Tucker Carlson speaks on first day of AmericaFest 2025 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: Charles-McClintock Wilson/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

Far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson repudiated US President Donald Trump as a “slave to Israel” in his morning newsletter on Monday, the latest rhetorical escalation in a growing public feud between the controversial podcaster and the commander-in-chief.

“President Trump is a slave to Israel,” Carlson wrote in his newsletter. 

Carlson lambasted Trump for comments he made in a Sunday interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, in which the president condemned the Iranian regime for its reluctance to accept American conditions in ending the US-Israeli war with Iran. Carlson further criticized Trump for maintaining consistent communication with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the ongoing negotiation efforts with Iranian officials and accused the White House of presenting Tehran with an unfavorable set of demands. 

“Reporting that uncomfortable fact brings us great pain, but it is the tragic truth. This weekend alone, America’s leader parroted Israeli talking points on Fox News,” Carlson wrote. 

In the Fox News interview, Trump identified Iran’s unwillingness to abandon its nuclear program as the key sticking-point in negotiations between the two nations. Trump warned that Iran armed with a nuclear weapon would “use it on Israel and the Middle East.” Trump also lauded the “incredible partnership” between the US and Israel. 

Carlson went on to criticize Trump for having purportedly “continued his daily ritual of reporting war updates to Benjamin Netanyahu as an employee does to their manager,” seemingly implying that the US was waging war with Iran under Israel’s direction.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren recently said the argument that Trump had been pushed into war by Israel ignored decades of Iranian hostility and repeated attacks on Americans.

“Every day since 1979, the Iranian regime swore to destroy the United States and, in pursuit of that pledge, sought to develop strategic weapons while committing hundreds of acts of war against Americans,” Oren told The Algemeiner last month. “President Trump did not need to be dragged into defending the American people from this looming threat and certainly not by a purportedly cunning Israeli leader.”

“Suggestions to the contrary … are deeply insulting to the president and patently antisemitic,” he added.

Still, anti-Israel commentators such as Carlson have repeatedly claimed that Israel “dragged” the US into the war with Iran.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Trump administration was providing daily updates to him about the war, noting that, the prior day, US Vice President JD Vance provided “in detail” the latest information on peace talks with Tehran. Critics of Israel immediately framed Netanyahu’s statement as evidence that the US government operates in a position of subservience to Israel, despite the fact that allies regularly maintain consistent lines of communication during wartime.

In his newsletter, Carlson said the White House “deployed JD Vance to present Iranian negotiators with peace demands everyone knows they would never accept.”

The White House has outlined a wide-ranging set of priorities in negotiations with Iran in exchange for winding down military operations, including that Tehran cease uranium enrichment efforts, reopen the Strait of Hormuz without installing any toll booths, implement restrictions on its ballistic missiles program, and end support for terrorist proxy organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. 

Carlson’s comments came after Trump described the podcaster, one of his longtime supporters turned outspoken critic, as unintelligent.

“Tucker’s a low-IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” Trump said last Tuesday in an interview with New York Post national security reporter Caitlin Doornbos when asked about Carlson’s condemnations of his Easter message promising massive destruction on Iran.

“He calls me all the time; I don’t respond to his calls. I don’t deal with him,” Trump said of Carlson. “I like dealing with smart people, not fools.”

Two days later, Trump lambasted Carlson as well as other far-right podcasters critical of his support for Israel and tough stance on Iran as “stupid” people who support the regime in Tehran.

Carlson’s comments also came after a Newsmax interview in which he also called Trump a “slave” to Israel.

“I’ve always liked Trump and still feel sorry for him, as I do for all slaves,” the former Fox News host said during the Friday interview, adding that Trump “can’t make his own decisions” and that he is “hemmed in by other forces.”

During an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Carlson seemingly doubled down on his suggestion that Trump is operating at the behest of the Jewish state, saying, “I don’t think it is as simple as ‘he is under the control of Netanyahu,’ but you could certainly summarize it that way and you wouldn’t be totally inaccurate.”

