Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) launched a blistering attack on conservative broadcaster Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, accusing him of fueling antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment among young conservatives.
Speaking at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Cruz warned that Carlson’s rhetoric was “deeply disturbing” and compared him directly to progressive firebrand Rep. Ilhan Omar, a frequent critic of Israel.
“Tucker Carlson is turning into Ilhan Omar. This is bizarre. This is ridiculous,” Cruz declared, drawing sharp applause from the audience.
The senator’s comments came as part of a broader warning that antisemitism is taking root on the American right. “In the last six months, what we’ve seen on the right has been deeply disturbing,” he said, urging Republicans not to stay silent. “We need to speak out and oppose it.”
Cruz singled out Carlson’s program, which has featured Holocaust revisionists and guests questioning whether Hamas is a terrorist group. “There are very few ironclad rules of politics, but here’s one. Hitler was always, always bad,” Cruz said to cheers.
Carlson, once the most watched host on Fox News, has also amplified the “great replacement theory,” a racist and antisemitic conspiracy cited by white supremacists in Charlottesville in 2017 and by the gunman who killed 11 Jews at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.
“What worries me most,” Cruz said, “is the 19- and 20-year-old college kids, who are listening to this and cheering on this anti-Israel sentiment, this antisemitic sentiment.”
Cruz’s warning comes as Carlson remains a powerful figure on the right. He received thunderous applause at the 2024 Republican National Convention and campaigned alongside GOP vice-presidential nominee JD Vance.
The senator also used his Heritage appearance to promote new legislation designating the Muslim Brotherhood and its branches as terrorist organizations — a move that would sanction Hamas and other Islamist groups. The bill has nine Senate co-sponsors and a bipartisan companion in the House.
But his sharpest barbs were aimed not at Democrats but at Carlson, whose growing influence among young conservatives Cruz described as corrosive and dangerous.
“Antisemitism must never be tolerated — not on the left, and not on the right,” Cruz said.
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2 Responses
Carlson is no Conservative. He’s been bought by Qatar. When he lost his job with Fox, there weren’t too many Conservative media outlets around to hire him. So to replace his income Qatar stepped in. He sold his soul to Qatar.
Most people have a price.
The replacement theory is not antisemitic, and it’s not false. It’s absolutely established fact that left-wing governments, both in the USA and in Europe, have deliberately engaged in importing massive numbers of hostile foreigners in order to change their countries’ demographics, with the purpose of improving their electoral success. They have been bringing in new voters who they assume will vote for them.
Camp of the Saints has turned out to be prophetic and should be required reading for politicians.
Some antisemites tack on a stupid antisemitic twist to this verified theory — they claim that the Jews are behind this. But that’s not part of the original theory, and is clearly not true. It’s the political leftist parties — the Democrats here, Labour in the UK, etc. — who are behind it, and they are overwhelmingly not Jewish.