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Tucker Carlson hosts Nick Fuentes for a friendly conversation about ‘these Zionist Jews’
(JTA) — Tucker Carlson wanted to know: What does Nick Fuentes actually believe?
“Everybody’s going to be like, ‘You’re a Nazi, you just like Fuentes,’” the former Fox News personality mused on his show Tuesday. “But then I’m like, ‘I don’t think Fuentes is going away. Ben Shapiro tried to strangle him in the crib in college, and now he’s bigger than ever.’”
So Carlson invited the avowed antisemite and white nationalist livestreamer onto his online talk show. There, the two had a friendly conversation about the Jews, and whether it was right to blame them for everything.
And Fuentes, whose own platform has only grown in the wake of the assassination of conservative archrival Charlie Kirk, made clear what he believes. Asked who in the conservative movement needed to be taken down, he responded, “These Zionist Jews.”
The sit-down, which had been rumored for weeks, carries implications for the growing popularity of antisemitism and anti-Israel voices on the right. Both men have followings in the millions, and Carlson has maintained close ties in President Donald Trump’s orbit even as he has become a vociferous critic of Israel and helped platform Holocaust revisionists.
Fuentes, meanwhile, has launched a far-right attack on mainstream conservatives using antisemitism as his chief plank — an ideology that an increasing number of young conservative operatives are also embracing. On YouTube, the top comments under the two-hour episode were rife with antisemitic memes.
Even as he signalled broad alignment with Fuentes’s views on Israel, Carlson gently sought to distinguish himself from his guest’s more overt antisemitism.
“I’m not that interested in ‘the Jews,’ but I am very interested in the foreign policy question,” Carlson said at one point, bringing up his fingers for air quotes. Later, he told Fuentes, “The second you’re like, ‘Well, actually, it’s the Jews,’ first of all, it’s against my Christian faith. Like, I just don’t believe that and I never will. Period. And second, then it becomes a way to discredit. That’s when I was like, ‘This guy’s a fed.’”
In response, the young man who opens his “America First” online shows with animated depictions of Jewish conspiracies outlined his own core belief: that “neoconservatism,” an ideology he opposes, is Jewish in nature because it prioritizes allegiance to Israel over traditional conservative principles.
“As far as the Jews are concerned, you cannot actually divorce Israel and the neocons and all those things that you talk about from Jewishness: ethnicity, religion, identity,” Fuentes told Carlson. While some Jews do oppose Israel, he acknowledged, among his enemies in conservatism, “I see Jewishness as the common denominator.”
Fuentes continued, “They’re a stateless people. They’re unassimilable. They resist assimilation for thousands of years. And I think that’s a good thing. And now they have this territory in Israel. There’s a deep religious affection for the state. It’s bound up in their identity.” Modern neoconservatism, he said, stemmed from “Jewish leftists who were mugged by reality when they saw the surprise attack in the Yom Kippur War.”
Fuentes insisted he doesn’t hate all Jews: “Not to be that guy and say that thing, but my best friend is a Jewish person,” he said, also claiming his “assistant” is Jewish (it was unclear if he was referring to the same person). He then went on to blend his understanding of Jewish American anxieties, some of which have been articulated by leading Jewish communal figures, with the dual-loyalty trope.
“If you are a Jewish person in America, it’s sort of rational self-interest, politically, to say, ‘I am a minority. I am a religious, ethnic minority. This is not really my home. My ancestral home is in Israel,’” Fuentes said. “They have this international community across borders, extremely organized, that is putting the interests of themselves before the interests of their home country.”
Even beyond Israel, Fuentes also sought to paint Judaism as incompatible with the European tradition to which America’s modern right aspires. “They hate the Romans because the Romans destroyed the Temple,” he said. “We don’t think that, as Americans and white people.”
To hear Fuentes tell it, his radicalization was a story of first being taken in by, before later rebelling against, influential Jewish conservatives. Israel was his breaking point, he insisted.
Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin and Dennis Prager were his right-wing heroes in high school, Fuentes said; he would parrot Shapiro talking points in debates and was a member of a Facebook group for young fans of PragerU. As a college freshman in 2017 he fell into the orbit of The Daily Wire, Shapiro’s media company, after a debate against his school’s progressive student body president went viral. Fuentes would soon drop out of college to pursue conservative media full-time.
Quickly, Fuentes claimed, he became suspicious of Shapiro’s pro-Israel views. When a staffer asked him if he had any interest in traveling to Israel, he responded, “No, I think I have everything I need right here in America…. And that was a little bit of foreshadowing.”
Later, he said, he would challenge Daily Wire staff: “I would say, ‘So, why do we give Israel all this money?’” he recalled. “They would say, ‘You’re asking it in an antisemitic way.’”
But Fuentes, in his recollection, “was genuinely inquisitive. I wanted to know. Is there an actual reason?… There’s a lot of these neocon Jewish types behind the Iraq War.” The Daily Wire’s rejection of his questions on Israel, he said, spurred his shunning across the broader mainstream conservative movement and led to him going independent with his preaching of more insidious forms of Jewish control.
Comparing himself to Shapiro, Fuentes reflected, “I didn’t come from some strange background. I come from a normal home. My parents are Catholic.” (In recent weeks, Shapiro and some other voices on the right have warned of a rise in antisemitic conspiracies among their ranks.)
Even as Fuentes became a Trump loyalist in the run-up to the 2016 election, he said, he broke with conservatives by supporting President Barack Obama’s decision to abstain from, rather than back, a National Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
“Fox News and all the pro-Israel conservatives are calling him an antisemite. They’re saying, ‘He hates Jews! He’s an antisemite! He hates Israel!’” Fuentes recalled. “It seemed hypocritical. It seemed like how, when conservatives would critique anything about race, we got called racist. Or anything about feminism, we got called sexist. All Obama did was uphold US policy on the West Bank that we’ve had since ’67, which is, we don’t support the settlements. I said, how is it antisemitic to just be consistent on our U.S. foreign policy?”
On Israel, Carlson said, they agreed.
“I always thought it’s great to criticize and question our relationship with Israel because it’s insane and it hurts us,” Carlson told him. “We get nothing out of it. I completely agree with you there.” He also blasted Christian Zionists on the right he used to support, including U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, whom he said have been “seized by this brain virus.”
Later discussing the war in Gaza, Carlson added, “One of the reasons I’m mad about Gaza is because the Israeli position is, everyone who lives in Gaza is a terrorist because of how they were born, including the women and the children. That’s not a Western view. That’s an Eastern view. That’s non-Christian. That’s totally incompatible with Christianity and Western civilization. They say, ‘Oh, we’re the defenders of Western civilization.’ Not with that attitude, you’re not.”
The two did agree on some Jews they both respect, including Glenn Greenwald, an iconoclastic Israel critic formerly on the left who himself hosted Fuentes recently on his own podcast, and Paul the Apostle.
Elsewhere, the men discussed whom Fuentes wants to see be president next (he picked Ye, the superstar rapper who has embraced Nazism) and his 2022 dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Ye and Trump, where Fuentes said the once and future president said, “This guy’s hardcore. I like this guy.” (Trump has since claimed he didn’t know who Fuentes was when they dined together.)
When asked to share his unfettered core beliefs with Carlson, Fuentes obliged, painting a vision of a future America that Jews did not have the right to inherit.
“We do need to be right-wing. We do need to be Christian. We do, on some level, need to be pro-white,” he said. “Not to the exclusion of everybody else, but recognizing that white people have a special heritage here, as Americans.”
The post Tucker Carlson hosts Nick Fuentes for a friendly conversation about ‘these Zionist Jews’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Father and Son Behind Bondi Mass Shooting, Australia Police Say
A man lights a candle as police officers stand guard following the attack on a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, December 15, 2025. REUTERS/Flavio Brancaleone
Two gunmen who attacked a Jewish celebration in Sydney’s Bondi Beach that killed 15 people were a father and son, police said on Monday, as Australia mourned victims of its worst gun violence in almost 30 years.
