Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley accused Vice President Vance Tuesday of not taking a clear stance on Israel — slamming him for trying to “be both.” “Right is right.
Page A3From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 2 September 2026
Haley demands Vance pick Israel or Tucker Carlson; he spends the week courting both.
As it ran on the front
Somebody call it what it is. Nikki Haley stood up this week and told J.D. Vance to pick a lane — Israel or Tucker Carlson, take your pick, sir — like the man's foreign policy is a cafeteria line. And what did Vance do? He went and courted Jewish Republican donors while Carlson kept his slot on the schedule, per Politico, forty-eight hours later. Both trays, same guy, no lane picked.
This is the tell. When somebody with real juice tells a Vice President to choose a side and the Vice President just... doesn't, that's not indecision, that's arithmetic. Tucker Carlson brings the audience that watches him for hours a night. The donor class Haley's fronting for brings the checks that buy the ads that get you re-elected. You don't pick between the audience and the money. You keep both plates spinning and hope nobody in the room notices you're the guy juggling.…
…(cont) I've watched this act at the bar for twenty years — the fella who owes money to two different guys and tells each one the check's in the mail. Works right up until the two guys compare notes. Haley just compared notes, out loud, on the record, in The Hill. Choose a side, she said. And Vance's answer, in practice, was: no.
Here's what that costs you, the guy who doesn't own a network or bundle donor checks. Foreign policy — real missiles, real budgets, real consequences — gets set by whichever tray Vance is more scared of losing that week. Not by a platform. Not by a vote. By whoever's louder in the room he's standing in. You don't get a seat in that room. You get the aftermath on the news, packaged as 'weighing in' or 'courting.'
That's the con. It's not that Vance is torn. Being torn, publicly, forever, is the position. Never resolve it and you never have to answer for it. Meanwhile the checks still clear on both sides, and the only people asked to actually choose are the ones with no say in either tray. Haley drew the line in public. Vance stood on both sides of it in public, days later, on the record, and called it a coalition.
“Haley says pick a side, Vance picks both — that's not a gaffe, that's the business model. Tucker keeps the base warm, the donors keep the lights on, and nobody in charge ever actually decides anything. You don't get a side in this. You get the invoice.”
“Vance isn't dodging anything — he's building the broadest possible coalition, Jewish Republicans and populists both, that's just smart politics. There's no side to choose because there's no conflict — Tucker and Israel policy are totally separate lanes. Well, except for the lane where Tucker's been openly hostile to that policy, but that's a media narrative, not a real —”
The receipts
Vice President JD Vance’s answer to a question about conservative pundit Tucker Carlson left some in the audience disappointed.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.