U.S. Vice President JD Vance, reflecting on his first year in office during an interview with NBC News aired on Thursday, pushed back against fellow Republicans who have warned of growing antisemitism within the party.
“Judging anybody based on their skin color or immutable characteristics, I think, is fundamentally anti-American and anti-Christian,” Vance said. “I do think it’s important to call this stuff out when I see it. I also, when I talk to young conservatives, I don’t see some simmering antisemitism that’s exploding.”
His comments came after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a potential rival for the 2028 presidential nomination, sharply criticized what he described as escalating anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment on the right. Cruz pointed to young conservatives questioning Vance about Israel, taking aim at Tucker Carlson, a Vance ally, for hosting a Holocaust denier on his podcast.
The interview inside Vance’s West Wing office marked his first comments on the controversy since Cruz began raising it publicly. The issue has intensified as the Trump administration places renewed focus on combating antisemitism nationally and abroad.
“Do I think that the Republican Party is substantially more antisemitic than it was 10 or 15 years ago? Absolutely not,” Vance said. “In 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.”
He added, “I think it’s kind of slanderous to say that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, is extremely antisemitic.”
Asked to assess the administration’s first year, Vance, who has played a role in Middle East diplomacy and efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, cited frustration over the latter.
“Oh, man. I mean, look, the Russia-Ukraine thing has been a source of perennial frustration,” he said. “I think that we really thought—and you’ve heard the president say this a million times—that that would be the easiest war to solve. And if you would put, you know, peace in the Middle East as easier to achieve than peace in Eastern Europe, I would have told you you were crazy.”
Still, he expressed cautious optimism. “I do think, for what it’s worth, that we have made a lot of progress, but we’re not yet quite across the finish line there,” he said. “I think there’s hope — should hopefully be some good news the next few weeks on that front.”
