A welcome consequence of the Tucker Carlson fiasco

The conservative podcaster forces a reckoning on the right after his Nick Fuentes interview.

By Kathleen Parker - November 7, 2025 at 11:38

Every now and then, a movement, like a house, needs a good scrubbing. For the deep clean taking place in the conservative movement to eradicate bigots and antisemites, we can thank Tucker Carlson, the once-charming, bow-tied boy wonder of an erstwhile kinder, gentler Republican Party.

Carlson invited white nationalist Nick Fuentes onto his podcast recently and failed to challenge his guest’s bigoted remarks about Jews, setting off a cascade of righteous outrage. This was hardly the first time Carlson has engaged in antisemitic commentary. Jew-hating has become all the rage in certain once-respectable circles. It’s just that this time, Carlson and his guest went too far even for friends and political allies.

One wonders why it took so long for Republicans and other conservatives to speak out, but here — finally — we are. The Fuentes interview launched a protest from important corners of the conservative world, including Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), Sen. Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and, belatedly, the Heritage Foundation, though only after its president, Kevin Roberts, took heat for defending Carlson.

It shouldn’t be long before fellow bigot-baiter Candace Owens bellows a rant too far. She’s not in Carlson’s league as listeners go, but she’s not a nobody. She has millions of social media followers. Her 2024 eviction from conservative (Jewish) commentator Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire for antisemitic rhetoric apparently didn’t hurt her standing with her fans. Among other offenses, she liked a social media post that asked if a rabbi was “drunk on Christian blood again.” She and Carlson have seemed to suggest that Israel was behind the murder of Charlie Kirk.

The Israel-Gaza war has given such entertainers (they’re not journalists) excuses to talk trash about Jews, but the comments in question far exceed criticism. Plenty of people left and right, as well as nations, have expressed concerns about what many view as Israel’s disproportionate response to the terrorist slaughter of civilians on Oct. 7, 2023. More accurately, Owens and Carlson engage in dog-whistling tropes that historically have been used to marginalize Jews and to justify much worse.

This is why Carlson’s engagement of Fuentes and others is so repugnant and unforgivable. Carlson speaks of the “brain virus” of Christian Zionism, but he doth project too much, methinks. The virus currently infecting a segment of the American population is, to put it bluntly, Jew-hating.

The toxic drivel emanating from these two popular podcasters corresponds to the conspiracy theories of white nationalists and other hate-mongers. As recent events affirm, this trend is too serious to treat with dignity. This isn’t a debate for polite disagreement. What Carlson and Owens are doing must be terrifying to Jews, and it should be to Christians and Muslims, too.

Wednesday, a close friend and I were discussing the matter over manicures in a Georgetown salon when a Jewish lady who had been sitting nearby leaned into our conversation. “I overheard enough of what you were saying to urge you to keep doing whatever you’re doing,” she said, then asked, “Can I lick envelopes?”

So, when Carlson engages in tropes to describe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, as “ratlike,” “shifty” and “dead-eyed,” or inexplicably uses his eulogy for Kirk, whom he compared to Jesus, to remind people that the Jews killed Jesus, he is winking at neo-Nazis And when Carlson invites someone such as Fuentes, a 27-year-old Holocaust denier who has praised Hitler, for a congenial chat, he deserves the wrath he’s receiving. And more. In fairness, Carlson did challenge Fuentes for his antisemitism once, an interjection that was lost amid the two-hour interview.

Fuentes is such an abhorrent character that he must be good for clicks in the same way dogfighting is, probably for the same people. The Anti-Defamation League reported that Fuentes said the Oct. 7 slaughter of concertgoers and families in Israel didn’t happen, suggesting that the rapes and other atrocities were “all a lie” and “none of it was real.” Why did Carlson invite such a frothy punk on his show? The answer, of course, is money. Blood money is cheap, while respect is invaluable. Carlson long ago hung up his journalist’s hat (along with his bow tie). Now he’s just another rage machine hiding in the bunker of his Maine cabin, giving people like Fuentes an outlet for his bile.

But enough with niceties.

Counterintuitive though it is, we owe Fuentes a muted thank you for riling conservatives into action or at least to declare intolerance for the hateful among them. Hate is the brain virus. Antisemitism is, too. Carlson knows better but apparently has fallen victim to the virus. It’s time he — and others like him — clean their houses before it’s too late.