Yoo Hoo, VP Vance––Your Character is Showing!

By Joan Swirsky

December 12, 2025

“Maybe he had a stroke,” a nurse friend told me as she theorized about Tucker Carlson’s seemingly bizarre transformation from a rock-ribbed conservative commentator to a flaming anti-Semite whose hatred of both Jews and Israel found him interviewing––and nodding in delirious agreement with––fervid Hitler and Stalin admirer Nick Fuentes, among many other rabid racists.

Another friend, who is rich in coining aphorisms, said: “Show me a racist at 80, I’ll show you a racist at 18!” She explained that people rarely undergo the kind of profound changes that Carlson now exhibits. “His hatred was always there,” she said, “probably a DNA thing or a mother’s-milk thing. But like all cowards, he only came out of the hate-Jews closet when the bandwagon was already rolling.”

AN IRRESISTIBLE ATTRACTION

At this point in what I hope is Carlson’s devolving career, he could interview any bigwig in the world. But in his new incarnation, he is clearly irresistibly attracted to and has chosen to interview––and embrace the views of––some of the most racist people in public life. In one of their exchanges, Fuentes called for the execution of “perfidious Jews” and told Carlson that the great challenge to American social harmony is “organized Jewry.” Carlson, consciously and deliberately, chose not to challenge this outrageous slur.

However, when asked to comment on this ugly back-and-forth, VP Vance said he didn’t want to take part in Republican “infighting.” Uh huh.

Of course he didn’t. After all, Carlson’s 29-year-old son, Buckley, is the White House Press Secretary on Vance’s staff! Can’t get cozier than that!

Writer Kim Ezra Shienbaum elaborates on Carlson’s fulminating hatred, which he then refutes, point by point, with hard, empirical data.

“Tucker’s newest fixation,” Shienbaum states, “is the Middle East,” and he asserts that we are “backing the wrong horse” …that “Israel is a strategic liability: “insignificant,” “resource-poor,” and consuming “the bulk” of U.S. foreign aid.” For Tucker, the U.S.-Israel relationship is not merely misguided but “deeply destructive and humiliating.”

“Tucker’s new direction,” the writer continues, is “underwritten by Qatar’s recent funding of conservative media….” Aha! That old reliable magnet: Follow the Money!

The ugly episode with Fuentes noted above has nothing on the interview Carlson conducted in September with Darryl Cooper, who he introduced as “the most important popular historian working in the United States today.”

It turns out that this amateur historian propounds viciously biased revisionist accounts of both World War II and the Holocaust, and told his host that “British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the chief villain of the Second World War” and that the Holocaust was “the result of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis simply being in over their heads…They just threw these people into camps, and millions of people ended up dead there.”

Again, Carlson offered no pushback at all, not even a raised eyebrow.

And after this interview, when right-thinking people urged VP Vance to distance himself from Carlson, his spokesman said: “Senator Vance doesn’t believe in guilt-by-association.” Uh huh.

NO MYSTERY

But knowing the history of the warm-and-fuzzy Carlson-Vance relationship explains why VP Vance refuses to distance himself from this born-again racist.

In very concrete ways, as documented by writer Matt Gertz, Carlson, through his aggressive advocacy when he worked for Fox News, actually went against corporate policy when he announced on air: “We don’t endorse a lot of candidates on the show…but occasionally you run into somebody who could actually change things…That’d be J.D. Vance, and he’s running for Senate from Ohio.”

And Carlson didn’t stop there. According to writer Paige Oamek in The New Republic, “Tucker Carlson campaigned for J.D. Vance to be Trump’s pick for vice president.”

“According to Axios,” Oamek continued, “former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and billionaires Elon Musk and David Sacks all began a ‘secret lobbying campaign,’ which involved calling Trump to secure Vance’s position as next in line…”

Right there is the seeming motive to explain why Vance has not taken a principled stand but has chosen to stick with the guy who he no doubt credits, in large part, with his meteoric rise in politics.

Not to omit Gertz’s documentation of the fact that J.D. Vance––even before his run for the Senate––“made 34 appearances on Tucker Carlson Tonight” from August 2017 to 2022.

Doesn’t this lie in the category of “I owe you”? Is that why VP Vance, to this day, refuses to condemn Carlson’s malignant anti-Semitism?

What possible reason/rationale/excuse could he have?

JUST IMAGINE

Indeed, let us imagine that VP Vance’s son was on the payroll of a prominent broadcaster who found his long-suppressed racist voice not against Jews but against Blacks, who interviewed people who routinely engaged in the kind of vicious derogatory stereotypes––tap dancing, watermelon, Ebonics, et al––and who had absolutely no inhibition about lacing every other sentence with the “n” word.

I believe we could count VP Vance’s reaction in the minutes it took him to demand that his speechwriter prepare a statement condemning both the interviewer and his guest, of insisting that the media outlet that employed the interviewer fire him immediately, and that the guest be investigated––and potentially imprisoned––for fomenting the riots and civil disturbances that his toxic words inspired.

