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“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” Vice President JD Vance told the crowd at Turning Point USA‘s AmFest conference in Phoenix this week. This was almost surely a shot at Ben Shapiro, who warned earlier in the week about the “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.” 

One of these malicious voices is Tucker Carlson, Vance’s good friend and benefactor.

Few politicians beat on strawmen with more frequency than Vance. And, in this case, the red herring is the word “deplatform.” It insinuates a form of censorship. But the millionaire podcasters that Vance is shielding have huge audiences, and there’s not a single notable person anywhere who argues they should be censored. They are being called out.

Speaking out against those who normalize odious lies and indecency, as Carlson does, is a way of exercising free expression. Indeed, the podcasters Vance is white-knighting make a living trying to destroy others. Vance is often highly critical of media personalities. Does that mean he wants them “deplatformed?” 

Vance already leaned into this weaselly deflection in 2024 after Carlson interviewed America-hating crank and Nazi apologist Darryl Cooper, “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” When asked what he thought about the podcaster, Vance launched into another one of his insincere lectures. If “you see a bad idea,” Vance said, you don’t “censor it,” you attack it with “

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