The former “Fox News” host’s platforming of Holocaust denial could blow up the GOP on the eve of the presidential election. Can Trump and J.D. Vance summon the will to condemn him?
Tucker Carlson, the former “Fox News” cable-TV host who now has his own show, speaks on stage on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 18, 2024. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him @jonathans_tobin.
(September 5, 2024 / JNS)
In a more perfect or at least saner world, we could afford to ignore Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host’s ties to former President Donald Trump make his recent foray into crackpot lunacy with a program about Holocaust denial—on his show that appears on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter and owned by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk—something that must be addressed, especially by conservatives.
In such a world, we might also not have to worry whether X, which is, more than ever, the principal venue for free political discourse, might come under attack from the government. The goal of X’s critics is to return to the situation that existed before Musk bought it in 2022 when it was a place where, at the behest of the federal government, dissent from current liberal orthodoxy could be censored.
But that is not the world we live in. The dilemma of what to do about Carlson’s descent from mainstream conservative pundit to full-blown extremist crank is separate from the issue of threats to shut down or in some way prevent X from being a place where discourse, whether good or bad, can remain relatively free. Yet Musk’s since deleted endorsement of Carlson’s Holocaust-denial show, came amid a torrent of attacks on the ability of X to operate. Challenges by the European Union, its banning by Brazil, and threats from liberal pundits and the resurfacing of comments made in 2019 by Vice President Kamala Harris in which she shows her comfort with censoring political opponents on the platform, have put its future into question..
The imperative to marginalize Jew-haters
The immediate issue facing Republicans is whether they are willing to countenance the continued presence of someone who is no longer hiding their antisemitic views in their presidential candidate’s inner circle on the eve of a crucial election. If they can’t summon the will to banish him to the fever swamps of American political life, they will not only be giving a crucial boost to otherwise marginal antisemites on the right but essentially conceding the election to the Democrats.
September 5, 2024
In this context, the questions to ask about Carlson are not confined to the justified outrage about his fawning, two-hour-long interview with faux podcast “historian” Daryl Cooper, during which Nazi motivations and culpability for the Holocaust were falsely downplayed and Winston Churchill, rather than Adolf Hitler, was depicted as the true villain of World War II.
It is now incumbent on all decent people, and especially those on the right, to demand that Carlson no longer be treated as a mainstream figure. Call it cancel culture, if you like, but the notion that someone who thinks it is acceptable or legitimate to question the truth about the Holocaust ought not to have access to a potential president, as Carlson appears to have with Trump, is entirely reasonable, even if the latter’s pro-Israel policies are the opposite of those of the former Fox News host.
During his seven-year run on Fox, Carlson built an enormous following. It might well be said that during the Black Lives Matter summer of 2020, he became the tribune of contemporary conservatism with his articulate critique of the moral panic that swept the nation in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the “mostly peaceful” riots that ensued. Though his soft spot for tinfoil-hat controversies was no secret, such as his fascination with UFO conspiracy theories, his main focus was on the issues that most conservatives and many centrists cared about, such as illegal immigration, critical race theory indoctrination and corrupt liberal elites that seek to squelch opposition to their continued hold on power.
The one indication of a problem with Jews was his steadfast avoidance of any discussion of Israel. During his time on Fox, Israel was the one word that was almost never mentioned between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Though his animus towards the Jewish state was not exactly a secret, in this way he avoided clashing with the sensibilities of the Republican (especially conservative Christian) electorate that made his show the most popular on cable TV news.
Tucker without guardrails
Yet once he was fired last year in the wake of revelations from lawsuits against the network about their reporting about the 2020 election results in which his texts slamming his employers (and Trump) were revealed, the guardrails on his commentary were discarded. He began a weekly show that appeared on X—whose view totals look impressive but are nothing remotely close to the actual viewers who tuned into his Fox show—in which it soon became clear that he now felt liberated to tell his fans what he really thought.
That included his open contempt for American Jews who cared about the fate of Israel after Oct. 7 and the worst mass murder of their brethren since the Holocaust. He made sure to platform those who spread slanders of the Jewish state, including Candace Owens, a conservative commentator who has gone off the deep end in the last year with increasingly deranged antisemitic rants.
His recent show with Cooper, however, crossed a different line. As such, it ought to provoke the sort of reaction that would seriously impinge on his ability to maintain his grasp on influence with people who matter, such as the Trump family and mainstream politicians.
Although he pretends that he is “just asking questions” and looking into a topic that has never been adequately explored, the discussion with Cooper about the cause of World War II and the Holocaust is familiar territory. Much like other “historians,” such as the disgraced David Irving, Cooper is doing nothing more than recycling Nazi propaganda from the 1930s and ’40s about Hitler’s peaceful intentions and Churchill being a warmonger. His claim that the Jews murdered in death factories were merely prisoners of war or people rounded up who eventually died because the Nazis were unprepared to deal with so many captives is contradicted by the historical record and the testimonies of millions of people.
Cooper’s ideas are simply lies whose antisemitic intent is easily discerned. They have as much validity as a theory of history worthy of debate as those who claim that the earth is flat. The fact that Carlson would not only feature such a person on his show but fall over himself to claim that a crackpot podcaster is the most important popular historian of our time speaks volumes about his own mindset.
That such a program would get over (as I write this) 19 million views is troubling, even though an X view just means a click on the post and not that so many people watched even a few minutes of the show. The 15 thousand reposts and 51 thousand likes are a better indication of the size of Carlson’s current fan base.
Vance’s dilemma
What makes Carlson dangerous isn’t the fact that this many people take his spreading of hate speech seriously; it’s that he remains firmly embedded as a friend of the Trump family. He is frequently seen socializing with Donald Trump Jr., as well as the former president, at events like professional wrestling shows. That status earned him an evening speaking slot at the recent Republican National Convention. This month, he will be doing a national tour of live events in which he is paired with a variety of more mainstream celebrities such as journalist Megyn Kelly, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and politician Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as well as more marginal figures like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), musician Kid Rock, actress Roseanne Barr and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
But the names that stand out on the list of those who will be appearing with him are those of Donald Trump Jr. and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio).
It’s one thing to be what has sometimes appeared to be the court jester at Mar-a-Lago. It’s quite another for someone who promotes Holocaust denial to be making joint appearances with the son and chief surrogate for the Republican candidate for president and the vice-presidential candidate.
Will any of his stage partners challenge him? I can imagine Kelly doing that, but it’s doubtful that any of the others will dispute Carlson’s claim that his critics are trying to cancel him for merely airing a debate about “history.”
Vance, who aspires to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, needs to understand that holding what will be perceived as a campaign event—that show is scheduled to be held in Hershey, Pa., on Sept. 21 in the heat of a presidential campaign in a swing state—needs to be held to a higher standard.
Unlike the controversy over the former president’s dinner with Kanye (“Ye”) West, which could, unconvincingly, be dismissed as an insubstantial kerfuffle, Carlson’s standing in Trump’s inner circle is a real problem for the GOP as well as a disgrace.
Carlson is a longtime admirer of Vance, and reportedly was, along with Donald Jr., a strong advocate for the decision to tap him for the vice-presidential nomination. Despite the partisan attacks on him as “weird,” Vance is a formidable intellectual force on Capitol Hill and a powerful advocate for the national “common good” conservative school of thought that is integral to the current political realignment. And like Trump, he’s also a strong friend of Israel and opponent of antisemitism. But the idea that someone on a national presidential ticket would appear with a Holocaust denier weeks before the election is both inconceivable and disqualifying. Vance must withdraw from the event. The younger Trump should do the same.
What’s behind these actions
Why did Carlson choose this crucial moment only two months before the election to air such a show? One theory comes from my JNS colleague Caroline Glick. She wrote on X that Carlson is deliberately trying to sabotage Trump because a Kamala Harris presidency would enhance his standing as an opposition voice; therefore, inciting a Republican civil war right now is in his interest and gives a boost to antisemites on the right. I don’t know for sure that this is his intention, but the practical effect of what he’s done could be exactly what she describes.
One other aspect of this disturbing story is that Musk actually endorsed Carlson’s show with Cooper, writing that it was “Very interesting. Worth watching.” That foolish post reflects the mercurial nature of the billionaire as well as his bad judgment. Still, whatever we think of him, the idea that this should be another reason to shut down or hinder X is as dangerous as Holocaust denial. As we saw with the tech giants’ cooperation with the Biden administration’s efforts to shut down dissent against COVID-19 policies and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story on the eve of the 2020 election, the trend towards authoritarianism among liberals (despite their claim to be defending democracy) is a clear and present danger to the right to free speech.
That’s a battle for a different day. For now, the relevant question is what Republicans, and more pointedly Trump, are going to do about Carlson. Moreover, he can count on being asked about this in next week’s debate even though Harris will probably not be queried in the same fashion about embarrassing elements of her record. That notwithstanding, perhaps Musk’s deletion of that post was the first indication that Carlson’s antisemitic journey has reached a turning point.
The Buckley precedent
The precedent here is the effort made by the late William F. Buckley to rid the modern conservative movement that he helped found in the 1950s by starting National Review magazine of right-wing nuts and antisemites. In the 1960s, he effectively canceled members of the John Birch Society, a lunatic fringe group with a large following. He did the same 30 years later by making it clear that conservatives who dabble in antisemitism like Joseph Sobran and Pat Buchanan must be refuted and marginalized.
It is hard to think of anyone less like Buckley, an urbane, patrician intellectual, than Trump. But the former president is presented now with the same opportunity to make clear in no uncertain terms that he will have nothing to do with Holocaust denial and antisemitism. Failing to do so would be similar to the way President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have refused to unreservedly condemn the pro-Hamas and antisemitic mobs demonstrating against Israel since Oct. 7. But, like it or not, there is a double standard in the media that forces conservatives to adhere to a higher standard.
Everything we know about Trump tells us that he will always refuse to do what conventional wisdom tells him he must because he will be falsely condemned as an extremist and antisemite, no matter what he says or does. Nevertheless, he needs to make an exception in this case.
Rebuking Carlson and making it clear that he is no longer welcome to tag along at his events is something that will be difficult for him and might upset some of his voters. But this is not some made-up controversy contrived by the left to trip Trump up. Carlson’s actions and statements are a direct threat to his campaign and a frightening effort to mainstream the hatred of Jews. He must be put in his place, and condemned by Trump and Vance, if the Republicans are to defeat Harris and have a chance to make good on their promise to rid the government of the toxic disease of woke ideology that is empowering antisemitism on the left.
If they don’t, the consequences for the Republicans and the hopes to roll back the tide of antisemitism that has been surging on the left and now apparently on the far right, are, too, frightening to contemplate.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.
