Vice President Vance fielded two questions about the Trump administration’s position on Israel on Wednesday night at a Turning Point USA event in Mississippi: STUDENT: Hello, I have a question about Israel and Trump’s policy toward it. Do you think it is a conflict of interest for an Israeli donor to give millions of dollars to his campaign and then for Trump to have pro-Israeli policies? VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: If you’re asking whether I think the president of the United States has a conflict of interest – no, I do not. Because I know how the president makes his decisions. As the president himself has said, Miriam Adelson – who I know, and I have a very good relationship with her – is very clear about the fact that she does not hide her love for Israel, and that is part of what motivates her politically. That’s a reality. At the same time, the president of the United States is America First through and through. Let me give you just a couple of examples of this. Number one, we’ve heard from some pro-Israel voices – people who really love the state of Israel – that they don’t want us to have relationships with certain Middle Eastern countries. The president’s attitude is that we need to build relationships with any country where we have shared interests, and he’s going to do it if it’s in the interest of the American people. And he’s done exactly that. Number two, I remember when people said the president of the United States was going to get us into a multi-hundred-thousand-troop regime-change war for Israel. That was four or six months ago. Now, I wonder if those same people have stepped back and said, You know what? We were wrong about that. Because the president of the United States did not want to get us into a regime-change war for any country. He would have knocked out a nuclear facility and then gotten everybody back home – and that’s exactly what he did. I understand there’s frustration out there, but I think the president of the United States – more than any president in my lifetime – is willing to stand up to anybody if he thinks it puts the interests of the American people first. … STUDENT: Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I’m a Christian man, and I’m just confused why there’s this notion that we might have an obligation to Israel – that they’re our greatest ally, or that we have to support this multi-hundred-billion-dollar foreign aid package to Israel to cover what is, to quote Charlie Kirk, ethnic cleansing in Gaza. I’m confused why this idea has come around, considering the fact that not only does their religion not agree with ours, but also openly supports the persecution of ours. VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: Yeah, so – let me say a few things about this. First of all, when the president of the United States says America First, that means he pursues the interests of Americans first. That is our entire foreign policy. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to have alliances or work with other countries from time to time – and that’s exactly what the president believes. Israel sometimes has interests that align with the United States, and when they do, we’ll work with them. Sometimes they don’t, and that’s fine too. In this example – the most recent Gaza peace plan that all of us have been working on very hard over the past few weeks – the president of the United States could only get that peace deal done by actually being willing to apply leverage to the state of Israel. So when people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States – they’re not controlling this president of the United States. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve been able to have some of the success that we’ve had in the Middle East. Now, you ask about Jews disagreeing with Christians on certain religious ideas – yeah, absolutely. One of the realities is that Jews do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Obviously, Christians do. There are some significant theological disagreements between Christians and Jews. My attitude is: let’s have those conversations. Let’s have those disagreements when we have them. But if there are shared areas of interest, we ought to be willing to cooperate too. For example, one thing I really, really care about is the preservation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Christians believe that is the site where Jesus Christ was crucified, and also that His tomb is right there as well. My attitude is – if we can work with our friends in Israel to make sure Christians have safe access to that site, that’s an obvious area of common interest. I’m fine with that. What I’m not okay with is any country coming before the interests of American citizens. And it’s important for all of us – assuming we’re American citizens – to put the interests of our own country first.
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