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- The former Fox News host has taken a break from shilling for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin just in time to shill for radical Islam in his holy war against Israel.
For months, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has trained his sights on Israel, echoing claims from the far left that the nation’s response to October 7th in Gaza is “evil” and describing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “threat to Western Civilization.”
Carlson, who once labeled 9/11 conspiracy theorists as “vermin,” has become the chief peddler of well-worn and debunked conspiracy theories on what transpired the day the Twin Towers fell. Unsurprisingly, his latest “documentary series” seeks to implicate Israel.
Carlson’s platformed known white supremacist, anti-semite and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, who believes “Hitler was awesome,” on his streaming podcast. Nary a hard question was asked. But when U.S. Senator Ted Cruz defended Israel on Carlson’s program, a shouting match erupted that is still reverberating through social media.
The contrast suggests, perhaps, that Tucker agrees with Fuentes.
In Defense of Radical Islam?
In recent weeks, Carlson’s coverage of Israel took another strange turn as he ratcheted up a new line of argument — that radical Islam is not a threat to American interests.
Apparently demonizing America’s longest standing ally in the Middle East, and the only democracy in the region, was not enough. To win the argument for the U.S. abandoning Israel, Carlson believes he must downplay the threat of its enemies. (Israel is surrounded on all sides by a radical ideology that wants to wipe it from the face of the Earth).
In an interview on Friday, Carlson was quoted as saying, “I don’t know anyone in the United States in the last 24 years who’s been killed by radical Islam.”
First, that’s a helluva cherry-picked window, since one more year of consideration gets to 3,000 American deaths on 9/11. Second, it diminishes the fact that there has been consistent Islamic terrorism in the United States (and globally) since 9/11, even if Carlson does not personally know victims.
On New Year’s Day, 2025, fourteen people were murdered in New Orleans by an Islamic terrorist. Just this year, Jews were burned alive in Colorado, two Israeli Embassy staffers were killed. Most recently, two National Guardsmen were shot in D.C. All were the result of radical Islamic ideology.
This is to say nothing of the 2009 Fort Hood Shooting that claimed 13 lives, the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing (5), the 2015 San Bernardino Attack (14), the 2016 Pulse Nightclub Massacre (49), the 2017 NYC Truck Attack (8), or the 2019 Naval Air Station Pensacola Shooting (3).
Then there’s the fact that 46 American citizens were killed by Hamas on October 7th, that 16 people just lost their lives on a beach in Australia for the “crime” of being Jewish, or that over 50,000 Christians have been exterminated by Boko Haram in Nigeria since 2009. Again, all driven by radical Islamic ideology.
A Peculiar Shift
Tucker used to understand it.
Fox News Tucker once explained “Christians are being eradicated in the Middle East, and the world isn’t paying attention.” Fox News Tucker was adamant that “Iran deserves to be annihilated. I think they’re lunatic. I think they’re evil.”
Today’s Tucker called the idea of radical Islam posing a threat an “Israeli psyop.” He ominously warned that American intervention in Iran would start WWIII (instead we kicked their backsides without a single American life being put in harm’s way). He’s used 1920s and 1930s anti-semitic dog whistles, accusing his opponents on the issue of doing the bidding of “financiers.”
Ironically enough, there are questions about who is funding Carlson’s opinion now. An investigation by The Washington Examiner earlier this year revealed that Qatar is paying American media consultant Lumen8 $180,000 monthly. In one of its required federal filings related to the payments, Qatar identified an interview with Carlson as its objective.
That interview between Qatar’s Prime Minister and Carlson aired in March. Recently, Carlson traveled to Qatar for another public interview with its Prime Minister, during which Carlson announced he would be buying a home there in Doha.
Qatar, which harbors exiled Muslim Brotherhood figures, including a cleric who openly called not just for an end to Israel, but the annihalition of the Jewish people, has been steadily buying influence in America. It spent over $6 billion on American universities, and in recent years, widened its focus to invest in conservative-oriented media. The largest known investment at this point was $50 million into Newsmax, an outlet stood up to compete with Fox News for conservative eyeballs.
For his part, Carlson has denied taking any payments directly from Qatar.
False Dilemma Fallacy, Despicable Gambit
In the same interview Carlson used to downplay the threat of radical Islam, he offered comparison to domestic drug addiction or the loosening morals of Americans producing content for OnlyFans. He suggested these were bigger threats to Americans than radical Islam.
He could be right (he could be wrong), but this is a classic “false dilemma” logical fallacy.
Neither America’s support of Israel nor its opposition to radical Islam, has, in any way, exacerbated the opioid crisis or our moral failings around sexuality. Addressing one in no way precludes addressing the other.
Carlson and several of his acolytes, including the deranged Candace Owens, are, for some reason, throwing as much chum in the water as they can against Israel. Their gambit is despicable.
Over 1,200 Israelis — Jews, Muslims, and Christians were massacred on October 7th. 46 Americans were killed during the attack. Nearly 250 hostages were taken.
Dads, moms, and kids were slain. Teens at a musical festival were slain. Babies were beheaded. Women — and men — were systematically raped and sexually mutilated. Knives were shoved inside of women. Penises were shot. A man was castrated and his testicles shoved down his throat. The armed Hamas soldiers brought rape kits — with condoms, lube and Viagra — to degrade as many as possible. Hostages were videoed being loaded in trucks with blood pouring from their groins.
I got to meet some survivors recently. I got to hear the voice of a little girl who stood in a closet for 9 hours with her dead dad on the floor of their living room feet away from her and her little brother. I got to meet a Bedouin Muslim who ferried survivors away from the killing fields of the Nova Music Festival.
And because I did my own research, I got to see the real reason Hamas attacked Israel (their original charter makes clear the goal of killing Jews and erasing Israel), documented evidence that shows that they planted military installations in and beneath hospitals and schools, and Yahya Sinwar’s own writing that Hamas viewed civilian casualties in Gaza as a “necessary sacrifice” for a PR war against Israel.
I know that Gaza elected Hamas, that nearly 2,200 civilians from Gaza followed Hamas soldiers into Israel to pillage, rape and kill on October 7th. I know that months after the attack, over 70% of those citizens still voiced support for the October 7th attack.
Their government and their people started a fight, in planned asymmetric warfare, knowing Israel would have to defend itself — knowing they could create propaganda off of the response. October 7th, proportionately, was bigger than 9/11. No one seriously accused the U.S. of genocide for its response to 9/11, even though casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq were significantly higher.
Israel is apparently the only country on the planet that is not allowed to prosecute a war in response to what was a full scale, brutal invasion. Hamas apparently gets to torture and kill Israelis with impunity. Well, you can’t start a war and then clutch your pearls when your victim bows up to fight back.
Radical Islam is a thing. It is a threat. The effects are catastrophic, no matter what Tucker Carlson says on his jihadi apology tour.
