Tucker Carlson reacts to a viral interview between Tucker and an Israeli journalist from The Economist
Tucker Carlson reacts to a clip of himself being interviewed by an editor from The Economist.
Summary
Tucker Carlson reacts to a viral clip of an interview he gave to an editor at The Economist, in which the two clash over Israel's right to exist, the war in Gaza, and the nature of Zionism. The exchange is heated and wide-ranging, with Tucker pushing back hard on the framing of the questions while the interviewer — an Israeli journalist — offers a candid internal critique of Israeli society, media, and its relationship to the broader region. Tucker interjects his own commentary throughout the clip, offering real-time reactions to the exchange as it plays out.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Tucker Reacts to the "Right to Exist" Exchange
Tucker Carlson: When she asked you — the Economist editor — the right to exist, and you exploded.
Economist Editor: I don't want to get hung up on "the right to exist." That's how I define it narrowly.
Tucker: Because the phrase you used was devised by the Israeli government, of course. "Does it have a right to exist?" And so my question to you would be: what does that mean?
Economist Editor: Why don't you answer my question? It's a very—
Tucker: I don't know what your question is. Are you asking does it have a right to exist, or do I want it to exist? Do I seek its destruction?
Economist Editor: Fine, answer it that way.
Tucker: Well, of course I don't seek its destruction. I've already said — as you know, because I said it to you — I don't want Israel to be destroyed or to have to use nuclear weapons.
Economist Editor: What is that right to exist?
Tucker's Real-Time Reaction
Tucker Carlson: And I said to myself: Tucker, don't get mad at her. The question is a different one. The right to exist, from the point of view of being a Jew — not so much being part of the international community — is Israel justified according to the norms it tells itself? It is the only democracy in the Middle East, the most moral army in the world, et cetera, et cetera. There it implodes.
There was a world order built up after 1945 which suggested that aggression should not be condoned, that countries with borders have the right to—
Tucker: I totally agree with that, which is why the first thing that Israel did — within two weeks of this war starting, which is supposedly existential for them — was take southern Lebanon. Take someone else's country, as they have done repeatedly, and no one even mentions that. And so I guess I would be opposed to that, because I think Lebanon has a right to exist. I thought Gaza had a right to exist.
Economist Editor: But I noticed that as soon as we started apportioning rights, only one country gets them.
The Israeli Media Bubble and the Weaponisation of Antisemitism
Economist Editor: Most of us listen to Hebrew media only and read Hebrew media only. And the Hebrew media filters most of the non-Hebrew expressions. We do not speak English — I mean, even listen to me with my Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. We don't speak English. We don't speak German. And if we read something about it, they're all antisemites. The weaponising of antisemitism into a kind of thick filter that enables us to reject any kind of legitimate criticism is part of the system here. So media-wise, we hardly hear the international situation. Hardly hear it.
I've been there. Have you been to Gaza? I've been to Gaza since the war started. It's catastrophic. Trust me. Very few journalists get in.
Tucker: I went with the IDF. It's the only way you can go in. But nonetheless, you go in and you see a flattened place. I think it is a disaster. A disaster for the future of Israel. A disaster for the Palestinian people. A horror. Seventy thousand people dead.
Economist Editor: Why would you describe it first as a disaster for the future of Israel? You've got tens of thousands of civilians murdered, but it's foremost a disaster for the future of Israel? No, it's most of all a disaster for the families of the dead kids.
Tucker: I made absolutely — I made three points.
Tucker Reacts: On Sycophancy Toward Israel and the Real Crimes
Tucker Carlson: Everybody sucks up to Israel in this way that suggests they're afraid. And everyone is afraid. And you know that. Everyone is like — the real problem is calling people antisemites allows real antisemites to flourish. She's like, "No, actually the real problem with calling people antisemites who aren't is accusing the innocent of a crime they didn't commit. And the real crime in Gaza is killing people who did nothing wrong." So those are the real problems, I would say. But no one can say it, because you have to be like, "Oh, no, but really, October—"
Economist Editor: I don't know what you're talking about. We're having a—
Tucker: Everyone watching this knows what I'm talking about.
The Demographic Shift Within Israel
Economist Editor: The question of what does that mean to us — I would say as follows. Up until the Second World War, 90% of the Jews in the world were Christian-born Jews, what we call Ashkenazi. And 10% were born in the Muslim sphere, what we call Sephardim. So it was 90% Christian-world Jews and 10% Muslim-world Jews. Today in Israel it is 50/50, which means the old perception that Israel is an offspring of the West, of Christendom, demographically doesn't work.
Tucker on Collective Punishment and Zionism
Tucker Carlson: I don't want any country to be destroyed at all, and I don't want people to die — particularly ones who committed no crime — because I don't believe in killing innocents, period. That's the basis of Western civilisation. Eastern civilisation — it's a whole different view. They believe in collective punishment. I don't.
Economist Editor: So you're in no sense a Zionist.
Tucker: I don't even know what that means. Why don't you define the term and then I'll tell you what I mean.
Economist Editor: You just defined it. You said that—
Tucker: A Zionist, in my narrow definition, is that the state of Israel — the political state of Israel — has the right to continue existing.
Economist Editor: The right? Where does that right come from? What do you mean? These are — I'm not being a lawyer about it. I just want to know what you're asking.
Tucker: To answer the question—
Economist Editor: Because I don't know what you're asking me. I've already said I don't want Israel to be destroyed. I don't want anyone to be killed. And you've said, "Does Israel have a right to exist?" And my question is: what right are you talking about? Does Britain have a right to exist? Does the United States have a right to exist?
Israel as a "Standalone Island" — The Crusader Kingdom Parallel
Economist Editor: Because at least half of the Israeli Jewish Israelis — not to talk about the 20% of Palestinians with Israeli identity, but from the 80% who are Jews — 50% were born or are offspring of Muslim-world Jewry, which does not share the same legacy, the same heritage, the same tradition that Jews share with you, which is the evolution of the—
I'll take it a step further. Yes, many of us were born in so many other places, or our parents or grandparents were. But most of us were born here, and here is a very strange place. On one hand, we're not Europe anymore, because we got disconnected. And on the other hand, we never got connected to the region. So we are a kind of standalone island, totally disconnected from the region, refusing to get connected.
When normalisation was offered to us only two or three years ago, it was treated as a threat. We never dwelled into the strategy of what should be our relationship with the region. So much so that in a way we resemble the Kingdom of Jerusalem of the Crusades — foreigners coming from the outside, circling ourselves with a kind of self-siege, wars, and never integrating.
It is not entirely right, because there were interactions between the regional Muslims at the time and the Christians at the time. But nonetheless, the kingdom as a political entity never wanted to be part of the region. After two hundred years, it expired.
The state of Israel — born out of the ashes of the Holocaust for sure, but earlier on born out of the nation-state idea — got secular Europe with its solutions to its national groupings, came to the Middle East, which is not part of the nation-state thinking, didn't go through the processes of secularisation and revolutions — the industrial revolution, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the British Revolution — never went through them in order to get where we are today, and therefore didn't find any hooks to get connected. So we lost our Western hinterland and we never seeded enough in order to grow to be part of the local fabric.