Following 21 hours of negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, last week, Vance announced that ceasefire discussions broke down after Iran refused to agree to Washington’s set of demands.

Carlson, one of the most popular conservative pundits in the US, has reinvented himself as a preeminent critic of Israel in the years following his unceremonious firing from Fox News.

Since launching his podcast, Carlson has relentlessly condemned Israel, issuing a series of blistering and false accusations that the country oppresses Christians, exerts immense influence over US politicians, and has committed “genocide” in Gaza. The provocateur has accused Israel of killing tens of thousands of children in Gaza “on purpose” without providing any evidence.

Carlson has also hosted a seemingly unremitting parade of anti-Israel figures on his podcast while rejecting offers by pro-Israel figures to appear as guests. He especially drew backlash for conducting a friendly interview with fellow podcaster Nick Fuentes, an avowed antisemite and Holocaust denier.

Carlson’s anti-Israel career pivot has drawn the ire of many of his former fans, including US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). In public remarks, Cruz accused Carlson of spearheading efforts to normalize antisemitism within the Republican Party and has called on fellow Republicans to distance themselves from the podcaster. 

Further, Carlson has seen his once-chummy relationship with Trump publicly deteriorate. 

The president issued sharp condemnation of Carlson, along with other Israel-critical personalities Candace Owens, Alex Jones, and Megyn Kelly, in comments made on Truth Social. 

Trump called Carlson a “broken man,” adding that he has “never been the same” since his 2023 firing from Fox News. 

“These so-called ‘pundits’ are LOSERS, and they always will be!” Trump added. 

The public fallout between Trump and Carlson comes as the pundit has sharpened his criticisms of the president. Last week, Carlson rebuked Trump for purportedly offending Muslims, suggesting that his conduct was unbecoming for a world leader. 

Although Carlson’s podcast remains highly popular, his ideological shift seems to have come at the cost of his reputation in the Republican Party. A recent YouGov poll revealed that Carlson’s approval rating within the GOP has cratered, falling from +54 favorability in March 2024 to only +7. This timeline aligns with Carlson’s intensifying attacks on Israel and Republican lawmakers.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks during a press conference after attending a special summit of European Union leaders to discuss transatlantic relations, in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman

Israel said on Saturday it had reprimanded Spain‘s most senior diplomat in Tel Aviv over the blowing up of a giant effigy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Spanish town this week.

The seven-meter (23-foot) figure was packed with 14 kilograms (31 lbs.) of gunpowder in El Burgo, a small town near the southern city of Malaga, in a decades-old ceremony on April 5, its Mayor Maria Dolores Narvaez told local television.

“The appalling antisemitic hatred on display here is a direct result of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government’s systemic incitement,” Israel‘s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on X which highlighted a video clip.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the video.

“The Spanish government is committed to fighting against antisemitism and any form of hate or discrimination. As such we totally reject any insidious allegation which suggests the contrary,” a Spanish Foreign Ministry source said in response.

El Burgo’s Mayor Narvaez said the town has previously used effigies of US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the annual event.

Spain has been an outspoken critic of the US and Israeli military campaigns in Iran and Lebanon, despite US threats to punish uncooperative NATO allies.

Spain and Israel have been embroiled in a long-running diplomatic row which began over the Gaza war. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said a Spanish ban on aircraft and ships carrying weapons to Israel from its ports or airspace due to Israel‘s military offensive was antisemitic.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares accused Israel of violating international law and the two-week ceasefire after a massive wave of airstrikes across Lebanon this week. Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire and Israel‘s military was continuing to strike Hezbollah with force.

Sanchez, who has emerged as a leading opponent of the Iran war, has closed Spanish airspace to any aircraft involved in a confrontation he has described as reckless and illegal.

Iran has repeatedly praised Spain in recent weeks for its hostile posture toward the US and Israel.

Vanderbilt University. Photo: Wiki Commons.

