Tucker Carlson, Ted Cruz get in heated back and forth over Iran
Tucker Carlson and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) got into a fiery exchange on Tuesday over the senator's support for President Trump and his posturing toward Israel in its escalating conflict with Iran.
The conservative media personality on Tuesday released a clip from the interview — set to be released in full on Wednesday — in which he grills Cruz on details about Iran and its demographic makeup. When Cruz does not know the answers Carlson is seeking, the host blasts the senator for failing to know the details of 'the country you seek to topple.'
'How many people live in Iran, by the way?' Carlson asked.
'I don't know the population,' Cruz responded.
'At all?'
'No, I don't know the population,' Cruz said.
'You don't know the population in the country you seek to topple?' Carlson retorted.
When Cruz asked Carlson the same question back, the journalist responded quickly: '92 million,' adding, 'How could you not know that?'
'I don't sit around memorizing population tables,' Cruz responded.
The conversation grew increasingly heated from there, as Carlson argued the numbers are 'kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government.'
'Why is it relevant whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million — why is that relevant?' Cruz responded before pushing back against Carlson's suggestion that he doesn't 'know anything about the country.'
Carlson then offered another trivia question: 'What's the ethnic mix of Iran?'
Cruz said the country is Persian and 'predominantly Shia,' at which point Carlson cut in, asking, 'What percent?'
The two men then began shouting over each other.
'Okay, this is cute-' Cruz said when Carlson cut him off to say, 'You don't know anything about Iran.'
'So, I'm not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran-,' Cruz said.
'You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of a government, and you don't know anything about the country,' Carlson said, shouting over the senator.
'No, you don't know anything about the country,' Cruz shot back. 'You're the one who claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump. You're the one who can't figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani, and you said it was bad.'
Carlson pushed back on Cruz's initial claim, saying, 'No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying you don't believe they're trying to murder Trump.'
'Yes, I do,' Cruz exclaimed, cutting in.
'Because you're not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation,' Carlson said, suggesting Cruz would be if he 'really' believed they were trying to kill the president.
When Cruz retorted that 'we are carrying out military strikes today,' Carlson pressed the senator on his use of the word 'we.'
'You said Israel was,' Carlson said to which Cruz clarified that the U.S. is supporting Israel's efforts but that Israel is carrying out the strikes.
'You just said 'we' were,' Carlson said. 'This is high stakes. You're a senator. If you're saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening.'
The Hill has reached out to Cruz's office for additional comment.
Carlson, a long-time supporter of the president's, has found himself at odds with the commander-in-chief over their conflicting viewpoints on the best approach in the Middle East.
After Israel launched a missile offensive against Iran last week, Carlson called Trump 'complicit' in the escalation and warned the president's legacy was on the line depending on 'what happens next.'
Carlson has for years been a critic of Republican leaders, diplomats and others who have advocated for military intervention in the Middle East.
He last week railed against so-called 'warmongers,' including his former colleagues at Fox and those in the party who he says are nudging Trump toward a needless war.
'The real divide isn't between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians,' Carlson wrote on social media last week. 'The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it.'
But Trump hit back, telling reporters, 'I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen.'
The president went a step further later on Monday, dubbing the former prime time host turned internet commentator, 'kooky Carlson' and insisting 'IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,' in a post on his Truth Social account.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
32 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Trump Says Iran Wants to Speak With US, Not Europe
Bloomberg Markets: The Close President Donald Trump says two weeks is the maximum amount of time he will allow to pursue diplomacy with Iran while speaking with reporters. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Proud Boys Say Trump Will Lose Their Support If He Goes To War With Iran
Turns out, there's a line the Proud Boys say they won't cross for President Donald Trump. The extremist group said on social media this week that it wouldn't be able to support the president if the U.S. were to become involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran. 'If the United States gets directly involved in the Israel-Iran conflict, the voters that voted for Trump because there was a hope that Trump was America First can no longer support Trump,' the Proud Boys account posted to Telegram on Wednesday. 'America First does not mean war for Israel. Donald Trump, focus on the health of our nation, period. We are crumbling. We are crippled with debt with no plan for a solution. Be the President you ran as.' Trump has approved attack plans for Iran but is withholding a final order to join Israel in the strikes, The Wall Street Journal reported first this week. We were made for this moment. HuffPost will aggressively, fairly and honestly cover the Trump administration. But we need your help. . The president said Thursday that he would have a decision within two weeks on whether the American military will directly attack Iran after Israel issued strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites. Trump claimed his decision would be based on whether negotiations with Iran over the 'near future' of its nuclear program would occur. Historically, the Proud Boys have been among some of Trump's most fervent supporters. Many members endlessly promoted or repeated Trump's lies about the 2020 election being rigged, and some members carried banners bearing his name during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Trump was asked on the presidential debate stage in 2020 if he would condemn white supremacists and, in particular, Proud Boys after a summer of clashes and violence involving the group. Trump instead told Proud Boys to 'stand back and stand by.' Trump's hawkish stance toward Iran has opened a schism among some conservatives. Even some of Trump's most vocal advocates, including former Fox News mouthpiece Tucker Carlson, have suggested that Trump and the United States at large were complicit in Israel's attacks on Iran. 'Years of funding and sending weapons to Israel, which Donald Trump just bragged about on Truth Social, undeniably place the U.S. at the center of last night's events,' Carlson wrote in a newsletter last week. Trump has said he isn't 'looking to fight.' 'But if it's a choice between fighting and them having a nuclear weapon, you have to do what you have to do,' he said from the Oval Office on Wednesday, the same day the Proud Boys put out their warning on Telegram. The Proud Boys' opposition to American involvement in foreign war isn't a concept outside of their wheelhouse: Members consider themselves ultra-nationalist, so-called 'western chauvinists' who believe it is their responsibility to preserve 'western' values. As noted by the Anti-Defamation League, the group has long embraced ideologies that reject women, immigrants and members of the LGBTQ+ community, often aligning itself with white nationalist values. This emphasis on the preservation of 'traditional' American values and a rejection of the 'Deep State' often returns to criticism of the military industrial complex. Many Proud Boys are also veterans; nearly all of the Proud Boys who were charged and convicted of seditiously conspiring to stop the certification of the 2020 election when attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, served in the military except for the group's leader, Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. Trump Escalates His Feud With Tucker Carlson Over Israel And Iran Israeli Strikes On Iran Have Killed At Least 639 People, Rights Group Says Proud Boys' $100 Million Lawsuit Puts Trump In A Lose-Lose Position
Washington Post
40 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Former Tennessee state Sen. Frank Niceley dies of suspected heart attack
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Former state Sen. Frank Niceley, a farmer and longtime conservative lawmaker known for his colorful comments on Tennessee's Capitol Hill, died Thursday. He was 78. Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Coffey confirmed that Niceley was found on a tractor on his family farm in Strawberry Plains on Thursday and later died at the hospital. Coffey said the cause of death is a suspected heart attack.
