The former Fox pundit hinted that it was disloyal for Ben Shapiro and others to focus on foreign affairs when there were ‘real’ dangers facing the country.
Former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson claimed Thursday that conservative commentators such as Ben Shapiro who push American support for Israel do not care for the interests of the United States.
The hugely popular Tucker told Breaking Points podcast host Saagar Enjeti that while he “felt terrible for the people who were killed on October 7,” he was “just amazed by the intolerance, and the willingness to go immediately to …character assassination” when he questioned whether it was good for America to wholeheartedly adopt the Israeli position on the need to destroy Hamas after its massacre of 1,200 people in the surprise attack.
There are people on the Right, he said, using air quotes around the word, “who have spent the last two months…focused on a conflict in a foreign country as our own country becomes dangerously unstable, on the brink of financial collapse, with tens of millions of people who shouldn’t be here, in the country, we don’t know their identities or the purpose of their being here, like stuff that could destroy the country for real…they’ve said nothing about that.”
“If I’m so caught up in the problems of my neighbors’ children and completely ignoring my own children as they get addicted to drugs and kill themselves…clearly I don’t love my kids, that’s the only logical conclusion,” he added. “They don’t care about the country at all.”
Referring specifically to Daily Wire head and host Ben Shapiro, another hugely popular pundit who is a strong conservative Republican, ardent Israel supporter and a religious Jew, he said he was “shocked by how little” he and others with his views “care about the country” and wondered how he could have such a large following of those who love America.
Carlson seemed to question Shapiro’s loyalties by saying that he himself has “no choice” but to care, since “I’m from here, my family’s been here hundreds of years, I plan to stay here.”
Former American ambassador to Israel David Friedman condemned Carlson’s statements in a post on X on Saturday night.
My friend @benshapiro is an American patriot who cares deeply about our country,” he wrote. “Anyone who has listened to him over the past 22 years knows that. He wakes up every morning thinking about how he can advance American security and prosperity.”
Alluding to some of the specific dangers Carlson had mentioned, Friedman added that “Among other issues, Ben has been a forceful advocate for closing our Southern border and ending the massive inflow of Fentanyl that is killing our youth.”
He then stated the position taken by most of the Republican party, including the front-runners for the party’s nomination for president, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.
“One can be an American patriot and support both a closed border and American aid to Israel. In fact, I suspect that many many Americans feel that way. But Tucker Carlson says that since Ben supports Israel he doesn’t care about America. I hope he doesn’t really mean that. It’s a shameful thing to say and he should apologize.”
Just two days after the Hamas slaughter, Carlson had warned that the U.S should be careful in how it reacts, saying, “There’s a lot at stake in how we encourage Israel to respond,” invoking a doomsday scenario by adding, “Once a war like that starts, you could easily imagine the use of nuclear weapons and all that entails.”
He rejected Haley’s immediate assessment that the Islamic extremists had attacked America by attacking its closest Middle East ally, saying that it was not in America’s national interest to get stuck in yet another war in the region.
Shapiro had blasted Carlson for the “moral blindness” of his “hands off” position, adding that “This idea that you are heightening the chances of a world war if America actually flexes its muscles sometimes, it’s a bizarre one when what we know is precisely the opposite.”