Tucker’s demon goes after Chabad – and Trump finally disowns him
For those of you who haven’t followed much of the Tucker Carlson story and wonder why I’m paying attention to him at all – and/or who wonder what I’m referring to by “demon” – a little intro is in order.
Tucker’s been around a long time in the news/pundit business, but he didn’t really become a phenomenon till he got his own show at Fox in November 2016. Then he became something of a star in the news commentary world and got a huge following, plus a reputation for fearless hard-hitting truth-telling. Whether or not that reputation was deserved, that was how he was perceived by millions. When Fox fired him in April of 2023 I assume he was angry at them, but also happy because he realized he could use his fame and reputation to launch his own podcast and that it would be popular and lucrative.
And he would no longer be bound by Fox’s constraints. He’d be completely his own man.
I wrote a series of posts about Carlson’s motives and evolution (devolution); you can find them here, here, and here, with more about Carlson here. So I won’t go into all of that again. The point is that, although some of Carlson’s following now is undoubtedly leftists, Islamists, and bots, there are still many people formerly on the right who follow him, and some of them believe what he says. I don’t know the numbers, but his podcasts draw a huge amount of traffic, and he is trading on his former reputation as well as the distrust of so many people towards more conventional sources of information.
Regarding the demon – Tucker himself has said he was attacked by a demon. Make of that what you will.
If you believe in demons, you might think the demon was the ghost of Goebbels, because that’s the sort of thinking Carlson has been channeling lately. His modus operandi is different – the thoughtful furrowed brow and then the maniacal laugh, and the “just asking questions” pose as he gives fawning softball interviews to those who accuse Israelis and Jews of persecuting Christians and being vicious child-killing warmongers, as well as extolling Arab countries such as Qatar and promoting conspiracy theories such as the preposterous idea that Israel assassinated JFK (see this). In contrast, he is very hard on anyone who defends Israel, such as in his recent interview with Mike Huckabee. The contrast is stark.
Now Carlson has gone after Chabad (as has Candace Owens, by the way), a group of Orthodox Jews around the world who basically provide outreach to Jewish students on college campuses, do charity work, and have a presence in many places in order to provide a safe and welcoming atmosphere for Jews. They are peaceful, they don’t proselytize, and they basically stay away from politics:
Carlson claimed that Chabad is orchestrating a religious war aimed at destroying the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem’s Old City so that the Third Temple could be rebuilt in its place.
“This has been going on a long time in public through, in part, the efforts of a group called Chabad. C-H-A-B-A-D,” Carlson said.
Chabad, a sect of Hasidic Judaism known for its global religious outreach and houses on hundreds of college campuses, does not function as a political advocacy organization. Its teachings describe the rebuilding of the Third Temple as part of a future messianic redemption achieved through acts of mitzvot — not a project to be advanced through modern warfare or the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“To blame it on a Hasidic movement based in Brooklyn that just goes around the world, spreading Judaism, spreading love, spreading kindness, it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Yossi Farro, a member of the Chabad movement known for wrapping tefillin with celebrities, told the Forward in a phone interview. “He’s appealing to people that have never heard of Chabad and now, their first opinion is, this is horrible, these people are warmongers — which is the exact opposite of what we represent.”
The right-wing podcaster Candace Owens amplified the claim, posting to X, “Tucker is telling the truth about the Chabad Lubavitch.”
This group is intensely vulnerable because they are visible and operate – often just a married couple in each venue – all over the world. They have already experienced attacks, such as the terrible one in Bondi Beach, Australia, during a Chanuka celebration. Tucker is trying his hardest to ensure there will be more.
One interesting thing is how Tucker uses the old trick of reversal. What he says about Chabad is untrue, but strangely enough it is true of the mullahs of Iran, who really do want to spark a war in order to bring about the coming of the Mahdi (see this). What Tucker says Israelis do to Muslims and Christians is not true either, but that sort of persecution is what Muslims have done and still do to Jews and Christians.
