00:00Vice President J.D. Vance spoke remotely to an audience in California this week, addressing the All In Pod conference
00:07in L.A.
00:08Vance raised some eyebrows with his comments on foreign policy.
00:12He said specifically that the United States should not be subservient to Israel.
00:15That drew some criticism because Vance has said similar things before, and they seem to evoke anti-Semitic conspiracy theories
00:22about Jewish control.
00:24Now, to be fair to Vance, the full context of his remarks included that he believed we should never be
00:29subservient to anybody, including NATO.
00:31And he was trying to explain how President Donald Trump has charted a sovereign independent course for U.S. foreign
00:36policy.
00:37But the concerns about Vance remain, partly because of his close relationship with Tucker Carlson, who has gone off the
00:43deep end on the Israel issue and has said some anti-Semitic things.
00:47Vance also struck a very different tone in a speech to a Jewish audience two weeks ago when he reassured
00:52the Republican-Jewish coalition that he backed a strong U.S.-Israel alliance.
00:56This contradiction is hurting Vance because it raises doubts about his authenticity.
01:01Every time he talks about this issue in abstract terms, the positions don't seem to line up.
01:06Let me offer a suggestion to Vance as to how to speak more clearly about this issue in a way
01:11that reassures audiences on both sides of the issue.
01:13Vance is very good at talking about his own experiences.
01:15He wrote a memoir about growing up in Appalachia and serving in the Marines and going to Yale.
01:20And so he should talk about his own experiences here as well.
01:23To an audience that's skeptical of foreign entanglements, like the all-in pod audience, Vance should talk about how, as
01:29a soldier, he saw the cost of foreign conflicts that don't have a clear exit strategy.
01:33And so he would be much more careful in future.
01:36And to a pro-Israel audience, he could say that he understands the sacrifices that Israelis have made for freedom.
01:41He understands the fears of Jewish communities around the world, and he's not going to let this war with Iran
01:47end in a way that would simply encourage future terror.
01:49By talking about his own experiences, he can convey authenticity and concern and empathy in a way that's much more
01:56convincing than simply trying to match up two different abstract foreign policy messages to two different audiences.
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