Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson is facing blowback for comments he made while eulogizing Charlie Kirk on Sunday at a service for the activist who was assassinated earlier this month.
Noting he considered Kirk to be a “Christian evangelist,” Carlson said the killing reminded him of the death of Jesus Christ, as told through the Bible.
“Jesus shows up and he starts talking about the people in power and he starts doing the worst thing you can do, which is tell the truth,” Carlson began. “And they hate it and they just go bonkers. And they become obsessed with making him stop.”
The former Fox News host said he can “picture the scene in a lamp-lit room with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus thinking about, ‘What do we do about this guy telling the truth about us. We must make him stop talking!'”
The pundit’s comments were met with blowback from some on social media and in the press, who accused him of suggesting Kirk was assassinated for expressing views that were critical of Israel.
“Carlson’s description of leaders in ancient Jerusalem plotting to kill Jesus, paired with his belief that unnamed ‘people in charge’ decided Kirk had to die because his Christian mission interfered with their agenda echoed the antisemitic deicide charge,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement on social media.
“Carlson’s remarks dangerously reinforced the belief that Jews killed Jesus and that Jews have been a malevolent force throughout history. This antisemitic myth has led to expulsions and murders of Jews for centuries. Even today, too many people still believe this,” the group added.
“Tucker Carlson used the memorial for Charlie Kirk — a passionate friend of Israel & the Jewish people — to spread antisemitic blood libels,” wrote Mark Dubowitz, head of the the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), in a post on the social platform X. “I knew his father, Richard Carlson, Vice-Chair at FDD who strongly supported Jews & Israel. I just can’t fathom what happened to Tucker.”
“After desecrating Charlie Kirk’s funeral with his ridiculous insinuation that Jews were behind his assassination, perhaps the Republican Party will final say goodbye to Tucker Carlson,” wrote the U.S.-based activist group StopAntisemitism.
Eylon Levy, a former spokesperson for the state of Israel, chimed in, writing “complete with a laugh like a cartoon villain, Tucker Carlson uses Charlie Kirk’s funeral to spread an antisemitic blood libel.”
The theory that Israel had something to do with Kirk’s killing prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to post a video on social media last week denying that accusation.
“Now, some are peddling these disgusting rumors, perhaps out of obsession, perhaps with Qatari funding,” Netanyahu said in his video. “What I do know is this: Charlie Kirk was a great man, and a great man deserves honor, not lies.”
The activist was killed in a shooting allegedly carried out by a man in his 20s, and officials have not given a specific motive in the attack, though text messages revealed as part of charging documents against the suspect show him texting a roommate that he’d “had enough of his hate,” in regards to Kirk.
