Vance says antisemitism isn’t ‘exploding’ on the right

Vice President JD Vance, reflecting Thursday on his first year in office, said he disagrees with fellow Republicans who have warned of a rise in anti-Semitism within their party.

“I think judging someone based on the color of their skin or their immutable characteristics is fundamentally un-American and anti-Christian,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News. “I think it’s important to call out these things when I see them. I also, when I talk to young conservatives, don’t see latent anti-Semitism exploding.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, has positioned himself as a potential rival to Vance in the 2028 presidential race, raising his profile in part by condemning what he sees as an escalation of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments. Cruz pointed the finger at young conservatives who pressed Vance with questions about Israel during a recent political event, while also criticizing Tucker Carlson, a Vance ally who hosted a Holocaust denier on his podcast.

“Do I think the Republican Party is significantly more anti-Semitic than it was 10 or 15 years ago? Absolutely not,” Vance said. “In any bag of apples, there are bad people. But my attitude on this is that we should be firm in saying that anti-Semitism and racism are bad. … I think it’s a little slanderous to say that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, is extremely anti-Semitic.”

Vance made the comments — the first on the subject since Cruz began speaking about it — during an interview in his West Wing office, addressing an issue that has roiled his party in recent weeks, amid a broader context of anti-Semitism from the Trump administration.

Sipping a cup of coffee while a fireplace crackled behind him, he offered the names of three progressives he said he liked, for various reasons: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

And the vice president spoke about what he sees as key areas of progress and disappointment since he and President Donald Trump were inaugurated in January, including acknowledging that voters are “eager” to see more progress on prices and the economy. The increase in expulsions and the sharp decrease in illegal border crossings, Vance said, are among the administration’s early victories.

“I think Kristi has done a good job. I think Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, all those people have done a really good job,” Vance said, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials involved in U.S. border and immigration policy. “That’s where you see the clearest numbers and the most immediate return on all of our time and hard work, and so that’s what I’m most proud of.”

Vance, who played a role in Middle East diplomacy and efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, said he believes he has been more effective this year in helping Trump get his “big, beautiful bill” signed through Congress. Vance helped build support for the legislation and vote to tie the tax and spending bill in the Senate.

“I spent hours at the Capitol with a group of U.S. senators, late at night during the first vote, and frankly, I didn’t know if we were going to be able to get it passed, and we did,” Vance said. “And we did it because the president was making phone calls, and we did it because I was there to encourage people to vote the right way. That’s probably where I see the most tangible connection between the hard work I’ve done and a good outcome for the American people.”

Asked about his biggest frustration as vice president, Vance cited the failure so far to negotiate a deal to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“Oh, man. I mean, look, the Russia-Ukraine thing has been a source of perpetual frustration, I think, for the entire White House,” Vance said. “I think we really thought – and you’ve heard the president say this a million times – that this would be the easiest war to solve. And if you had said, you know, that peace in the Middle East was easier to achieve than peace in Eastern Europe, I would have told you you were crazy.”

Vance added that he remains optimistic.

“I think, for what it’s worth, we’ve made a lot of progress, but we haven’t crossed the finish line yet,” he said. “I think there is hope – we hope there will be some good news in the coming weeks on that front.”

The vice president also expressed frustration that prices have not fallen as quickly as he and Trump promised during last year’s election campaign, while placing blame on former President Joe Biden. He cited several indicators, including a four-month decline in rent, as signs of better days to come. Trump, meanwhile, has chosen a different message, saying in recent days that Americans’ concerns about affordability are part of a “false narrative.”

“I think the president certainly understands that prices have gotten way too high,” Vance said when asked about Trump’s remarks. “But I think what the president is saying is the idea that, 11 months into the administration, we could solve all the affordability problems that the Democrats created – I mean, it’s a hoax. The hoax is the idea that it’s our fault and not the Democrats’ fault. And I think that’s totally bullshit.”

Recent polls have shown that Americans are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy. In an NBC News poll conducted in late October, 63% of registered voters, including 30% of Republicans, said they felt Trump had failed to meet their expectations on the economy.

“I think voters will ultimately have to make that choice,” Vance said. “I certainly see some of the polls that you’ve seen. But I think the reason we have elections every two years and not every year, at least for Congress, thank goodness, is you have to give some time for this to work.”

“I think I would definitely say voters are impatient. I think voters have every right to be impatient,” Vance continued. “We, too, are impatient and we’re going to see if what we’re doing and what we think we should be doing converges with what the voters think we should be doing.”

Next year’s midterm elections will help answer that question, Vance added.

“We’ll know in about a year,” he said, “and we’ll just continue to work as hard as we can until then.”

The midterm elections are also a key milestone for Vance as he eyes a campaign to succeed term-limited Trump in 2028.

Vance has regularly evaded questions about his political future by asserting that “politics will take care of itself” if he and Trump do a good job. He jokingly repeated that talking point when reminded Thursday and asked under what circumstances he would do so. not seek the presidency.

“We’re going to find out a lot of things at the midpoint and after: what we did well, what we did poorly, what we could have done better, what we did very well at,” he said. “I try not to wake up thinking, ‘What does this mean for my future?’ I always try to think, “How can I do good work right now,” right? And that’s one of the reasons I’ve tried to move away from the conversation about 2028. … I never want the focus on the future to come at the expense of this work.

Vance walked away again when asked the same question that haunted then-Vice President Kamala Harris as she ran for president last year. Vance and other Republicans ridiculed Harris when, during an appearance on ABC’s “The View,” she said she couldn’t think of anything she would have done differently than Biden. Vance at the time cast it as Harris sniffing around on a “softball” question, but he said Thursday it was too early to throw it at her.

“The president really needs a vice president who is loyal to him and who doesn’t use the media for revenge or to prepare well for 2028,” Vance said. “So what you’ll never hear me do in this office is attack the president of the United States. Of course, if I run for another office in the future, it will be reasonable for people to ask me, ‘Would you have done this?’ Would you have done such a thing? “And if that time ever comes, let’s have this conversation. But I will never attack the president of the United States.”

While Vance said no Democrat worries him greatly as a potentially strong 2028 presidential candidate, he singled out Sanders, Khanna and Mamdani.

“I’ve always been fascinated by Bernie,” Vance said. “I’ll tell you one day what Bernie said to me, like the second day I was in the United States Senate. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard, and it’s actually a pretty good summary of my politics, but it would probably hurt me a lot on both the left and the right. If I told you what Bernie said to me, it would probably hurt Bernie too.”

Khanna, Vance noted, sparred with him on social media. “I think sometimes he’s very annoying, but he also sometimes says something interesting, which is more than I could say for most politicians,” Vance said.

And Vance described Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor-elect who recently had a friendly visit in the Oval Office with Trump, as “fascinating.”

“Obviously I’m not a communist, and I think he is,” Vance added, “but the fact that he’s focusing so aggressively on the issue of affordability in New York, which has one of the worst affordability crises in the world, is smart, and he’s at least listening to people.

He continued: “Most politicians have a very low bar, but they don’t even listen to the people. I would put Mamdani, Bernie and Ro Khanna in the category of who they are, at least sometimes.”