The father, a 50-year-old, was killed at the scene while his 24-year-old son was in critical condition in the hospital, police said at a press conference on Monday. Officials have described the shooting on Sunday as a targeted antisemitic attack.
Witnesses said the attack at the famed beach, which was packed on a hot evening, lasted about 10 minutes, sending hundreds of people scattering along the sand and into nearby streets and parks. Police said around 1,000 people had attended the Hanukkah event.
Forty people remain in hospital following the attack, including two police officers who are in a serious but stable condition, police said. The victims were aged between 10 and 87.
Authorities said they were confident only two attackers were involved in the incident after previously saying they were checking whether a third offender was involved.
Police investigations are ongoing and police numbers have been increased in Jewish communities.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who visited the scene on Monday, called the attack a “dark moment for our nation,” and said police and security agencies were thoroughly checking the motive behind the attack.
“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location,” Albanese told reporters.
“The Jewish community are hurting today. Today, all Australians wrap our arms around them and say, we stand with you. We will do whatever is necessary to stamp out antisemitism. It is a scourge, and we will eradicate it together.”
Albanese said several world leaders including US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron had reached out and he thanked them for their solidarity.
“In Australia, there was a terrible attack … and that was an antisemitic attack obviously,” Trump said during a Christmas reception at the White House on Sunday, paying respects for the victims of attacks at Bondi and another shooting at Rhode Island’s Brown University.
‘SAW BODIES ON THE GROUND’
A bystander captured on video tackling and disarming an armed man during the attack has been hailed as a hero whose actions saved lives.
In Bondi, hundreds of police personnel remained on site on Monday as the suburb’s main road remained closed, after being declared a crime scene.
Rabbi Mendel Kastel, whose brother-in-law Eli Schlanger was killed in Sunday’s attack, said it had been a harrowing evening.
“You can very easily become very angry and try to blame people, turn on people but that’s not what this is about. It’s about a community,” he said.
“We need to step up at a time like this, be there for each other, and come together. And we will, and we will get through this, and we know that. The Australian community will help us do it,” he added.
Local woman Danielle, who declined to give her surname, was at the beach when the shooting occurred and raced to collect her daughter who was attending a bar mitzvah at a function center near where the alleged shooters were positioned.
“I heard there was a shooting so I bolted there to get my daughter, I could hear gunshots, I saw bodies on the ground. We are used to being scared, we have felt this way since October 7.”
Sunday’s shootings were the most serious of a string of antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars in Australia since the beginning of Israel‘s war in Gaza in October 2023.
Australia’s Jewish diaspora is small but deeply embedded in the wider community, with about 150,000 people who identify as Jewish in the country of 27 million. About one-third of them are estimated to live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi.
Major cities including Berlin, London and New York stepped up security around Hanukkah events on Sunday following the attack at Bondi.
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World Reacts to Deadly Shooting at Australia’s Bondi Beach
People walk at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kirsty Needham
At least 11 people were killed and dozens wounded when gunmen opened fire during a Jewish holiday event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, Australian officials said.
Following are comments from world leaders in the wake of the deadly shooting:
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA
“This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith.
“At this dark moment for our nation, our police and security agencies are working to determine anyone associated with this outrage.”
SUSSAN LEY, OPPOSITION LEADER OF AUSTRALIA
“Australians are in deep mourning tonight, with hateful violence striking at the heart of an iconic Australian community, a place we all know so well and love, Bondi.”
BRITAIN’S KING CHARLES
“My wife and I are appalled and saddened by the most dreadful antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish people attending the Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach.
“Our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected so dreadfully, including the police officers who were injured while protecting members of their community. We commend the police, emergency services and members of the public whose heroic actions no doubt prevented even greater horror and tragedy.”
FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON
“In Sydney, an antisemitic terrorist attack struck families gathered to celebrate Hanukkah. France extends its thoughts to the victims, the injured and their loved ones. We share the pain of the Australian people and will continue to fight relentlessly against antisemitic hatred, which hurts us all, wherever it strikes.”
