June 18, 2025

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Tucker Carlson Plays Gotcha with Sen. Cruz on Iran.

Anyway, the full interview is out today and it starts out a lot calmer than the snippet above suggests. Cruz praises Carlson at length for his positions on the border and the pandemic shutdowns. He suggests they agree on about 80% of their politics with the exception of some foreign police issues. Cruz argues that he holds a position in between interventionist and isolationist which he calls “non-interventionist hawk.”

But there is a moment about 30 minutes in where Cruz actually puts Carlson on the spot. Carlson suggests the aid given to Israel is very expensive and doesn’t make sense when so many Americans are struggling to buy groceries. Cruz responded, “You said the support for Israel was very expensive. How much support do we give Israel?”

Carlson dodged by saying, “Well, you tell me you vote for it.”

“It’s about $3 billion a year is the military assistance,” Cruz said. He added that the military assistance was the only aid given to Israel.

And not long after that the conversation takes a turn into a discussion of AIPAC. This is the point when all hell really breaks loose. Cruz admits to being supported by AIPAC and even describes how the organization works, holding fundraisers for candidates who support their goals. Carlson keeps asking if AIPAC is a foreign lobbyist being directed by Israel, which Cruz denies repeatedly.

And that leads to Cruz wondering why Carlson is only focused on AIPAC and lobbying by Israeli aligned groups when there are lobbyists for every nation on earth in Washington doing many of the same things. He implies that Carlson is fixated on Israel and “the Jews.” Carlson takes offense at this and says Cruz is making a “sleazy feline” insinuation that he is antisemitic.

The conversation eventually moves on with Cruz saying he wants to lower the temperature but it never really does go down much.

Which seems quite odd; Tucker used to be made of sterner stuff on the topic of Iran:

UPDATE:

Posted at 6:14 pm by Ed Driscoll