Tucker Carlson or the conspiratorial crusade against Israel, 'America’s most insulting problem'

This week, Tucker Carlson participated in The Shawn Ryan Show. The conversation between Ryan, a former member of the Navy SEALS and contractor for the CIA, and Carlson focused on what he sees as the nefarious influence of Israel on United States, the prevalence of deception in the media, politics and culture, and highlighted the spiritual war that he believes lies behind that deception that does not take into account what is beneficial for the country.

Carlson believes that the current cultural chaos and social disintegration are symptoms of a spiritual war in which the forces of creation and destruction are opposed. "Well, there’s a spiritual war underway, which I didn’t take seriously enough. And you can’t understand anything that’s happening unless you understand that," he declared at the beginning of the program.

Tucker argued that this spiritual warfare is also evidenced by the shift in political discourse over the past ten years. From a debate about how best to serve America to a focus on issues such as the benefits of immigration and gender ideology.

Another topic was Carlson's recent controversial interview with ultra agitator Nick Fuentes. Tucker refused to apologize for the controversy generated after Fuentes' anti-semitic comments and claimed that he wanted to interview him because "everybody talks about him," and that, just as when he interviewed Vladimir Putin, he was simply interested in hearing what he had to say.

"I’m not going to lecture Putin about his war crimes. You can read about Putin all you want. I want to hear what Putin says. And I took that exact same approach with Nick Fuentes and I knew there would be an outcry or whatever," Carlson said.

The contentious interview with Fuentes exposed the underlying tensions within a right wing that is increasingly divided by the day between those who see Israel as an ally of the United States and those who see it as an obstacle within for the America First movement.

When Fuentes said during the interview with Tucker that his mission is to present an America First approach to the conservative movement, Carlson asked what "important gatekeepers" stood in the way.

"It was the Zionist Jews, like Dave Rubin, like Ben Shapiro, like Dennis Prager. It was the guys that were really controlling the media apparatus that seemed to me to be the biggest impediment," Fuentes said.

The "heresy" of Christian Zionism

During the interview with Fuentes, Carlson criticized harshly what he considers the influence Israel exerts over the United States.

The commentator went so far as to claim that Christian Zionists, including U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, Senator Ted Cruz, former President George W. Bush and former White House senior advisers John Bolton and Karl Rove, are "seized by this brain virus."

"Christian Zionists – like what is that? … I dislike them more than anybody, you know, because it’s Christian heresy and I’m offended by that as a Christian,” Carlson declared in the interview.

In the interview with Shawn Ryan, Carlson abounded in Fuentes' finger-pointing against the Jewish state and asserted that Americans have been betrayed by those who thought they were on their side: "Israel has way too much influence over our Congress," he added.

Tucker said Israel is not America's biggest problem, but "it’s certainly America’s most insulting problem," he argued.

"So insulting to be ordered around by a country of 9 million people when you’re in the United States," he added. "But we’ve imbued the country with all the significance that is not deserved."

"And somehow our Congress and successive White Houses have decided that the only thing that matters is this tiny, irrelevant country," he continued in his anti-Israel tirade. The commentator went even further in his remarks, insinuating that Zionism represents "an attack on Western civilization" and asserting that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is the "main enemy" of Western civilization.

Interview with a Nazi apologist

Nick Fuentes is not the only extremist who has found a platform on The Tucker Carlson Show. In September last year, the controversial broadcaster interviewed Darryl Cooper, in his view "the most honest historian in America." During the conversation, Cooper expressed views widely interpreted as a form of denial of the Holocaust, downplayed the atrocities of Hitler and presented Winston Churchill as the "chief villain" of the Second World War.

"I thought Churchill was the chief villain of the Second World War," Cooper said. "Now, he didn’t kill the most people, he didn’t commit the most atrocities, but I believe... that when you get into it and tell the story right and don’t leave anything out, you see that he was primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did."

Cooper argued that Hitler was not on the side of "the good guys" either, but then relativized his crimes by claiming that the German high command mandated the murder of all prisoners of war because of his inability to control and feed them.

According to Cooper, Hitler's mistake was deciding the Nazis went to war "unprepared to deal with the millions and millions of prisoners of war, of local political prisoners and so forth that they were going to have to handle."

"They went in with no plan for that, and they just threw these people into camps," he prompted. "And millions of people ended up dead."

