.” (Mr. Vance’s office also used to employ Mr. Carlson’s son.)
“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,” he said in December.
Mr. Vance has also leveled harsh criticism at the Israeli government and its defenders, recently presenting himself on a podcast as “the reasonable moderate” between the pro-Israel and anti-Israel camps — setting off alarm bells for conservatives, Jewish and not, who support an unapologetic American alliance with Israel.
Randy Fine, a Republican congressman from Florida, told The Times before Mr. Vance’s speech to the coalition that it was a “tough audience” for the vice president. “I think that he said a lot of things that make folks like me and people in this room nervous,” Mr. Fine later told a group of reporters.
But even as Mr. Vance has unsettled many Jewish conservatives, he has sought to appeal to them, describing himself as an opponent of antisemitism and blaming Democratic policies for its rise.
In Las Vegas on Monday, Mr. Vance sought to assuage the audience’s angst. “I hope that everybody here knows that from the top of this administration to the vice president on down, we love you guys, we appreciate you guys, and you will very much always be on the team so long as I have any say,” he said.
At the same time, he defended his engagement with influencers whom Mr. Coleman, the coalition’s chairman, characterized as having “platformed antisemitism.” And he did not substantively address his connection with Mr. Carlson.
“A lot of people in this room are going to disagree with things that Tucker Carlson or Megyn Kelly or Joe Rogan have said,” Mr. Vance acknowledged. But, offering Mr. Rogan as an example, he argued that the “best approach is to actually go in there and talk to him and make the argument as best as you can.”
Mr. Vance made an exception for Mr. Fuentes, the white nationalist streamer, however. “Obviously, I’m not going to go talk to a guy who’s attacked my wife or who said that Hitler was a good guy.”
In response, Mr. Fuentes told The Times, “JD Vance panders to the far right but simply doesn’t want the baggage of associating with the far right,” adding, “If he has a problem with ‘antisemites,’ then he should start by disavowing his best friend Tucker Carlson.”
The Times obtained video and audio of most of Mr. Vance’s approximately 40 minutes of remarks from a person in the room. Mr. Vance’s office declined to comment.
That Mr. Vance’s visit was intended to shore up his presumed presidential bid was not lost on anyone. As the Republican National Committee’s finance chair, he has had the opportunity to court the party’s largest donors under the auspices of his RNC role. He spoke at the Venetian, a casino owned until recently by the megadonor Miriam Adelson, which has been a critical stop on the Republican fund-raising trail for over a decade.
But even as Mr. Vance has collected his chits, some Jewish donors have remained standoffish. Privately — and sometimes publicly — people in this camp have said they would prefer a more traditional Republican candidate in 2028, such as Marco Rubio, the secretary of state.
“If I hear even one iota of waffling or political mumbo-jumbo, then I’d go support Rubio in a second,” Kevin Kean, who attended the coalition summit and said he had concerns about Mr. Vance’s ties to Mr. Carlson, said ahead of Mr. Vance’s remarks.
On Monday, the crowd openly cheered when a speaker raised a hypothetical Rubio run. Audience members also applauded for Senator Ted Cruz, the Republican most clearly angling to challenge Mr. Vance; the Texas lawmaker, who was not in attendance, has decried the rise of antisemitism in the Republican Party, going head-to-head with Mr. Carlson and his allies.
Not everyone at the meeting was skeptical of Mr. Vance, however. “My current posture is I think he’d be a terrific president,” said Sander Gerber, a member of the coalition’s board and a major Republican donor, before Mr. Vance addressed the group. He said the concerns in the room were about rising antisemitism in general, which he said “has put people on edge.”
Mr. Vance attempted to address those concerns by arguing that anti-Jewish prejudice stemmed from increased immigration, “woke politics” and “an obsession with group identity,” making the case that the best way to combat antisemitism was to support his brand of politics.
The vice president was well received in the room, but not everyone was assuaged. After his remarks, Mr. Rosenberg, the conservative radio personality, posted on social media that he was not satisfied with the strength of Mr. Vance’s statements in support of Israel, and was disappointed that Mr. Vance passed up “a chance to hammer” Mr. Carlson.
“Look, he’s still better than any Democrat candidate,” Mr. Rosenberg wrote on X, “but I don’t think he wowed the STRONG Jews in the room tonight.”
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