Sen. JD Vance has refused to condemn former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for interviewing and praising a podcaster who falsely claims the Nazis didn't intentionally exterminate 6 million Jews during the Holocaust and said they just "ended up dead."
"We believe in free speech and debate," the Republican vice presidential nominee told reporters during a campaign stop Friday, the New York Times reported.
Vance also reportedly vowed to go forward with a scheduled live interview with Carlson during an event in the key swing state of Pennsylvania on Sept. 21.
"This whole idea that has taken hold in the far left of this country, that if you see a bad idea, the way to solve it is to censor it, I think it's ridiculous," the freshman Ohio senator said.
Carlson sparked outrage by posting a two-hour interview with Daryl Cooper, host of the "Martyr Made" podcast, on the social media website X on Tuesday.
In a message posted on X, Carlson said Cooper "may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States."
During the interview, which has been viewed 32 million times, Cooper denied that the Nazis tried to eliminate Europe's Jewish population, falsely asserting that they started World War II "with no plan for that and they just threw these people into camps. And millions of people ended up dead there."
Cooper has also called the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill the "chief villain of the Second World War" for declaring war on Germany after the Nazis invaded Poland.
In a prepared statement earlier this week, a Vance campaign spokesperson said Vance "doesn't believe in guilt-by-association cancel culture but he obviously does not share the views of the guest interviewed by Tucker Carlson."
Carlson, who in February traveled to Moscow to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin, reportedly played a key role in convincing former President Donald Trump to pick Vance as his running mate.
Vance has been interviewed by Carlson in the past — including when he referred to "childless cat ladies" while running for the Senate in 2021 — and he prerecorded an interview with Carlson on Thursday, hours after the White House denounced the Cooper interview, the Bulwark website reported Friday.
Several Jewish Republican operatives reportedly told the Jewish Insider website that Vance's refusal to distance himself from Carlson could hurt Trump's campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Conservative New Statesman columnist and Vance ally Sohrab Ahmari posted on X about Carlson and Cooper: "I can't get over this. The claims made. The fact that Tucker saw fit to lend this guy an uncritical platform ... This sector of the right is sinister."