This spring, at Vanderbilt University, more than 600 students gathered for a Passover seder – not in a campus center or dining hall, but on the football field at FirstBank Stadium. A space built for spectacle, rivalry, and school pride was transformed, for one evening, into something sacred.

The symbolism matters. So does the scale. And so does the timing of it all.

One week before the seder, Bloomberg reported that Vanderbilt’s regular-decision acceptance rate for the Class of 2030 had dropped to 2.9 percent – lower than Harvard, lower than Princeton, lower than schools that have spent a century cultivating their selectivity mystique. The headline named the obvious: Vanderbilt has become more competitive “as it avoids the campus controversies that have engulfed many top schools.” Tucked inside that dry admissions sentence is one of the most important stories in American higher education. Jewish families already understand what the data are now beginning to confirm. The market for talented students has spoken – and it is now speaking loudly in Nashville.

This is not just an admissions story. It is a case study in how institutional trust is built – and lost. When universities fail to enforce their own norms or articulate clear moral boundaries, they do not simply generate bad headlines. They trigger exit. Students and families, especially those with the most options, respond not to rhetoric but to signals: Who is in charge? What is tolerated? What kind of community am I entering?

In that sense, what is happening at Vanderbilt is not accidental. It is the result of institutional choices the market is now rewarding.

For generations, ambitious Jewish parents knew the college roadmap by heart: Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Yale – the great northeastern institutions that once excluded Jews with official quotas, then welcomed them, and then watched as Jewish students helped build them into world-class research universities. These schools were more than prestigious. They were symbols of arrival, of the great American bargain: work hard, achieve, belong. They were, in a very real sense, home.

That roadmap is breaking down. And Jewish families are not waiting for institutions to fix themselves.

The Atlantic has documented the shift: Jewish students leaving elite northeastern campuses and heading south – to Vanderbilt, Tulane, Emory, and the University of Florida. The numbers are striking. Vanderbilt now enrolls more than 1,000 Jewish students, roughly 15 percent of undergraduates. Clemson’s Hillel has quadrupled in size. The University of Florida has seen a 50 percent surge in Jewish student participation since 2021, its 6,500 Jewish undergraduates making it one of the largest Jewish student populations in the country. Tulane’s Jewish population is now over 30 percent of undergraduates — one of the highest concentrations anywhere. By Hillel estimates, Southern Methodist University now has more Jewish undergraduates than Harvard.

At the other end of the pipeline, the institutions these families are leaving are telling a different story. Hillel International reports that Jewish enrollment at Harvard, Columbia, Penn, and Cornell has declined in recent years. At Ramaz, the storied Modern Orthodox high school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a class that would typically send a dozen or more students to Columbia sent none. Not one. For the first time in living memory. For families who have sent children to Columbia for three generations, that is not a data point. It is a rupture.

These are not random fluctuations. They are directional. They are decisions – deliberate, painful, sometimes grieving decisions – made in thousands of kitchens and synagogues and college counseling offices across the Jewish community. Together, they add up to a verdict.

Before this trend had a name, the argument for heading south was cultural rather than existential. Research had already documented the ideological homogeneity of university administrators at elite institutions and the cultural consequences that follow when institutions lose internal diversity of thought. Southern campuses were maintaining a measure of pluralism and civic openness that had largely vanished from their prestigious northern counterparts. Go where you can actually think out loud. Go where being visibly Jewish does not require a daily calculation of social cost. Go where you can thrive.

After October 7, 2023, that argument became urgent in ways I had not fully anticipated.

A 2024 Hillel survey found that 87 percent of Jewish parents said rising antisemitism was affecting their child’s college selection – not just their anxiety about it, but the actual list of schools their children would consider. FIRE’s free-expression data told the same story from inside the campus: before October 7, 13 percent of Jewish Ivy League students reported self-censoring multiple times a week; after October 7, that number spiked to 35 percent. Even after tensions eased, it settled at 19 percent – well above historical norms, and a number that should haunt every administrator who claims to care about free expression.

A campus in which students systematically self-censor is not merely uncomfortable. It is, by definition, failing in its educational mission.

