Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, long accused of engaging in antisemitic
tropes, attempted to paint Israel in the worst possible light during
last week’s interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, which premiered online on Feb. 20.
Carlson, who was voted 2025’s “Antisemite of the Year” by civil
rights group StopAntisemitism.org, titled the interview: “Tucker
Confronts Mike Huckabee on America’s Toxic Relationship With Israel.”
The one-sentence description read: “The Mike Huckabee interview, and the
truth about America’s deeply unhealthy relationship with Israel.”
During the interview, which premiered on Feb. 20, Carlson accused
Israel’s government of shielding dozens of child molesters charged with
crimes in the United States, claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
punished members of Carlson’s family because he “believes in blood
guilt,” suggested Israel’s leadership sought to commit genocide in Gaza,
and stated that Israeli President Isaac Herzog had visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.
While Carlson pressed Huckabee during the interview about the alleged
connections of Herzog and other high-level Israeli officials to
Epstein, he effectively retracted the accusation on Saturday,
apologizing in a video post after receiving a letter from Herzog’s
office denying the Israeli president ever knew Epstein.
Carlson uploaded an edited version of the video with the Herzog
segment deleted. Huckabee tweeted: “Tucker caught in an outrageous libel
& outright lie against Israeli President @Isaac_Herzog & so he
edited his show (something he promised me he WOULDN’T do).”
Carlson retained a section where he said “everybody believes” Epstein
was a Mossad agent. “I don’t believe everybody does,” replied Huckabee.
At a Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Florida on July 11,
2025, Carlson had suggested Epstein worked for Mossad and that even his
great wealth was a result of his foreign intelligence work.
The Huckabee interview, which took place at the diplomatic terminal
at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport, had already made headlines
when Carlson claimed his team had been harassed by Israeli security. Britain’s The Daily Mail ran
the story under the sensationalist headline: “Tucker Carlson ‘DETAINED’
in Israel: Journalist ‘dragged into interrogation room’ as explosive
interview sparks diplomatic firestorm.”
The Israeli Airports Authority categorically denied the claim. Huckabee told American cable network NewsNation
on Sunday that Carlson’s accusations were a fabrication, noting that
security footage showed him hugging airplane employees and taking
pictures. “He told a reporter who used to work for him, so he knew he’d
get the story out the way he wanted to,” Huckabee said.
Huckabee likened Carlson’s allegations to those of Greta Thunberg,
who after being deported as part of the Gaza flotilla in June of last
year falsely claimed she had been “kidnapped” by Israeli soldiers and
treated in a “dehumanizing way.”
Carlson prefaced the interview with a roughly 25-minute prologue, in
which he said he had agreed to Huckabee’s invitation to interview him
because the United States was heading toward a war with Iran, “the
biggest war we’ve had since the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003.”
He accused Israel of driving the United States toward that war; “that
we are doing this at the behest, of the demand of the Israeli prime
minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Carlson also held Netanyahu responsible for the Iraq war. “We had the
Iraq War, which was for Israel,” Carlson said. Just as Israel pushed
the US to fight the war in Iraq, it was pushing the US toward war with
Iran, he asserted. “Netanyahu has been in the White House seven times in
one year pushing for regime change in Iran. I think they’re on the
verge of convincing this administration to affect regime change,” he
said.
Huckabee questioned why it should be a shock that Netanyahu had seven meetings with US President Donald Trump given the two countries’ strong ties. “Israel is not just a friend or an ally. It is a real partner,” Huckabee said.
Huckabee asked Carlson: “Do you think President Trump is weak enough
to let Bibi Netanyahu push him into doing something that he doesn’t want
to do?” He added that he was in the meetings last week and last summer
between the two leaders and could assure Carlson that Trump was not
being led by Netanyahu.
Carlson also accused Netanyahu of wanting to commit genocide,
presenting as evidence Netanyahu’s references to Amalek, a people
mentioned in the Bible who attacked Israel and which God ordered to be
utterly destroyed.
“To say that Israel was attempting to commit genocide—first of all,
that’s simply not true,” Huckabee said. “If they’d have wanted to kill
all their children, Tucker, they’ve got the military capacity. They
could have done it in less than a day.”
The conversation took a strange turn during a discussion of the
biblical promise that God gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish people.
Carlson attempted to throw doubt on the idea that modern-day Jews have
any connection to Abraham or the ancient Israelites.
“Who are [Abraham’s] descendants now? And how do we know who they
are?” Carlson asked. “Because what you’re saying is that certain people
have a title to a highly contested region. They own it in some deep
sense. So I think it’s fair to ask: who are they and how do we know?”
Huckabee said that if people worship the same God and follow the
Bible, pray toward Jerusalem and to return there, “does that not give
you a little bit of a clue as to who they are?”
Carlson insisted, “There’s no genealogy linking their families to the people of this land 3,000 years ago.”
“They were scattered all over the world. There were many in Ethiopia.
They were in Russia. They were in Poland. They were throughout Asia.
Jews were all over the place, but they were still Jews,” Huckabee said.
Huckabee sparked outrage from Muslim states when he said, “It would
be fine if they [Israel] took it all,” referring to the entirety of the
biblically promised land, which today includes several Islamic states.
Huckabee immediately qualified his remarks, saying, “But I don’t
think that’s what we’re talking about here today … They don’t want to
take it over, they’re not asking to take it over.” The US Embassy in
Israel later said the comments were taken out of context.
Nevertheless, 14 Arab and Muslim states signed a joint statement condemning the ambassador’s remarks.
They expressed “profound concern regarding the statements made by the
United States Ambassador to Israel, in which he indicated that it would
be acceptable for Israel to exercise control over territories belonging
to Arab states, including the occupied West Bank.”
The statement was signed by the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia,
Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon,
Syria and the “State of Palestine,” along with the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
At one point during the interview, Carlson said, “I’m not against Israel,” to which Huckabee replied, “You hide that very well.”
