LAS VEGAS \u2014 Vice President JD Vance left a positive impression after his highly anticipated appearance before the Republican Jewish Coalition on Monday, assuaging some skeptical attendees of his commitment to Jewish Americans and the U.S. alliance with Israel while stopping short of disavowing his association with controversial figures like Tucker Carlson.<\/p>\n
Vance\u2019s remarks took place behind closed doors, which organizers of the Las Vegas conference said was necessary to foster a candid conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the vice president really answered a lot of questions, and really made the Republican Jewish Coalition really comfortable,\u201d said Ari Fleischer, a board member and former spokesman for President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n
Vance is the highest ranking Catholic in the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
The appearance came at an extraordinarily sensitive time for Jewish Americans and the U.S. relationship with Israel. Concerns about antisemitism have surged across the political spectrum ahead of the midterm elections. Republicans are eager to portray Democrats as hostile toward Jews and Israel, but they\u2019re also dealing with\u00a0their own internal schisms.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Vance talks about the end times and the attempted assassination of Trump in Christian podcast<\/a><\/p>\n Vance discussed his travels in Israel and the connection he felt to the Israeli people, Fleischer and others said. He was not asked specifically about comments he made last month suggesting Israeli officials had sought to manipulate U.S. public opinion in order to prolong the war in Iran.<\/p>\n Vance also faced general questions about his association with Carlson, a former Fox News host who faced a backlash last year for interviewing antisemite Nick Fuentes on his podcast.<\/p>\n The vice president described his appearance on podcasts as ways to reach as many people as possible, whether he agrees with the host or not, said Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.<\/p>\n Ahead of Vance\u2019s appearance, a person close to the vice president said he would be \u201cextending an olive branch\u201d to people who may be unsure of him.<\/p>\n Bruce Pearl, the former Auburn University men\u2019s basketball coach who has emerged as a prominent pro-Israel conservative, said after Vance spoke that \u201cwe saw in his heart.\u201d<\/p>\n Pearl had previously said that Vance would need to explicitly reject Carlson to receive his support.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he continues on a path with Carlson, it\u2019s going to be a problem,\u201d Pearl said Monday. \u201cBut I\u2019m not judging yet, because he has so many phenomenal qualities.\u201d<\/p>\n Vance was considered \u2018a giant question mark\u2019<\/p>\n Some attending the two-day conference at the Venetian Casino and Resort were disappointed Vance was appearing, in light of what some viewed as his equivocal stance on Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a sentiment here of some discomfort over the vice president speaking. Some people are disappointed,\u201d said Terry Platt, a Republican Jewish Coalition member from New York attending the conference. \u201cWe\u2019re confused about his true sentiments.\u201d<\/p>\n Vance is widely considered a front-runner for the Republican nomination to succeed President Donald Trump in 2028. He\u2019s expressed his support for Israel but, unlike Trump, has been viewed as more equivocal or skeptical toward the longtime ally.<\/p>\n Before the conversation, Fleischer had described Vance as \u201ca giant question mark.\u201d<\/p>\n Ron Dermer, the longtime adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Vance asked him during their first meeting years ago about why the U.S. alliance with Israel served American interests. Dermer said he welcomed the question and praised Vance\u2019s role in last year\u2019s 12-day conflict with Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cI will be forever grateful for the role that he played at that critical moment,\u201d he said. \u201cIt kept Israel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Back in June, Vance sharply criticized members of Israel\u2019s government for opposing Trump\u2019s efforts to resolve the war with Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n Then in July, Vance said elements of the Israeli government had tried to influence American sentiment to derail negotiations.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some people within their system that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely,\u201d he told podcaster Joe Rogan.<\/p>\n Support for Israel has been eroding in the US<\/p>\n While chatter of Vance\u2019s appearance rippled in the corridors of the Venetian Casino and Resort convention complex, there was little mention of him from the stage as speaker after speaker criticized Democrats, denounced antisemitism and extolled the U.S. alliance with Israel.<\/p>\n New York radio personality Sid Rosenberg broke the silence. \u201cI didn\u2019t like what I heard on the Joe Rogan show,\u201d Rosenberg said, drawing murmurs in the convention hall.<\/p>\n Support for Israel has eroded in the United States, although more dramatically among Democrats. Roughly half of Democrats believe that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians, according to an AP-NORC poll released in July, an accusation that\u2019s been leveled by some human rights organizations and vehemently denied by Israel and the U.S. government.<\/p>\n Republicans, combating a sour national economic mood, have sought to cast Democrats as out of touch and too extreme. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the party was in thrall to the Democratic Socialists of America, and he accused the political left of bigotry toward Jews.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Democrat Party is being consumed by this antisemitism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Republicans are more likely to back Israel, but there\u2019s a generational divide, and younger Republicans are more likely than their older counterparts to say the U.S. is too supportive of Israel.<\/p>\n The divide has been disconcerting for some influential Jewish conservatives, who have used the annual Republican Jewish Coalition summits to push back on antisemitism.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need a country where elected officials stand proudly with the Jewish community,\u201d U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan said Sunday. \u201cThat is the work, and it begins before we leave this room.\u201d<\/p>\n A year ago, the coalition\u2019s annual summit was planned as a celebration of the Trump administration\u2019s work to return Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the war began. Instead, it became a dayslong condemnation of antisemitism within the conservative ranks sparked by the refusal of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts to distance the think tank from Carlson after he hosted Fuentes on his show.<\/p>\n At one point during the summit, college students waved red signs that read, \u201cTucker is not MAGA.\u201d<\/p>\n ______<\/p>\n You are reading this\u00a0Crux Now\u00a0article for free. You can register for our free daily newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>, and you can become a\u00a0Crux Now supporter\u00a0for full access to all our premium content\u00a0here<\/a>. To find out more about why becoming a\u00a0Crux Now\u00a0supporter is a great idea, go\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Vice President JD Vance left a positive impression after his highly anticipated appearance before the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[4212,4213,37,42,4214],"class_list":["post-276084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-catholic","tag-independent","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-vatican"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117205213367249703","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}