Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- including a tranche of racist and anti-Semitic chats by prominent Young Republicans.
As Republicans accuse Democrats of tolerating antisemitism in their party, the GOP on Friday was roiled by its own schism after the leader of a powerful right-wing think tank defended prominent conservative commentator Tucker Carlson for his friendly podcast interview with a far-right activist known for his antisemitic views.
The comments from Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, sparked outrage from some Heritage staffers, senators and conservative activists. But they also reflect increasing skepticism toward Israel and of Jews among some on the right, complicating the GOP’s efforts to cast the Democratic Party as antisemitic.
The outrage began when Roberts on Thursday posted a video in which he denied his group was “distancing itself” from the former Fox News host, one of the most powerful voices on the right, after Carlson’s podcast hosted Nick Fuentes , whose followers see themselves as working to preserve America’s white, Christian identify.
“The American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right,” said Roberts, adding that, while antisemitism is wrong, conservatives do not need to always support Israel.
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Earlier this month, Vice President JD Vance dismissed criticism of a Telegram chat among members of a New York Young Republicans group that included racist comments and flippant remarks about gas chambers.
He raised eyebrows again this week for his response to an attendee at a Turning Point USA event who asked why the U.S. was spending foreign aid on the “ethnic cleansing in Gaza” and said Judaism, as a religion, “openly supports the prosecution of ours.”
Vance responded without addressing the premise of the question and instead stressed the administration’s “America First” approach.
“Sometimes they have similar interests to the United States and we’re going to work with them in that case. Sometimes they don’t have similar interests to the United States,” Vance said of Israel.