Meanwhile, Trump has chosen to condemn Tucker outright – and adds the insult that Tucker’s not smart enough to realize how lost he is:
“Tucker has lost his way,” Trump told me. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”
And this:
Chabad’s spokesman reponded:
Carlson’s @TuckerCarlson claim about Chabad and the Temple Mount is a slanderous lie. His implication that Chabad is behind the war in Iran is a dangerous blood libel.
Chabad’s focus is on encouraging mitzvos—good deeds—to bring more goodness into the world and hasten the coming of the Messiah, while living responsibly in the present. The Messianic vision is one of peace and harmony for all.
He is also wrong about the Temple patches. They did not come from Chabad. Had he done even basic research, that would be clear. It would also show that many who wear the Temple patches see them as symbols of faith and hope for peace, and a yearning for the day when there will be no more war.
Carlson doesn’t care about truth, so doing research will not change anything. He is putting a target on Chabad’s backs all over the world, a message to leftists, Islamists, white supremacists, and odd assorted lunatics.
Yes, it would be nice to ignore Tucker and the other people spreading these vicious lies. I hope their followers become fewer and fewer. But they do have followers. There are a lot of young people with few anchors and a lot of anger combined with a great deal of distrust of conventional sources of information, and they are ripe for believing the sort of vileness Carlson and his fellow-travelers spew out.
“Regarding the demon – Tucker himself has said he was attacked by a demon. Make of that what you will.”
Carlson related, “I had a direct uh experience with it in my bed at night and I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs in the bed and mauled physically by a demon or by something unseen that left claw marks on my sides.”
Setting aside the possible relevance of Carlson and his wife sleeping in bed with four(!) dogs…
Given his behavior since he was fired from FOX, perhaps consideration should be given to the demon having successfully invested his body, heart, mind and soul with the “claw marks” being evidence of Carlson’s investiture as one of Satan’s minions.
Neo writes:
“I wrote a series of posts about Carlson’s motives and evolution (devolution);”
I am curious why you are spending so many pixels on him? I decided a long time ago that he is a despicable psychopath so I spend my energy ignoring him. I have mostly succeeded.
I decided to read your article to see if I could find out why I should care about him. I failed. The point of your article seems to be to tut-tut about him.
OK, you don’t like him. So what? By writing about him, you are actually helping him and enriching him.
So this is your blog and you write what you want. As a gentle suggestion, how about writing about ways to help Chabad? Do they have a website where we can contribute to them? Perhaps they can use the funds to arm themselves?
Take this in the spirit it is presented. I will ignore your articles about Carlson, Fuentes, Owens, and Kelly etc. I hope you don’t have too many of them so there is more signal than noise on your blog.
I’m pretty sure the claw marks had something to do with the dogs and I imagine alcohol played a role. I know if I were attacked by demons in my sleep I’d never spend another night in that house again. I’d probably never sleep again period.
I’d certainly not continue to waste my time on a stupid podcast yammering on about silly politics when I was almost killed by a demon.
I don’t know how much Tucker actually believes in what he says or why he is saying it. He doesn’t need the money. He would seem to have the perfect life but there is something very wrong with him. Perhaps he just gets a thrill out of the attention he gets and the influence he wields. JD Vance needs to follow Trump’s lead and distance himself from Tucker ASAP. If he doesn’t, he needs to go. We can’t have a friend of Tucker as the GOP nominee in 2028.
Well, now JD Vance has cover to repudiate Tucker, or will it just be a ghosting of Tucker by JD?
Will Meghan get the message too?
Bob Wilson doesn’t seem to grasp that the principal danger of the Tucker loons and assorted anti-semites is J D Vance’s silence.
Bob Wilson, I think Neo is correct to say that lunatics like Carlson and Owens have followers who just might do something violent to a Chabad house somewhere. Chabad can be found all over the US in small, undefended houses and compounds. I drove past one in Raleigh often, and there’s one in Asheville, not too far from where I live now.
