Tucker Carlson Sparks Outrage For Friendly Interview Featuring Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes
Tucker Carlson is under fire for hosting a lengthy — and friendly — interview with white nationalist and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, a notorious Holocaust denier, self-described admirer of Adolf Hitler and Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin, and outspoken supporter of racial segregation.
Fuentes has called for a “holy war” against Jews and compared the 6 million killed by the Nazis to cookies being baked in an oven. He wants the U.S. government under authoritarian, “Catholic Taliban rule,” and has been vocal about his disdain for women, Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, and others.
In the two-hour interview, Fuentes focused on the threat he believes Jewish people pose to the U.S. government and society and claimed that women were a “problem” for men by becoming too “bold” while not providing enough “value.”
WHY ARE WE COVERING THIS?
Although Carlson, one of the most powerful voices on the right, expressed some agreement with Fuentes on aspects of U.S. foreign policy toward Israel, he made a point to distance himself from some of Fuentes’s overt antisemitism. “I’m not that interested in ‘the Jews,’ but I am very interested in the foreign policy question,” Carlson remarked.
The president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, Kevin Robert, defended Carlson’s interview, saying open dialogue with white supremacists should not be equated with endorsement. The CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition said he was “appalled, offended and disgusted” by Roberts’ stand. The conversation comes as there has been a rising tide of antisemitism among some right-wing commentators.
Critics are calling the interview an act of normalizing Fuentes’ views, forcing an urgent debate about the ethical responsibility of prominent media voices when engaging — and arguably validating — extremists who traffic in intolerance and hate.
On the latest episode of our Premium Ask Mo Anything (#AMA) podcast — which is released Saturdays on the Mo News Premium feed — Mosheh notes, “We typically don’t cover neo-Nazi commentators because like we don’t want to give them oxygen. But, by the fact that Tucker Carlson gave them oxygen, it is leading to a huge debate among some senior folks in the Republican Party.”
On the full AMA podcast, we dive into the history of the Republican party’s confrontation with extremist right-wing voices, and why some are frustrated with the current establishment’s lack of public messaging on this issue.