Analysis: What we learned from Ted Cruz vs. Tucker Carlson
When Sen. Ted Cruz went on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show in 2022, he was there to make amends.
The Texas Republican's offense was having called the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol a 'violent terrorist attack.' This kind of view was quickly falling out of favor as Donald Trump moved to sanitize January 6. So Cruz disowned what he had said the day before to a cable host who had just savaged him for it.
It was a stunning scene: a US senator feeling compelled to grovel to a cable TV host who had targeted him for saying January 6 was very bad. But it epitomized the MAGA zeitgeist and shifting power dynamics, in which extreme enforcers like Carlson had to be appeased.
Three years later, Cruz this week joined Carlson on Carlson's own network for a very different purpose – but also one that recognized the former Fox anchor's heft on the right.
This time, Cruz was there to try and marginalize a man who is suddenly a big problem for the Trump administration. Carlson has criticized the Trump-backed Israeli strikes on Iran and strongly opposes the US joining in those strikes, which Trump is increasingly considering.
Carlson's opposition had already earned a sharp comment from the president, who called him 'kooky Tucker Carlson.' Cruz was there to argue that maybe this guy that he and other Republicans have been so solicitous of is indeed a crank.
After two hours of jousting over foreign policy, it became clear Cruz was trying to paint Carlson as isolationist, amoral, anti-Trump and soft on Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also quite strongly suggested Carlson might be an antisemite – a charge Carlson rejected.
After Carlson spent much of the first 40 minutes pressing Cruz on his support for Israel and the support he had received from members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – which Carlson sought to cast as a 'foreign lobby' – Cruz finally went there.
'By the way, Tucker, it's a very weird thing, the obsession with Israel,' Cruz said, noting Carlson hadn't inquired about foreign lobbying from other countries.
'Oh, I'm an antisemite now?' Carlson shot back.
'You're asking the questions Tucker,' Cruz said. 'You're asking, why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy. That's what you just asked.'
Carlson accused Cruz of trying to derail his questions by playing the antisemitism card.
'That does not make me an antisemite, and shame on you for suggesting otherwise,' Carlson said.
The exchange evoked growing concerns in some corners of the right over Carlson's commentary and programming on Israel and Jewish people. Last year, for example, even some Republicans criticized Carlson for hosting a conversation with a Holocaust revisionist. Carlson said the man 'may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.'
This week's interview got no less heated from there.
Cruz repeatedly pointed to allegations from the US government that Iran has targeted Trump for assassination, a case in which the Justice Department under then-President Joe Biden brought charges last year. Cruz was trying to tie going after Iran to loyalty to Trump.
This led Carlson to question that narrative about Iran targeting Trump, and Cruz again pounced.
'Did we land on the moon? What other conspiracies to you believe? Was 9/11 an inside job?' Cruz said. He added that 'even the looniest Democrat doesn't dispute that.'
Cruz accused Carlson of having more or less the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter.
'Oh absolutely, I'm a big leftist,' Carlson responded sarcastically. 'This is so silly.'
Cruz went on to ask Carlson if Putin was the United States' enemy. Carlson said Russia was technically our enemy by virtue of the US government's support for Ukraine, but he resisted making a moral judgment.
'I don't want to be enemies with Russia. It doesn't help us at all,' Carlson said. 'It may help some people in the United States, but in general, I don't want to be.'
Cruz pointed to another infamous episode involving Carlson and Russia, when Carlson filmed a video in a Russian grocery store in which he fawned over the facility and its offerings. (Even a participant in an alleged Russian influence operation apparently regarded Carlson's video as 'overt shilling.')
'It was just weird,' Cruz said. 'It was like a promo video for Russia.'
Carlson got his licks in too. In addition to painting Cruz as too focused on supporting Israel, he ridiculed the senator for not being able to quantify the population of Iran and provide a citation for a specific verse of the Bible he referenced.
But after the interview posted, Cruz was quite happy to post a multitude of clips. He said Carlson was 'running interference' for Trump's would-be assassins. He said Carlson was 'obsessed with defending Russia and the KGB thug that runs it.' He promoted someone who praised him for calling out Carlson's 'thinly veiled antisemitism.'
And perhaps most tellingly, the Senate Republican Conference on its own feed promoted a bunch of the same content intended to ding Carlson. That would seem to signal this is a concerted GOP effort to deal with a perceived problem.
It remains to be seen whether it works. But it's a remarkable turnabout from where things were three years ago.
Carlson has been saying these kinds of things for years, but they – and his commentary on Iran – are increasingly political problems for Trump's party that apparently must be dealt with.
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