JNS reports that the U.S.-based advocacy group StopAntisemitism has named Candace Owens Antisemite of the Year. Candace has worked hard to earn the distinction and she revels in it. However, I think it should have gone to Tucker Carlson. In 2023 Tucker himself hosted Owens in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas massacres of 10/7. I wrote about Carlson’s interview with Owens here.
Carlson loves to host maniacal haters of Jews and Israel such as Owens, but he prefers a more subtle approach. He likes to pretend he’s just asking questions or blandly giving voice to the truths few dare to speak. Thus Tucker’s performances earlier this year with Darryl Cooper (“maybe the best and most honest popular historian in the United States,” according to Carlson) and anti-Semitic Bethlehem pastor Munther Isaac. I wrote about these episodes here (among other posts) and here, respectively.
Cooper’s rambling thoughts sounded familiar to historian Niall Ferguson: “The last time I heard this kind of thing was when the full extent of the Wehrmacht’s complicity in mass murder was being exposed in the 1980s and 1990s. The people who made these arguments were old Nazis, making excuses. And that is what we have here, reheated and served up to an American audience: Nazi excuses.” He bluntly found Cooper to be “a nasty little Nazi apologist.”
This week Carlson struck again with Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs. As the epicenter of elite higher education’s anti-Semitic mania, Columbia seems like the perfect home for Sachs. Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia, where he holds the rank of University Professor, the university’s highest academic rank. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Like so many haters of Israel, Sachs isn’t a fan of the United States either, at least as a sovereign country. He’s a George Soros/John Lennon and world government kind of guy — “Imagine there’s no countries.” In a long X thread Daniel Greenfield adds that Sachs is a longtime leftist who doesn’t think much of President Trump either. Greenfield quotes Sachs: “Trump… is proof of the idiocy of the ‘America First’ concept.”
I tracked down the interview from which Greenfield extracted that quote. Sachs himself has posted it in full here. It has many more such goodies.
Carlson’s interview with Sachs is posted here on X. I found it to be sickening. It is vile in what has become Carlson’s accustomed style. From the top it dives deep into the mania. According to Sachs, Netanyahu is the author of American foreign policy — and of most of the evils in the world, for that matter. George W. Bush, Barack Obama. Donald Trump, Joe Biden — they are all Netanyahu’s puppets. And that’s just the first few minutes.
Elon Musk, I’m sorry to say, found it “A very interesting interview.” Carlson is doing a lot of damage. In my view it would be a mistake to ignore him.
Breitbart’s Joel Pollak has a good account of Carlson’s Sachs episode here. JNS reports the comments of Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affaris Amichai Chikli. Chikli captures my thoughts: “Congratulations to Tucker Carlson for becoming the leading platform for fringe Holocaust deniers, conspiracy theorists and blood libel enthusiasts who oppose the State of Israel.”
Why is an influential conservative like Carlson promoting a rabid leftist like Sachs? FDD’s David May observes on X: “They should call this the horseshoe episode. The conspiracy theories of the nationalist right meet the conspiracy theories of the socialist left for a party—a national socialist party.”
STEVE adds: This is not the only eyebrow-raising (to put it mildly) act by Carlson recently. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Carlson played a key role in keeping Mike Pompeo from being considered for any role in Trump II:
Shortly before the election, Tucker Carlson approached Donald Trump with an urgent plea: Mike Pompeo had to go.
Many in Trump’s inner circle believed that Pompeo, who served as secretary of state and CIA director during Trump’s first term, was the clear front-runner to be the next defense secretary. The day before the election, Trump praised Pompeo during a campaign rally, marveling at his recent weight loss and twice calling him handsome.
But to Carlson—the former Fox News host who continues to have deep influence in conservative circles—Pompeo was a risky pick. Carlson argued that he is a warmonger. He highlighted to the president-elect a list of grievances he holds against Pompeo…
Meanwhile, I’ve had Sachs in my gunsights for a long time, such as this 2015 post about his defects.
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