In my opinion, Owens has few, if any, core beliefs and is in it for the clicks and the money. I think Carlson may actually be mentally ill (but that’s no excuse).
I wonder if Tucker’s wife agrees with him.
Or listens. Or worries about his “leanings”.
( I have no idea what she’s like. )
Marlene, if my husband suddenly, unreasonably, began contradicting everything he used to believe so blatantly, I’d be talking to his doctor.
Bob Wilson:
This is called a clue:
https://www.meforum.org/mef-online/tucker-carlson-has-become-tehrans-most-effective-english-language-propagandist
Bob Wilson:
He’s trying to get people killed. He has followers and a big megaphone. He’s spreading Jew-hatred and America-hatred, both. He has influence from his former reputation. If you don’t see the danger there, then you are an ostrich with its head in the sand.
To call what I’m saying “tut-tutting” is to trivialize it.
And wow, you can’t find Chabad’s website on your own?
I am publicizing the danger. I don’t have to add something like “write to your Congressional representatives, J. D. Vance, Christian pastors, whomever” – it should be quite obvious. It is difficult to fight propagandists. I do it by writing, because as a blogger that’s what I do – publicize things.
And it’s a falsehood to say that by calling someone out I am helping him and enriching him. That is absurd. I’m not linking to him or recommending him. He has millions of followers; I have at most a couple of thousand. Anyone who reads what I wrote and thinks “wow, that Tucker guy sounds great!” is already very far gone.
Many years ago, I stopped watching him. I told my Wife that he was antisemitic and an Isolationist, with little real knowledge of how the world works. Some of his guests then were “retired” Military, one in particular an LtC. He too was the same. Retire as Ltc, who did he piss off.
Tucker is a loon, but as Neo says, dangerous. JD better get his act together.
Right now, I think Rubio would be the better choice.
I wish the concerned would call for the denunciation of radical islam as much as they do for the denunciation of Tucker Carlson. I wish there was a purity test for righty politicians that required them to denounce loudly and proudly radical islam. But there won’t be, because that is where the very real danger lies. Charlie Hebdo showed us what happens to people who piss off radical islam. Most people rightly like their heads attached to their bodies, and their blood on the inside.
The largest hotbed of antisemitism is deep in the bosom of the Left, and it is far more dangerous than one Tucker Carlson, and has killed and will continue to kill Jewish people and their supporters all over the world. Does anyone even remember the two from the Israeli embassy who were killed in DC? How soon before Mr. Unknown Motive with the “Body By Allah” t-shirt is forgotten? There’s definitely antisemitism on the rise, and it’s loud and proud, and getting people killed, yet it gets a pass. I suspect the audience of “people who might do something” is *far* larger for radical islam than for tucker, candace, and the fuentes creep combined.
Kate, “If my husband suddenly, unreasonably, began contradicting everything he used to believe so blatantly, I’d be talking to his doctor.”
Absolutely! That’s why I included that I wonder if she agrees with him.
Lab Rat:
I certainly have written time and again about the left and Islamists regarding America-hatred, hatred of the West, Jew-hatred, terrorism, takeover of the academy and of the Democrat Party – just about every topic one can think of, for decades.
So have most other pundits, bloggers, and podcasters on the right, as well as many politicians (maybe not enough, but many – although they get labeled haters and “Islamophobes”).
It’s not as though the territory of radical Islam and the left has not been covered. I have no idea why you think “it gets a pass.”
We fought two wars since 2001 against it, and we are presently fighting an air war against it. That’s a very odd definition of “getting a pass.”
Now several pundits with large audiences, who used to be on the right – or who are supposedly on the right (I don’t think they are or ever were actually on the right, but they tried to appear to be and some of their approving audience probably voted for Trump) – have become cheerleaders for Islamic countries such as Qatar and are very vocal Jew-haters and even America-haters. They are also dangerous. They need to be called out, too.