LAS VEGAS — Republican Jews acknowledged antisemitism is cropping up in their movement during a conference this weekend, but were quick to blame left-leaning Democrats for fanning the flames.
At the Republican Jewish Coalition leadership summit, a string of recent high-profile antisemitic incidents — including a skirmish this week featuring Tucker Carlson and the Heritage Foundation — cast a long shadow. Even as many speakers denounced antisemitism among conservatives and said the GOP must root it out, nearly all their condemnations were quickly qualified by criticism of Democrats.
“Republicans have a cold, and Democrats have a fever,” Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary and RJC board member, told reporters. “And Republicans are fighting the cold.”
The group’s summit, held annually at The Venetian Expo, the late casino magnate and GOP donor Sheldon Adelson’s convention center, occurs this year as the Republican Party is facing a barrage of pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler incidents within its ranks. Last month, a nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel withdrew his nomination after bragging of his “Nazi streak” in a text message; days earlier, POLITICO reported on a leaked group chat of Young Republicans who praised Hitler and joked about the Holocaust. The same week, a Nazi symbol was discovered hanging in a GOP Congressional office.
Then, this week, Carlson hosted Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes on his podcast; the guest claimed the “big challenge” to unifying the country was “organized Jewry.” Carlson, a former Fox News host who retains a large following, said Republican Israel supporters suffer from a “brain virus.”
RJC speakers took aim at Carlson starting on the conference’s opening night. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Thursday he has “seen more antisemitism on the right” in the past six months “than I have in my entire life.”
“If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are (a) coward and you are complicit in that evil,” Cruz said.
But many speakers downplayed the concern, saying antisemitism is relegated to the fringes of the GOP.
Matt Brooks, CEO of the hosting organization, told reports that antisemitism is “a very small, limited problem in our party.” On Saturday, RJC staffers gave attendees large placards reading “TUCKER IS NOT MAGA” to wave, suggesting that Carlson’s antisemitic views stand apart from the GOP mainstream. Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.), the longest serving Republican Jew in Congress, emphasized in his speech that antisemitism is an issue on the “fringes” of the Republican Party, and suggested that legacy conservative institutions like the Heritage Foundation are removed from the party’s mainstream.
“Heritage has to decide whether, in fact, they’re going to be a serious conservative movement and think tank and resource for all of us, or whether they’re going to pray to the fringes,” Kustoff said in an interview.
Even Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida), who denounced Carlson as “the most dangerous antisemite in America” in his speech, said in an interview that antisemitism is “still on the fringes” in his party.
“But if we don’t deal with it, it could metastasize, like we’ve seen with the Democrats,” Fine said. “And I’m not willing to be a part of that.”
The string of antisemitic incidents among Republicans in recent weeks has caused some top Jewish GOP donors to double down. “Antisemitism isn’t a ‘right-wing’ problem — it’s a human one, festering across the spectrum,” said Y. David Scharf, a GOP megadonor and grandson of Holocaust survivors. He noted the incidents “don’t shake my support for the RNC or GOP candidates — they fuel it.”
“The party’s swift suspension of that Young Republicans chapter shows accountability,” he added. “I will back those who fight hate decisively.”
Even so, the antisemitic incidents have yet to garner explicit condemnations from President Donald Trump or Vice President J.D. Vance, a fact RJC officials and Republican lawmakers downplayed in interviews. “This is a decision every elected official gets to make,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) told reporters, when asked about Vance’s dismissal of Young Republicans’ rhetoric as “edgy, offensive jokes.”
“I believe the Republican Party stands for Israel. I believe we stand against antisemitism,” Scott said.
Unless Trump, Vance and other Republican leaders condemn the incidents, it will only continue to fester, said Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “If the president himself and Republicans were serious about combating antisemitism, they would condemn it when it emerges in their own ranks. And they do not,” Soifer said in an interview last week. “There’s a permission structure within the Republican Party, and it comes from the top.”
Joe Gruters, the chair of the Republican National Committee, mentioned antisemitism nine times throughout his speech Saturday, all in reference to universities or the political left. “Antisemitism has found a home in the Democrat Party,” he said.
Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) agreed, adding, “Let’s face it: antisemitism is running wild on the progressive left,”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the highest ranking Jewish senator, encouraged Republicans to look inward, writing on social media Thursday, “Every person who has aligned itself with the Heritage Foundation, including elected officials, must disavow this dangerous mainstreaming of these hateful ideologies.”
