Tucker and the Jews

As is often the case in contemporary American politics, the scene could be considered great entertainment, if only there wasn’t so much at stake.

Tucker Carlson, one of the leading MAGA voices, humiliated the anti-Trump turned Trump-vassal Texas Senator Ted Cruz on his talk show. Carlson, the isolationist who fiercely opposes American intervention in the Israel-Iran war, tried – and succeeded – in showing that Cruz, who wants America all-in, is familiar with Iran’s geopolitical realities no more than George W. Bush was with Iraq’s.

Earlier, Carlson broke with Trump over what he sees as the President’s “complicity” in dragging the United States into another Middle Eastern war. “This will end his presidency,” he warned.

Trump, characteristically thin-skinned, retaliated by calling Carlson “kooky Tucker” and suggesting Carlson find a way to get back on cable news.

The San Francisco-born (1969) commentator rose to prominence on Fox News, where his talk show had one of the highest ratings on news cable television. He was sacked in 2023, possibly because the lies he broadcast about the 2020 elections landed the network in legal trouble. He has maintained a high profile ever since within the Trump world through an independent weekly podcast.

In the interview with Cruz, Carlson pressed the Senator on his ties to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), suggesting the pro-Israel lobbying group should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

When Cruz pushed back, accusing Carlson of an “obsession with Israel,” the host snapped: “Oh, so I’m an antisemite now?”

What followed was an unhinged volley of insinuation, defensiveness, and outright contempt. “Shame on you,” Carlson seethed. “You’re implying it in a sleazy feline way.”

Cruz pointed to Carlson’s relentless focus: “You’re not talking about the Chinese, the Japanese, the Brits… You’re asking: ‘What about the Jews? What about the Jews?’” Carlson responded that he doesn’t “even like talking about Israel” because it inevitably leads to charges of antisemitism.

To be sure, the stormy debate in the United States about American involvement in the Israel-Iran war is not between antisemites and those who are not.

The opposition spanned progressive Democrats such as Bernie Sanders, moderate liberals such as the editorial board of the Washington Post, and a sizeable portion of the Republican Party.

An Economist/YouGov poll found that 53% of Trump supporters oppose U.S. military involvement in the Iran-Israel war, while only 19% are in favor. A Washington Post poll found that only 47% of Republicans support intervention, whereas 24% oppose it and 29% haven’t formed an opinion. Among Democrats, no less than 67% are in opposition. Among households of veterans or active servicemen and women, 39% are in opposition, whereas only 37% are in favor.

The broad suspicions reflect the trauma of the disastrous Iraq war, which propelled the rise of both Barack Obama – and Donald Trump – two of the lone voices who spoke publicly against it in real-time.

It also reflected distrust of Trump’s foreign policy credentials. Since starting his second term and until he ordered America to join Israel at war on June 22, Trump applied an innovative formula of holding a small stick while speaking in a harsh voice.

So Carlson was neither alone nor naïve when doing what journalists are supposed to do in a democracy: challenge policymakers.

As for his antisemitism, that’s a bit more complicated.

During his career, Carlson has emerged as a key promoter of the white supremacist “Great Replacement” theory – the belief that elites are deliberately replacing white Americans with immigrants.

On Fox News and other platforms, he discussed this theory or related concepts dozens of times. He euphemistically referred to “demographic change” and “replacing the population,” concepts that trace directly to far-right ideology infused with and grounded in antisemitic rhetoric. His followers, online and offline, know exactly what he means when he talks about elites.

Carlson’s portrayal of George Soros, the Hungarian Jewish philanthropist and democracy advocate, followed a similar playbook. He repeatedly presented Soros as a shadowy puppet master bent on destabilizing the West through mass immigration. He accused Soros of “building a program to destroy the West.”

Holocaust revisionists have been welcomed guests on his show. One guest, Darryl Cooper, claimed that the Nazis didn’t intend to kill Jews, only that they were “unprepared” to handle large numbers of prisoners.

Cooper went further, suggesting Winston Churchill was the true villain of the Second World War, that Britain’s entry into the war was influenced “by people, the financiers, by a media complex, that wanted to make sure [Churchill] was the guy who was representing Britain in that conflict for a reason," and that Churchill’s support of Zionism benefited him financially.

Rather than challenge these vicious falsehoods, Carlson called Cooper “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.”

In his coverage of Ukraine, Carlson has described the country’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as “sweaty and rat-like,” “shifty,” and “a persecutor of Christians.”

Comparing Jews to rats was central to Nazi propaganda. The idea of the “shifty Jew” dates back to medieval Christian polemics. And the charge that Jews are enemies of Christianity? As old as antisemitism itself.

In one of the most appalling moments in the history of American journalism, in 2024, Carlson interviewed Putin in Russia. He was lectured by the war criminal at length, including the usual lunatic abuse of the term Nazism, and glared at him with admiration.

The problem with the huge popularity Carlson enjoys within the MAGA Trumpist world – he was a keynote speaker at the final Trump election rally – is broader than the current dispute over whether to support Israel or oppose Iran.

Carlson is part of a deeper struggle over whether American conservatism will continue its descent into conspiracy, nativism, and antisemitism under the guise of “America First.” He is not leading a populist rebellion against the elites. He is mainstreaming the kind of pseudo-intellectual bigotry that once resided in the political margins.

“I don’t even like talking about Israel,” because it’s not worth being called an antisemite by AIPAC recipients, Carlson told Cruz.

The problem is not with what Carlson is being called. The problem is what he is.