JD Vance confronts Jewish GOP skeptics ahead of a potential 2028 run

Vance Seeks to Reassure Jewish Republican Donors at Private Las Vegas Gathering

Activelifezero.com – Vice President JD Vance stepped into one of the most politically charged conversations in the Republican Party on Monday evening, sitting down with members of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas to field questions about his record on Israel, his media strategy, and the party’s direction heading into 2028. The roughly 45-minute fireside chat, moderated by former Minnesota senator Norm Coleman — who serves as national chairman of the RJC board — took place at the Venetian resort, just hours after Vance had campaigned against Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat. Reporters were held one floor below the event room, and audio of the conversation was obtained by a person present in the audience.

A Fracture Line Inside the GOP

The timing of the appearance was no accident. Over the past several months, Vance has voiced a growing unease within the American public about the depth of the U.S. commitment to Israel, a stance that has unsettled a segment of Jewish Republican activists and donors who view him as the presumptive 2028 presidential nominee. Some within that community have openly signaled a preference for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while other ambitious Republicans have worked to cast doubt on Vance’s pro-Israel bona fides. Senator Ted Cruz, for instance, recently told reporters that the party has not yet coalesced around Vance and that a “full discussion” about the party’s core positions will occur before the next election cycle.

The stakes extend beyond ideology. The RJC represents a network of highly engaged political donors and grassroots activists who have historically wielded outsized influence in shaping the GOP’s presidential nomination. The group maintains close ties to Miriam Adelson, widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and a leading backer of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, who contributed more than $100 million. It remained unclear whether Adelson, a regular attendee at past RJC summits, was present in the room Monday night.

“Elephants in the Room”

Vance did not take open audience questions, but the moderated dialogue with Coleman drifted into sensitive territory on several occasions. At one juncture, Vance acknowledged what he called “some of the obvious elephants in the room,” pointing to the measurable decline in public enthusiasm for the U.S.-Israel relationship, particularly among younger Americans. He argued that Republicans must “actually get out there and talk about the ways in which it is in the best interest of the United States of America” to maintain that alliance.

The conversation then turned to media strategy. Coleman asked how Vance decides which platforms to appear on, and the discussion quickly surfaced the name of Tucker Carlson, who has argued that Washington should abandon Israel as a strategic partner. Coleman noted that Carlson, along with Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, and Nick Fuentes, “have platformed antisemites.” Vance responded by distinguishing among those figures, singling out Rogan and Fuentes as “very, very different” personalities. Fuentes — a White nationalist and Holocaust denier who was hosted by President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 — represents the far edge of the media ecosystem Vance has chosen to inhabit.

Otherwise, Vance defended his willingness to appear across a broad spectrum of outlets, insisting that Republicans must be “willing to go everywhere and bring our message anywhere and to any person.” The RJC’s chief executive, Matt Brooks, told reporters earlier that Monday that the organization deliberately kept the event closed to the press so participants could engage in an “open and honest” exchange. Brooks also noted that Rubio and Cruz had been invited to speak but were unable to attend for various reasons.

Mixed Reactions From the Room

Not all attendees left satisfied. Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary who now sits on the RJC board, told reporters afterward that the vice president “really helped himself tonight” and “answered a lot of questions that people had about where his heart is.” Others were less generous. Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Gen Z Jewish activist in attendance, said Vance “totally deflected” on what he considered the central issue — Carlson’s continued influence. Kestenbaum predicted that Carlson would “continue to dog” Vance in the way that far-left streamer Hasan Piker has been linked to El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race.

That prediction carries weight given that Vance has declined to publicly disavow Carlson even after Trump himself had a falling out with the former Fox News host over the Iran war and dismissed him as “totally irrelevant.” Carlson, for his part, did not respond to a request for comment on Vance’s RJC appearance. He had previously apologized for backing Trump during the dispute.

Why the Moment Matters

This was Vance’s first appearance at an RJC gathering since 2022, when he was running for Senate in Ohio and attended the event without speaking. Much has shifted inside the party in the intervening years. Israel’s war in Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks, followed by the more recent U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran, has coincided with a measurable drop in public support for Israel across party lines. For the donor class and activist base that the RJC represents, that erosion represents a direct threat to their political leverage and their ability to shape the next GOP ticket.

The private setting of Monday’s event — no cameras, no live feed, reporters kept at a distance — underscored how carefully both sides managed the optics. Vance needed to demonstrate to a room full of wealthy, politically connected Jewish Republicans that his skepticism about the alliance’s public framing does not amount to abandonment of the relationship itself. Whether he succeeded, or whether the Carlson question will resurface with greater force in the months ahead, remains the central open question for a party still searching for its 2028 identity.