The message was unmistakable: elite campuses had become environments in which Jewish students systematically adjusted how they spoke, dressed, and moved through public space. For many families, that was not a policy problem to be addressed. It was a dealbreaker.

What we are witnessing is a form of institutional sorting. Universities that maintain basic conditions of pluralism, enforce rules consistently, and create space for visible identity formation are attracting students who want to live and learn in those environments. Universities that substitute process for judgment, or ambiguity for leadership, are experiencing a quieter but no less consequential form of decline.

This is how markets work in higher education. Not instantly, and not perfectly – but over time, unmistakably.

As Alexis de Tocqueville observed, institutions shape habits – and over time, those habits shape the institutions that endure.

What distinguishes the southern schools attracting Jewish students is not geography, and it is not the weather. It is governance.

Consider what happened at Vanderbilt in March 2024. When protesters occupied the chancellor’s office in a disruptive hours-long sit-in – assaulting a campus safety officer to gain entry and physically pushing staff members who offered to meet with them – Chancellor Daniel Diermeier did not convene a task force, issue a hedged statement, or wait for the news cycle to move on. He acted. Three students were expelled. One was suspended. More than twenty were placed on disciplinary probation. The university’s provost was explicit: sanctions reflected the “individual circumstances of each student’s conduct” – a signal that adults were in charge and that the rules applied to everyone.

The protestors called it oppressive. What it actually was is governance – something that, at many elite institutions, has become surprisingly rare.

Elsewhere, this kind of administrative clarity had become almost exotic. At campuses across the Northeast and the West Coast, encampments spread, Jewish students were harassed, and institutional responses ranged from equivocation to paralysis. The contrast with Nashville was not subtle. It was instructive. Vanderbilt enforced its own rules. It turned out that was not a small thing. It was, in fact, the decisive thing.

Students noticed. Families noticed. And, as the admissions data now confirm, they responded. A school where the administration means what it says – where Jewish students can attend Shabbat dinners without political calculation, wear a kippah without mapping potential confrontations, speak openly about Israel without pre-gaming the social cost – is a school where talented, ambitious students of all backgrounds want to spend four years.

This is not aspirational. It is the market working.

And yet the football field seder captures something that the governance story alone cannot.

Jewish families are not only fleeing hostility. They are seeking something positive: campuses where Jewish identity is not peripheral, not controversial, not something to be managed or contained, but woven into the shared fabric of student life. Six hundred students on a football field is not just a religious event. It is what sociologists would recognize as successful institutional integration: a minority identity fully visible within, rather than in tension with, the broader community. It is a demonstration of institutional confidence: the university’s statement that Jewish tradition belongs here, at the center, not at the margins. Students feel that distinction immediately.

One student at the seder put it simply: “I belong to Vanderbilt and I love being Jewish.” Chabad.org described the event as part of a broader national trend of seders held in sports arenas to accommodate “massive crowds of proud and confident Jews.”

That sentence contains an entire theory of what Jewish campus life could look like – and a quiet indictment of what it too often does look like at schools that still trade on reputation while failing the students who trusted them. It is not the sentence most Jewish students at elite northeastern universities are saying right now. It should be the standard by which every campus community measures itself.

None of this means Vanderbilt is perfect, or that every Jewish student should make the same choice. The point is not to replace one prestige default with another. It is to end the reflex that conflates rankings with belonging – and to recognize that Jewish families have far more agency than the prestige reflex would have them believe.

Vanderbilt now ranks alongside – and in some respects above – the Ivy League institutions that have treated governance as optional and campus culture as someone else’s problem. Its students are just as accomplished. Its faculty just as distinguished. Its outcomes just as strong. The prestige gap that once justified defaulting to a narrow set of northeastern schools has closed – and in some cases, it has reversed.

That is the real story behind the 2.9 percent acceptance rate.

Prestige without belonging is not excellence. It is inertia. And inertia, in higher education as in any other sector, is eventually punished.

The signal has been sent. The only question is who is still willing to ignore it.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute