Stepping in for the late Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson headlined a Turning Point USA event, which reportedly drew about 3,000 people, at Indiana University Bloomington on Tuesday night.
The former Fox News host with a more recent history of antisemitic remarks told attendees that the Republican coalition is “fracturing over foreign policy, Israel specifically.”
Carlson said that he is hated for his views and that Israel is “the only thing its advocates care about.”
“You don’t have to hate people just because they don’t worship Bibi or something,” he said, of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Asked why Christianity should guide the moral framework of the United States, Carlson pivoted to Israel. “Collective punishment is immoral. It’s why what’s happening in Gaza is disgusting,” he said.
When discussing parenting, he noted in passing that “kids are every bit as entitled as Netanyahu.”
At Kirk’s funeral last month, Carlson drew widespread criticism for echoing centuries-old antisemitic tropes when he said that the man who assassinated Kirk was like the “guys sitting around eating hummus” who killed Jesus.
Before his assassination, Kirk faced pressure from donors to disinvite Carlson from Turning Point events. “Just lost another huge Jewish donor. $2 million a year because we won’t cancel Tucker,” he reportedly wrote in a message that was leaked to reporters. In the message attributed to him, Kirk reportedly added that he was thinking of inviting Candace Owens, a commentator who also circulates Jew-hatred regularly, as a speaker.
Carlson is listed as a speaker at Turning Point’s AmFest conference, slated to be held from Dec. 18 to 21 in Phoenix.
