Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance had nothing critical to say Friday about Tucker Carlson, with whom he recently taped a podcast interview, amid roiling controversy over the former Fox News host and his decision to platform the Holocaust revisionist and apologist Darryl Cooper earlier this week.
In a statement to The Jewish Insider, a Vance campaign official said that the Ohio Senator does not hold Carlson responsible for Cooper’s whitewashing of the Nazis’ genocide—despite the fact that Carlson called him possibly “the best and most honest popular historian” in the entire country.
“Senator Vance doesn’t believe in guilt-by-association cancel culture but he obviously does not share the views of the guest interviewed by Tucker Carlson,” the statement read. “There are no stronger supporters of our allies in Israel or the Jewish community in America than Senator Vance and President Trump.”
Vance may not agree with Cooper, but he does currently follow him on X (as of Friday evening)—and has been since at least Wednesday morning.
When asked directly about the controversy while near the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday, Vance argued that the solution to “solve” bad ideas is not to “censor” them.
“We believe in free speech and debate,” he claimed of Republicans, before pivoting into attack mode. “This whole idea that has taken hold in the far left of this country, that if you see a bad idea, the way to solve it is to censor it—I think it’s ridiculous.”
No clips or transcripts have emerged from Vance’s interview with Carlson. However, the pair’s sit-down, in light of the criticism Carlson has received for giving a platform to someone who believes that Jews in concentration camps just “ended up dead” and that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II, is apparently a problem for the Trump-Vance ticket.
“’Not ideal timing. But it is what it is,” a Trump campaign official admitted, according to The Bulwark.
Not only did Vance tape the interview on Thursday—well after Cooper’s appearance was released—but he is scheduled to appear with the conspiracy–promoting former Dancing With the Stars contestant at an event later this month in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
