The podcaster and the late Charlie Kirk were wrong to refuse to cut ties with Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. This failure is poisoning American conservatism.
The late conservative activist Charlie Kirk joined Megyn Kelly’s podcast on Aug. 6 for a session in which both of them griped about the heat they were taking from Jews and friends of Israel because they wouldn’t distance themselves from former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, someone they both regarded as a friend. Today, that conversation is part of what Kelly and many on the far left and far right claim is a debate on free speech.
The truth is that what’s at stake in this argument has nothing to do with any American’s First Amendment right to say what they like. It is one about whether antisemitism should be treated as legitimate discourse.
Kirk, who would be assassinated on the campus of a Utah university a month later, was an ardent supporter of Israel and someone influenced by the study of Judaism. Those who have accused him of antisemitism or turning on the Jewish state are wrong. The same can be said of others who would make that accusation about Kelly, who has been a backer of Israel and supportive of the Jewish community. But by succumbing to the impulse to lash out at critics, they provided more fodder for an increasingly disturbing kerfuffle that has metastasized since then.