It’s exhausting to think about writing about Tucker Carlson. I really don’t have the time or patience to waste on people who pretend to do journalism, or once did, and now willingly spread poison under the guise of “just asking questions.” Many others have been probing “What the hell happened to Tucker Carlson” as he simps for Qatar and raises questions about whether Iran is all that bad, all while claiming he only really cares about America and Americans.
But this weekend Carlson so dominated my social media feed with his smug, smirking and bad faith questions of Mike Huckabee, the conservative former governor of Arkansas and current U.S. ambassador to Israel, that it requires saying the words, however news-making this might be to him: Tucker Carlson has been swallowed up into the dark abyss of antisemitism.
The peak of this 2.5 hour interrogation – because it didn’t really feel like a discussion –was Carlson sliding into bizarre conspiracies, like suggesting that Jews of today might not in fact be related, genetically, to the Jews of yore and we should test everybody to make sure they are. I’m not kidding.
Carlson: Why don’t we do genetic testing on everybody in the land and find out who Abraham’s descendants are. It’s really simple. We’ve cracked the human genome. We can do that. Why don’t we do that? Would you be against doing that?
Huckabee: I have no idea what that would prove.
Carlson: It would prove who Abraham’s descendants are, and who has a right to live here and who doesn’t, according to the theology you just explained.
Hmmm, a eugenics-like argument against the Jewish nature of Jews. It’s interesting, really. Don’t you think?
No, I don’t think. Its antisemitic slop is what it is, predictably picked up and regurgitated by the reliably antisemitic Young Turks channel on YouTube, and fellow anti-Israel travelers like Mehdi Hasan, who usually despises Tucker Carlson, but suddenly found words of praise for this “brilliantly” done interview.
I won’t dignify this absurd question with a reason-based response other than to say it’s not the purview of Carlson, Huckabee or anyone else to ask Jewish people to have their DNA pass a personal sniff test. (Huckabee logically brings up the fact that this would exclude converts to Judaism. I might point out that this would also include direct descendants of Ishmael, who are Muslims, and Jesus Christ, who was a Jew. But this would be way too logical and is definitely not the point.)
Instead, on and on this nonsense went in a series of “when did you stop beating your wife” style questions, such as accusing Huckabee – a Southern Baptist minister – of wanting to see Palestinian teenaged children recruited to Hamas killed. Or the comment that seems to be making the most headlines, that Huckabee would be fine with Israel taking over the Biblical description of the land promised to Abraham, from the Nile in Egypt, to the Euphrates in Iraq. It isn’t what he said, but the whole interview was a set of traps designed to feed the poison machine.
“Huckabee said Israel should conquer the Middle East.”
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) February 21, 2026
No, he didn’t. Instead of relying on the clipped version Tucker posted, watch the full exchange.
You may still disagree with the Ambassador, but he was offering his personal view — not speaking for the U.S. government pic.twitter.com/ZWIE7CiOsc
I realize that this is a fight within the conservative movement, among the rising anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, antisemitic strain most notably represented by neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes and whacky conspiratarian Candace Owens, and those combating that strain which apparently includes President Trump, the assassinated activist Charlie Kirk and Sen. Ted Cruz who called Carlson out:
“This imbecile doesn’t believe that Jews are the descendants of Abraham. He’s proposing a mandatory DNA test for every Jew on earth. If they’re not Jews, what are they, Chinese?”
This is definitely not my area. But it is seeping into the mainstream and for that reason needs to be recognized as dangerous.
I should also mention that it is extremely odd, not to say disturbing, to see an interview over Middle East policy devolve into dueling views of how the Christian faith dictates what is or is not moral. It sure would be nice if someone might embraced the once-fundamental separation between church and state, rather than allowing Christian faith to dictate US policy. When someone religion becomes the legal basis of deciding who is a Jew, whether Israel has a right to exist in your opinion, we are headed down the wrong path. The rule of law, the constitution and international agreements are and should remain the standard.
Meanwhile, Carlson himself denies the charge of antisemitism, or even being against Israel, though it’s noteworthy that Carlson never left Ben Gurion airport.
Carlson: “I’m not against Israel”
Huckabee: “You hide it very well.”
A long tweet by conservative activist Yarom Hazony confirmed this in recounting a private conversation with the podcaster: “Tucker wanted me to explain to him why anyone would think he was an antisemite. I answered that question for more than an hour, giving him a series of examples of statements he and his guests had made on his show that seemed completely unhinged and motivated by a desire to slander Jews, Judaism, Israel, and Zionist Christians in order to do as much harm as possible. He kept expressing amazement…
“Whatever his motives for turning his podcast into what seems to be a circus of anti-Jewish messaging, right now that project is clearly more important to him than helping the administration keep its coalition together so it can govern effectively and win elections in 2026 and 2028.”
None of this gets the Middle East any closer to peace, nor the Palestinian people any closer to relief and safety. And if history is any guide, it’s deadly dangerous for Jewish people.
