J. D. Vance has my vote. I should say that upfront. There is no other potential candidate for president in 2028—nor has there been since JFK, in my view—who can match Vance for star quality, intellect, adroitness in debate, and grace under pressure. I also believe that Vance’s heart is in the right place—which is why I listened uneasily to Vance reject Ben Shapiro’s call, made moments earlier on the same stage at the recent Turning Point USA AmericaFest, for conservative pundits to denounce Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. If anyone ever needed denouncing, it’s these two.  In this seeming act of magnanimity, Vance missed the moment, failed to learn from Trump’s success, and made a rare unforced error.

Most of Shapiro’s ire toward Tucker and Candace had to do with wild-eyed conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s murder and Jeffrey Epstein that few thinking people take seriously and that Shapiro might have best left unmentioned. But more importantly, Shapiro objected to Carlson using a recent long-form interview to “fluff up” Nick Fuentes, whose lunatic antisemitic, racist, and sexist rants could fill volumes. There have also been public statements about Israel by Carlson and Owens, of which Vance is undoubtedly aware, that justified Shapiro laying down the gauntlet for other pundits to pick up. Here are a few of Tucker’s recent gems:

“I always thought it’s great to criticize and question our relationship with Israel because it’s insane and it hurts us. We get nothing out of it.”

“I think the single biggest threat to Christianity in this country is Christian Zionism. I hate it more than I hate leftist rioters. I hate it more than I hate Islamic terrorists. I hate it more than I hate Nazis. I hate it more than I hate Chinese Communists.”

“One of the reasons I’m mad about Gaza is because the Israeli position is, everyone who lives in Gaza is a terrorist because of how they were born.”

“I don’t think people care that much. I know I don’t care at all about Israel. Just shut up about Israel…”

“How do you explain Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz … who I have seen be seized by this brain virus, and they’re not Jewish. Most of them are self-described Christians. And then the Christian Zionists — well, Christian Zionists — like what is that? … I can just say for myself, I dislike them more than anybody, you know, because it’s Christian heresy and I’m offended by that as a Christian.”

Candace Owens’s antisemitism (like her obsession with Brigitte Macron’s genitalia) is even more loopy than Carlson’s but no less abhorrent:

“Netanyahu is a demon, and his actions are demonic.”

“Yes. I believe he [Netanyahu] is a war criminal.”

“It is a holocaust … the burning bodies of children I’m seeing every day … I believe that they [Israel] are intentionally executing a Holocaust.”

Shapiro wasn’t challenging Vance but rather other pundits like himself to speak out against the nonsense and hate that Tucker and Candace are spewing. He also didn’t call for rejecting anyone’s “support” or for censorship. For that reason, Vance could have stayed above the fray, but instead he bizarrely chose to aim a brushback pitch directly at Shapiro’s head by decrying “purity tests.”

Um, what?

With Tucker and Candace on everyone’s mind in the wake of Shapiro’s speech, Vance tried and failed to make the case that having a “big tent” in the Republican Party means welcoming everyone, because, as Vance explained, this is how we “win.” In other words, embrace those spreading lunatic conspiracy theories and raging anti-Semitism that threaten to undermine our agenda, because that’s how we cravenly hold onto power—said Donald Trump, never. If this is what Trumpism without Trump looks like, we can expect to return to the days of low-turnout elections where Republicans lose.

In that moment on stage, Vance became something perilously close to Bill Clinton. Then again, even Bill Clinton had his Sister Souljah moment.

Victor Davis Hanson, in a recent interview about Carlson’s statements on Israel, said what many of us are thinking: “It pains me to say this, but the Tucker Carlson that is talking is not the one I had a seven to eight year relationship [with] . . .  [T]o be frank, everything he just stated is demonstrably untrue.”

In a way, it sounds very American to stand for a big tent in a political party—except it’s never been true. We do not, for example, invite Mitch McConnell or Mitt Romney to speak to today’s GOP, because Trump Republicans understand that these people are selling ideas that no one should be buying. We do not give them a platform and mislead the voting public to conclude that they speak for us, because they don’t—no matter how much anyone whines about the size of our tent. Forgiveness is always possible, but only if people repent and promise to toe the line.

Trump’s genius was understanding that standing by your principles and laying down withering fire against anyone who opposes you, whether in the media or the halls of Congress, is the true path to power. Going along to get along, which  was the Republican playbook for decades before Trump came on the scene, is the path to mediocrity.

No one in the GOP of 2015 would have dreamed of disparaging John McCain, but Trump saw something in McCain that the American people would not see until much later. In the early days of Trump’s first term, Senator McCain famously became the deciding vote to defeat the same bill to repeal Obamacare that McCain had voted multiple times to send to Obama’s desk—where he knew it would be safely vetoed. For years, McCain’s feigned opposition to Obamacare had been a fundraising bonanza for him. But it was all cosplay. Trump knew that while McCain was certainly a war hero, in politics he was a phony.

When Elon Musk went off the reservation during the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump didn’t hold back in the interest of party unity—even though it likely meant losing millions from Musk for the midterms. Trump publicly disavowed him. Once Trump made it clear who the alpha male is in the pack, Musk quickly fell back in line, and all was forgiven. That’s how power works outside the Girl Scouts of America.

Can we imagine the J. D. Vance we saw on the stage at America Fest tearing into someone like John McCain? I’m not so sure, and therein lies the worry. Trump and his supporters know that war with the modern left and the moribund right is a zero-sum game, because these foes pose an existential threat to western civilization. Trump World was never meant to be Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. In Trump, voters found a fighter who brooks no nonsense, takes no prisoners, and isn’t afraid to punish his enemies and reward his friends to protect the American way of life. It remains to be seen what they’ll find in J. D. Vance.

Michael Hurley is a retired attorney and the author of several books.

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