The interview was sharply criticized by Jewish members of the House of Representatives: "As Jewish Members of Congress, we are appalled that Tucker Carlson hosted and promoted Nazi apologist and Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper on his podcast. Cooper made deeply troubling statements, including that the United States was on the 'wrong side' in the Second World War, and falsely claiming that millions of Jews in concentration camps 'ended up dead' only because the Nazis did not have the resources to care for them. Not only did Carlson provide a platform for Cooper’s ignorance and hate to millions of viewers, he also promoted Cooper by calling him 'the most important popular historian in the United States'," the group said in a statement.

Separately, the president of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center (Yad Vashem), Dani Dayan, commented: "Tucker Carlson and his guest Darryl Cooper engaged in one of the most repugnant forms of Holocaust denial of recent years. These far-fetched conspiracy theories are not only dangerous and malevolent, they are antisemitic."

Charlie Kirk conspiracy theories

Tucker Carlson responded to his friend's murder Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), by portraying it as a sign of the moral collapse in the United States and warning that theTrump administration was exploiting the tragedy to restrict free speech.

"You hope that a year from now, the turmoil we’re seeing in the aftermath of [Kirk’s] murder won’t be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country," Carlson said during a special edition of his show honoring Kirk.

"And trust me, if it is, if that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that, ever,” the commentator added. “Because if they can tell you what to say, they’re telling you what to think… There is nothing they can’t do to you because they don’t consider you human."

Moreover, during Kirk's memorial service, the commentator compared the murder of the conservative activist to the biblical story of the persecution of Jesus, suggesting that powerful groups silenced his friend for speaking the truth.

"So it’s about 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, and Jesus shows up and he starts talking about the people in power, and he starts doing the worst thing that you can do, which is telling the truth about people, and they hate it, and they just go bonkers. They hate it, and they become obsessed with making him stop: ‘This guy’s got to stop talking. We’ve got to shut this guy up'." Carlson told the audience present during the commemoration.

The Times of Israel reported that Carlson's statements were widely interpreted as an insinuation that Jews were responsible for the death of TPUSA's founder, which has intensified conspiracy theories now widely spread by the ultra Candace Owens, that Israel was behind the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Carlson takes aim at Israel in Epstein case

Tucker Carlson has covered the Jeffrey Epstein case extensively, often expressing skepticism of the official narratives and the government's handling of the case. The commentator has publicly speculated on the possibility that Epstein had direct ties to foreign intelligence services, specifically alleging connections to the Israeli Mossad, a claim flatly denied by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

"It's extremely obvious to anyone who watches it that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government. Now, no one's allowed to say that that foreign government is Israel because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that's naughty," Carlson said in July, during Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit at Tampa, Florida.

According to The Times of Israel., Carlson did not merely hint at the links between Epstein and the Jewish state, but rather persistently promoted the idea that "foreign influence," particularly that of Israel, is poisoning Washington. Moreover, according to the media outlet, the commentator suggested with his statements that pro-Israel groups should be labeled as "foreign agents."

"And sure, he does not come out and say 'dual American-Israeli citizens are traitors', but that is exactly where his argument goes," the newspaper explained.

During Shawn Ryan's podcast, Carlson claimed that multiple agencies, countries and personalities are involved in the Epstein case, claiming that there really is no distinction between Israel, Mossad and the CIA.

"We know exactly what the Epstein story is about. It’s about the deep corruption of global leadership, of course. And you can say it’s about Israel, it’s about the CIA. Well, it’s about, is there a distinction really, not just between Israel and Mossad and CIA, but about the British government or really kind of any government or any, you know, Bill Gates or Leon Black. It’s all kind of varieties of the same thing."

Whitewashing the Maduro regime

Recently, Carlson described the leader of Venezuela's Chavista regime, Nicolás Maduro, as socially conservative and a defender of traditional values, despite his socialist economics. This stance generated criticism against the commentator for whitewashing the Chavista dictatorship amid accusations of repression, poverty and links to drug trafficking.

The Trump administration in August offered a reward of $50 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Maduro, one of the largest ever issued by Washington.

"[Nicholas] Maduro, whatever his many faults, has the most socially conservative country in the [Western] Hemisphere. Venezuela has banned pornography, banned abortion, banned gay marriage, banned sex changes… and banned usury. You don’t have credit cards with 40% interest in Venezuela," Carlson stated during his program.

During an interview with Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro said it didn't matter what Tucker said about Maduro, as the Chavista leader was a "communist dictator."

“I don’t give a s‑‑‑ whether he’s anti-LGBTQ rights. This is the No. 1 thing about Nicolás Maduro? You know how far down the list you have to get before you can get to anything remotely recommendable about Nicolás Maduro?" the founder of The Daily Wire claimed.