The bitter infighting over antisemitism, free speech and bigotry during Turning Point USA’s annual national conference not only exposed fissures in President Donald Trump’s movement but also laid bare a challenge for his potential successor.

How would his likely heir apparent handle an explosive debate among Republicans over whether extremists and conspiracy theorists should be embraced or excluded from the conservative coalition?

On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance gave an answer, suggesting he was more than willing to forgo imposing any moral red lines.

“When I say that I’m going to fight alongside of you, I mean all of you — each and every one,” Vance said at Turning Point USA’s annual gathering, AmericaFest, where prominent conservative leaders called on their peers to stop promoting conspiracies and hate. “President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests.”

Cracks in the Party

Vance’s plea for a big-tent coalition, however, belied the cracks visible in the past week in his party. The annual conservative gathering was just a year ago a platform united under Trump and elevated by its co-founder, Charlie Kirk, a young rising figure on the right. Kirk’s assassination in September galvanized Republicans and fueled conspiracy theories among them, and it prompted Vance to call on Americans to coalesce around criticizing what he called the far left.

This year, the event showcased the intense jostling over the direction of Trump’s movement and whom it would platform.

Last week, Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator, warned that the “conservative movement was in serious danger” from those willing to amplify conspiracies, including Candace Owens, a podcaster widely accused of antisemitism. She has also spread unfounded theories about Kirk’s death. Shapiro’s warning also targeted Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who recently held a softball interview with Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and avowed antisemite. Carlson later accused Shapiro of trying to censor him.

On Friday, Vivek Ramaswamy, an Indian American who is running for governor of Ohio as a Republican, also criticized a faction of the party. He went after those who have embraced the idea that so-called “heritage Americans” — a predominantly white group whose families have been in the country for multiple generations — have a greater claim to the nation than more recent arrivals.

Those comments appeared to put Ramaswamy at odds with Vance, who has spoken out against “importing millions and millions of low-wage serfs” and argued that mass migration was the “theft of the American dream.”

Ramaswamy also took on those who have issued derogatory attacks against Vance’s wife, Usha Vance. And he said Fuentes and others promoting hateful views had “no place in the future of the conservative movement.”

Vance, however, left open the possibility that they did.

“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce and deplatform,” Vance said, arguing that Kirk had welcomed debate. “We have far more important work to do than canceling each other.”

Vance’s team did not respond Sunday to requests for comment.

Vance Has Disavowed Fuentes Before

Vance in the past has disavowed Fuentes, calling him in an interview with CBS News a “total loser” who had no place in Trump’s coalition during the 2024 campaign. And he played down Fuentes’ influence in a blog interview published Sunday, while bluntly criticizing antisemitism, “ethnic hatred” and attacks on his wife.

But as vice president, Vance has on multiple occasions refused to pick a side in intraparty fights over bigotry.

When the emergence of a Telegram group chat showed Republican elected leaders and young party activists routinely using racist and homophobic language, as well as invoking Adolf Hitler, Vance compared them to “anything said in a college group chat.” He also embraced false claims about Haitian Americans in the 2024 race, declining to condemn those who spread racist conspiracy theories.

And Sunday, Vance declined to issue warnings of extremist figures like other speakers at the conference, instead arguing that the coalition was open to all as long as they “love America.”

After receiving the endorsement for president of Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, Vance encouraged supporters to unite around Trump’s immigration policies and the targeting of diversity initiatives. The White House has argued that they have unfairly led to the disenfranchisement of white men.

“We don’t treat anybody different because of their race or their sex, so we have relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it had belonged,” Vance said, using the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion. “In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.”

While Vance has not announced plans to run for president, he showed signs Sunday that he had his eyes on the future. He said Democrats were “already talking about 2028” and criticized the party’s potential leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. He said that Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Black Democrat in Texas running for Senate, had a “street girl persona” that “is about as real as her nails.”

Crockett Believes Vance Is Trying to Distract

Crockett said in a text message that the vice president was seeking to distract. “Republicans like JD Vance attack my nails and lashes because they can’t keep up with me when it comes to debating the issues,” she said. “While JD Vance is talking about my looks, I’m talking about legislation. I’m talking about lowering the costs for groceries, utilities and health care.”

Vance’s lack of similar condemnation for fringe GOP figures was met with rebukes from some in his party.

“I’ll never vote for someone who is ambiguous in their stance against antisemitism or who can’t see that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a threat to our long-range strategic interests,” said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb.

Jason Miller, a longtime Trump adviser, praised Vance’s speech, calling it a “fantastic unifying message heading into the 2026 midterms.” Miller added: “When the time comes, I think the vice president will be ready to pick up the baton from President Trump.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Zolan Kanno-Youngs/Jordan Gate
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