Vance refuses to set red lines over bigotry at Turning Point USA’s convention : NPR

PHOENIX – Vice President JD Vance said Sunday that the conservative movement should be open to everyone as long as they “love America,” and he refused to condemn a spate of anti-Semitism that has divided the Republican Party and roiled the early days of the annual Turning Point USA convention.

After a long weekend of debates over whether the movement should exclude figures like bigoted podcaster Nick Fuentes, Vance staunchly opposed “purity tests.”

“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or deplatform,” Vance said during the convention’s closing speech.

Turning Point leader Erika Kirk, who took over after the assassination of her husband, Charlie Kirk, has endorsed Vance as a potential successor to President Donald Trump, a helpful gesture from an influential group with an all-volunteer army.

But the tension that played out at the four-day meeting foreshadowed the treacherous political waters that Vance, or anyone else seeking the next Republican presidential nomination, will have to navigate in the coming years. The leading voices of the “Make America Great Again” movement are vying for influence as Republicans begin to consider a future without Trump, and there is no clear path to keeping their coalition together.

Defining a post-Trump Republican Party

The Republican Party’s identity has been intertwined with Trump’s for a decade, but he is constitutionally ineligible to run for re-election despite his musings about serving a third term. Tucker Carlson said people wonder, “Who gets the machinery when the president leaves the scene?”

So far, it seems that resolving that issue will involve a lot of fighting among conservatives. The Turning Point conference included arguments about anti-Semitism, Israel, and environmental regulations, not to mention rivalries between leading commentators.

Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the conservative media outlet Daily Wire, used his opening night speech at the conference to denounce “charlatans who claim to speak for principle but actually traffic in conspiracies and dishonesty.”

“These people are frauds and scammers and they are not worth your time,” Shapiro said. He specifically called out Carlson for hosting Fuentes for a friendly interview on his podcast.

Carlson brushed off the criticism when he took the stage just an hour later, saying the idea of ​​a Republican “civil war” was “totally false.”

“There are people who are angry with JD Vance and they are stirring up a lot of this to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination,” he said. Carlson described Vance as “the only person” who subscribes to the “core idea of ​​the Trump coalition,” which Carlson said was “America First.”

Turning Point spokesman Andrew Kolvet described the discord as a healthy debate about the movement’s future, an uncomfortable but necessary process to find consensus.

“We are not communists with a hive mentality,” he wrote on social media. “Let it develop.”

If you love America, you are welcome to the movement, says Vance

Vance acknowledged the controversies that dominated the Turning Point conference, but he did not define any boundaries for the conservative movement other than patriotism.

“We don’t care if you’re black or white, rich or poor, young or old, rural or urban, controversial or a little boring, or somewhere in between,” he said.

Vance did not name anyone, but his comments came amid an increasingly contentious debate over whether the right should give a platform to commentators who espouse anti-Semitic views, particularly Fuentes, whose followers see themselves as working to preserve America’s white Christian identity. Fuentes has a growing audience, as does well-known podcaster Candace Owens, who routinely shares anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

“We have a much more important job to do than canceling each other out,” he said.

Vance highlighted what he said were the administration’s accomplishments as it approaches its first year, highlighting its efforts on the border and on the economy. He highlighted efforts to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies, and drew applause by saying they had been relegated to the “dustbin of history.”

“In the United States of America, you no longer need to apologize for being white,” he said.

Vance also said that the United States “will always be a Christian nation,” adding that “Christianity is America’s creed, the shared moral language from the Revolution to the Civil War and beyond.”

Those comments resonated with Isaiah White-Diller, an 18-year-old from Yuma, Arizona, who said he would support Vance if he runs for president.

“I have my right to be a Christian here, I have my right to say whatever I want,” White-Diller said.

Turning Point endorses Vance

Vance has not revealed his future plans, but Erika Kirk said Thursday that Turning Point wanted Vance to be “elected to 48 in the most resounding way possible.” The next president will be the 48th in American history.

Turning Point is a major force on the right, with a nationwide network of volunteers that can be especially helpful in early primary states, when candidates rely on grassroots energy to build momentum. In a surprise appearance, rapper Nicki Minaj gushed about Trump and Vance.

Vance was close with Charlie Kirk and they supported each other over the years. After Kirk’s murder on a college campus in Utah, the vice president flew on Air Force Two to collect Kirk’s remains and take them to his home in Arizona. The vice president helped the uniformed officers carry the coffin to the plane.

Emily Meck, 18, of Pine City, New York, said she appreciated that Vance made room for a wide variety of points of view.

“We’re free thinkers, we’ll have these disagreements, we’ll have our own thoughts,” Meck said.

Trump has praised both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as possible successors, and has even suggested they could form a future Republican ticket. Rubio has said he would support Vance.

When asked in August if Vance was the “heir apparent,” Trump said “very likely.”

“It’s too early, obviously, to talk about it, but he’s certainly doing a great job and would probably be the favorite at the moment,” he said.