OPINION:
Tucker Carlson’s latest broadside against the Jews cycles through so many antisemitic tropes that it sounds as if he tasked ChatGPT with writing his podcast script in the style of Joseph Goebbels.
Mr. Carlson’s baseless thesis is that a “very old organization, about 250 years old,” called Chabad, is the driving force behind the current Iran conflict and that “Christians have a way of dying disproportionately in these wars” begun by ancient Jewish societies.
How Mr. Carlson even links a Hasidic Jewish sect best known for religious outreach, providing kosher meals at colleges and an especially effective drug rehabilitation center in Los Angeles to the Iran conflict reads like Elders of Zion fan fiction, but this is not an isolated incident.
Mr. Carlson previously amplified this same conspiratorial claim on his show, saying Israel wants to “blow up” the Al-Aqsa Mosque atop the Temple Mount. (In fact, it’s nearing 50 years since Israel recaptured Jerusalem’s Old City from the Kingdom of Jordan, yet the mosque abides, Chabad’s best efforts apparently notwithstanding.)
Mr. Carlson has repeatedly lashed out at Jews, Jewish institutions, the Jewish state and even Christian Zionists as uniquely sinister forces in public life.
Whatever one’s view of President Trump’s Iran policy — Mr. Carlson has called it “disgusting and evil” — attributing this administration’s actions to a supposedly hidden Jewish hand is not serious analysis. It is age-old conspiratorial thinking that stokes suspicion, resentment and violence against Jewish communities, and it turns a real debate about national security into a vehicle for scapegoating Jews.
This kind of rhetoric is precisely what the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance highlights in its working definition of antisemitism.
The IHRA definition is the clear American standard, adopted by the Trump administration, 37 American states and every major U.S. Jewish organization, for explaining what is and is not an expression of antisemitism. It identifies antisemitism as a certain perception of Jews that may be expressed as hatred and includes examples that illustrate how this hatred appears today. These examples cover demonizing stereotypes, Holocaust denial or distortion, and efforts to deny Jews the right to self-determination.
Mr. Carlson’s rhetoric undoubtedly falls within the IHRA definition. His podcast makes stereotypical allegations about Jews and their “power,” holding a Jewish organization based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Jewish Americans collectively responsible for Israeli actions and portraying Jewish self-defense as inherently immoral. It regularly features some of the most inflammatory accusations leveled against Jews since the Third Reich.
That is not to say that Tucker Carlson has done anything illegal or that he doesn’t have the right to sell his venomous snake oil. The freedoms granted by our Constitution are viewpoint-neutral, however fringe or destructive the viewpoint.
Yet his delusions of Jewish Americans leading Christian Americans to their demise place a very real target on local Jewish institutions such as Chabad. (As if to make this point, Candace Owens immediately joined the chat with her own Jew-baiting tweet on Chabad.) Although antisemitic rhetoric like his is protected by law, when it crosses into conduct, it can and should be addressed legally.
The Antisemitism Research Center at the Combat Antisemitism Movement documented 1,955 reported antisemitic incidents in the U.S. in 2025. How many went unreported or could have been prevented for lack of definitional understanding by federal and local authorities?
It would be a grave mistake to sit by silently waiting for the next instance of antisemitic conduct, like the deadly terrorist attacks in Boulder, Colorado, or the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington last year. It is long past time for congressional action to codify the IHRA definition of antisemitism and give American law enforcement the supplemental tools they need to protect American Jewry.
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, the moment calls for moral courage from our elected leaders. President Trump is correct that “Tucker has lost his way,” that “MAGA is making our country great again … and Tucker is none of those things.” Antisemitism is fundamentally incompatible with American values. Perhaps, as the president tells it, “Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”
As Thomas Jefferson wrote in rejecting antisemitism in our country 250 years ago, “Our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religious, as they do our civil rights, by putting all on an equal footing.”
• Arie Lipnick is chair of the U.S. advisory board at the Combat Antisemitism Movement.
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