Or let’s take the case of the Muslim woman who had her hijab ripped off her head, the assailant calling her a raghead, and then encouraging a crowd of bystanders to stand around and exhort her to “get out of our country!”

Again, would it take minutes, or only seconds, for VP Vance to take aggressive action against this outrage?

These are rhetorical questions, because everyone knows the answer.

Clearly, it is only the vehemence and calumny and threatening comments against Jews that VP Vance is unable to respond to in a way that a U.S. Vice President and a presumptive presidential candidate should have responded to immediately and aggressively and as a true enemy of all racism, not just the hatred that he selectively prefers to pay attention to.

But both the public and the media are onto the VP’s strange behavior, which is why today he is being forced to answer question after question after question about rightwing anti-Semitism––including presumptively his own––from numerous media outlets, including tjvnews.com, Newsmax.com, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), NBC News, TimesofIsrael.com, on and on and on.

IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK…

According to Newsmax.com, “Vice President JD Vance is forcefully rejecting warnings from within his own party about rising antisemitism on the political right, placing himself in direct contrast with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and other Republicans who say the threat is real and growing.”

“Vance’s attempt to minimize the problem,” the article continues, “cannot be separated from his political alliances. He remains close with Carlson…” who has “repeatedly questioned U.S. support for Israel” and “claimed that Jews control the banking system, Congress, and even President Donald Trump. He also claimed that Israel was actively engaged in genocide in Gaza…”

The article also cites Vance’s recent trip to Israel where, “rather than offering unqualified support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — long a pillar of conservative foreign policy — Vance struck a more critical tone” …emphasizing “missteps by the Netanyahu government” and providing “a message [that] contrasts sharply with the Trump administration’s efforts to position itself as a bulwark against antisemitism…”

According to Nationalmemo.com ‘s writer Alex Henderson, “Carlson is dragging J.D. Vance down into the neo-Nazi fever swamp,”

“Ironically,” Henderson states, “the politician Carlson is harming most with his antics is the person he wants to succeed Trump: Vice President JD Vance.”

“Thus far,” the article continues, “Vance has done nothing to distance himself from this kind of politics. When Politico exposed racist and antisemitic text messages sent by members of Young Republican clubs last month, the vice president forgivingly characterized the appalling behavior of these 20- and 30-somethings as “what kids do.” Uh huh.

NOT A FRIEND

Conservative author and commentator Douglas Murray says that Carlson is no conservative and no friend to VP Vance.

Neither was he a friend to the late Charlie Kirk, a passionate supporter of the Jewish state. Murray continues. “Carlson used the aftermath of his friend’s assassination not to demand that the suspect in the shooting be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law…[or] to insist that perhaps the radical left dial down its hateful rhetoric against conservatives and Republicans…”

“No — Carlson chose to use the occasion to deflect attention from the perpetrator seized by the FBI and return to his pet obsession: the Jews. It was Carlson, he notes, who suggested that “the state of Israel had something to do with [Kirk’s] murder.”

And still, VP Vance said nothing.

Speaking of Kirk––Erika Kirk, that is, Charlie’s wife, the Charlie who spoke often and ardently of his love for the Jewish people and Israel––why has she not surgically distanced herself from her “friend” Tucker Carlson and encouraged her good friend VP Vance to do the same?

Is there some kind of malevolent cabal going on––a rightwing Deep State––that is working overtime to sabotage and ultimately topple President Trump, the better to implant their toxic, racist, anti-Semitic agenda at the pinnacle of the American government? After all, it is well known that VP Vance has close ties to Bilderberg globalist elitists and their mountains of money––among them Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, and Helmut Schmidt––whose goal is to literally rule the world.

According to writer Jacob Magid, Vance has signaled what his presidency would mean for Jews. He opposed destroying the Iranian nuclear program. Is offended that Jews claim Judea and Samaria. Loves Carlson. Sees no rising anti-Semitism in the GOP. And describes Mamdani as “fascinating”.

In a recent interview, Vance volunteered the names of the progressive lawmakers he has come to respect for various reasons: Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Ro Khanna and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION?

According to Abe Greenwald, the executive editor of COMMENTARY, “For those who think it’s at least slightly unfair to count the vice president as a woke-right anti-Semite, I see your point. He has never said that he hates Jews, and he genuinely may not. But his proximity to and support for those who do hate Jews places him on their team. In fact, he’s their most valuable player. It was his choice to stay in the club and, therefore, count himself as one of their number—at least for the time being.”

YES, VIRGINIA…

♦ There really is guilt by association.
♦ There really is good character and bad character.
♦ There really are closet racists out there who are bad for America and bad for America’s closest ally, Israel.

And there really are voters like me who would never ever ever ever vote for JD Vance for President of the United States!

E-Mail Joan Swirsky: joanswirsky@gmail.com

Website: http://www.joanswirsky.com