Hats off to Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel!
With elegant professionalism, he tolerated a two-hour-plus hostile interview by conservative political commentator and podcaster Tucker Carlson. Simply, the former governor of Arkansas endured a torturous assault of loaded questions bordering on “blood libel.”
Carlson’s inquiries were framed as variants of the infamous, “Do you still beat your wife?” They were complex questions based on false, malevolent assumptions. It was a “gotcha” for the unsophisticated recipient—a distracting quiz masking his darker motives.
Journalists have every right and responsibility to pursue a story. And yes, the interviewee must be prepared for the tough and uncomfortable questions. Certainly, Huckabee came to the inquisition expecting hostility and armed with impressive interpersonal skills. But Carlson’s interrogatory form was exclusively based on a rhetorical form of using fallacious elements. Many of his questions included the loosey-goosey equivocations, “ … it seems” and “ … I believe.”
Why the sensitivity to Carlson’s question-and-answer session at Ben-Gurion International Airport? This particular journalist is joined at the hip with Vice President JD Vance; speaks before Turning Point USA gatherings; has provided airtime for some of America’s most virulent and widely heard antisemites; and sits astride the interventionist fault line splitting MAGA politics and affecting Israel’s safety.
He is part of an alliance with other right-wing, Jew-hating voices. His behavior warrants careful examination and swift condemnation, as it is a clear reveal of his anti-Jewish sentiment and anti-Zionism.
Huckabee is a politician, diplomat, minister and talk-show host. He represents the Christian Zionist evangelical base of mainstream America that supports Israel. In this verbal parlay with Carlson, the righteousness of the ambassador was as much under attack as were Israel and American Jews.
Carlson’s stream of questions for Huckabee tap-danced across every uncomfortable topic. It was a biased display of sour cherry-picking intended to lead the audience to think only the worst about Israel and American Jews. He focused on warts, including Jeffrey Epstein, Jonathan Pollard, child molesters, civilian casualties in Gaza and the death of a 14-year-old Palestinian fighter. The ambassador parried well these falsehoods and frustrated Carlson as he maintained his cool.
The presumption of guilt was cleverly injected by Carlson. Huckabee did a yeoman’s job explaining relevant contexts, including the Hamas-led invasion and atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the ensuing attacks on Israel from all fronts, its military prowess in a just war, as well as the nation’s biblical and international rights.
At the end, Huckabee offered, “I don’t hate you.”
And he invited Carlson back to visit Israel—to see the country, not just sit in its major airport, where the thin-skinned Carlson created a dustup over standard security protocols. It is part of his skill to craft stories with him at the center. Beyond his famous hyena laugh, penchant for over-arguing and general smarminess, he is a master at duck-and-weave narratives that relegate fact to second place behind feelings.
It might be hyperbolic to reach back to 20th-century automobile czar Henry Ford and Roman Catholic priest and radio celebrity Charles E. Coughlin, both working out of Detroit, for teaching moments of Jew-hatred of significance rumbling from the United States. We can even wonder if Carlson channels a maxim by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, “A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.”
What were hateful pamphlets and static-filled radio broadcasts are now AI-powered social-media blitzes. What was a time of great vulnerability does not compare to the existence of the modern-day State of Israel and the military that can defend it.
For American Jews to ignore the menace of all Tucker Carlson—and all those like him—is to do so at their own peril.
