Ted Cruz Slams Tucker Carlson Over Claims Charlie Kirk Was Anti-Israel and ‘Hated’ Netanyahu
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP photo/X screenshot)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has come out swinging against Tucker Carlson after the independent media host told his viewers that assassinated conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was anti-Israel.
Speaking out on his X account Wednesday, Cruz called out Carlson over his remarks about Kirk, including that the Turning Point USA founder “did not like Benjamin Netanyahu” and “was appalled by what was happening in Gaza.”
“I’m getting really tired of Tucker & his cronies falsely claiming ‘Charlie agreed with me that Israel is terrible & the problem in America is all the damn Jews….'” Cruz said in the post. “I knew Charlie well & indeed the very last conversation we had was how deeply concerned he was about the rising, toxic wave of antisemitism on the right.”
Cruz’s remarks came a day after Carlson ripped Netanyahu over his tribute to Kirk, who was shot and killed last week as he spoke at a Utah Valley University event.
“I was shocked and sickened by the reaction of– the ghoulish and really repulsive reaction of the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Charlie’s death,” Carlson said on Tuesday’s Tucker Carlson Show. “Basically made it all about him and all about his country, immediately trying to take the energy, the sadness, the grief that people felt over Charlie’s murder and redirect it towards support for whatever project he’s involved in.”
He continued, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything lower than his attempt to hijack Charlie’s memory and use it for his own political ends, particularly because what he said was completely untrue.”
Carlson then claimed that, despite what others have alleged, Kirk actually did not like Netanyahu, whom he considered a “destructive” force.
But if Kirk had a problem with Israel, nobody told Netanyahu.
The Israeli prime minister said in a Fox News appearance last week that Kirk was an “extraordinary friend” of the country, doubling down on a previous X post referring to him as a “lion-hearted friend of Israel” who “fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization.”