US SECRETARY OF STATE, MARCO RUBIO
“Antisemitism has no place in this world. Our prayers are with the victims of this horrific attack, the Jewish community, and the people of Australia.”
UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTONIO GUTERRES
“I am horrified and condemn today’s heinous deadly attack on Jewish families gathered in Sydney to celebrate Hannukah. My heart is with the Jewish community worldwide on this first day of Hannukah, a festival celebrating the miracle of peace and light vanquishing darkness.”
FRIEDRICH MERZ, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY
“The antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach during Hanukkah leaves me utterly shocked. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. This is an attack on our shared values. We must fight antisemitism – here in Germany and around the world.”
NARENDRA MODI, PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA
“Strongly condemn the ghastly terrorist attack carried out today at Bondi Beach, Australia, targeting people celebrating the first day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
“On behalf of the people of India, I extend my sincere condolences to the families who lost their loved ones. We stand in solidarity with the people of Australia in this hour of grief. India has zero tolerance towards terrorism and supports the fight against all forms and manifestations of terrorism.”
KEIR STARMER, UK PRIME MINISTER
“Deeply distressing news from Australia. The United Kingdom sends our thoughts and condolences to everyone affected by the appalling attack in Bondi Beach.”
CHRISTOPHER LUXON, PRIME MINISTER OF NEW ZEALAND
“Australia and New Zealand are closer than friends, we’re family. I am shocked by the distressing scenes at Bondi, a place that Kiwis visit every day.
“My thoughts, and the thoughts of all New Zealanders, are with those affected.”
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL
“A few months ago, I wrote a letter to the prime minister of Australia. I told him that their policies pour fuel on the antisemitic fire. It encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets. Antisemitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent, and you must replace weakness with action.
“This didn’t happen in Australia, and something terrible happened there today: cold-blooded murder. The number of those murdered, sadly, grows, with each moment.”
GIDEON SA’AR, FOREIGN MINISTER OF ISRAEL
“I’m appalled by the murderous shooting attack at a Hanukkah event in Sydney, Australia.
“These are the results of the anti-Semitic rampage in the streets of Australia over the past two years, with the anti-Semitic and inciting calls of ‘Globalise the Intifada’ that were realized today.”
IRAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON, ESMAEIL BAGHAEI
“We condemn the violent attack in Sydney, Australia. The assassination and killing of human beings, wherever it occurs, is reprehensible and condemned.”
URSULA VON DER LEYEN, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT
“Shocked by the tragic attack at Bondi Beach. I send my heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims.
“Europe stands with Australia and Jewish communities everywhere. We are united against violence, antisemitism and hatred.”
DONALD TUSK, PRIME MINISTER OF POLAND
“My deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney. Antisemitism, wherever it appears, leads to acts of crime. Today, Poland stands with Australia in this moment of grief.”
KAROL NAWROCKI, PRESIDENT OF POLAND
“I express my full condemnation of the terrorist attack in Sydney. I extend my condolences to the families of the victims of this unimaginable crime.”
SPANISH FOREIGN MINISTER JOSE MANUEL ALBARES
“Horrified by the terrorist attack in Australia against the Jewish community. My solidarity with the victims and their loved ones, with the people and government of Australia.
“Hate, antisemitism, and violence have no place in our societies.”
JONAS GAHR STOERE, PRIME MINISTER OF NORWAY
“I am shocked by the horrific attack at Bondi Beach, Australia, during a Jewish Hanukkah event.
“I condemn this despicable act of terror in the strongest possible terms. My deepest condolences to all those affected by today’s tragic attack.”
ULF KRISTERSSON, PRIME MINISTER OF SWEDEN
“Appalled by the attack in Sydney, targeted against the Jewish community.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families. Together, we must fight the spread of antisemitism.”
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After Australia shooting, Jewish leaders say Mamdani’s refusal to condemn ‘globalize the intifada’ has consequences
The shooting attack targeting a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s popular Bondi Beach on the first night of Hanukkah, in which at least 15 people were killed, reignited sharp criticism of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan during the mayoral election.
“When you refuse to condemn and only ‘discourage’ use of the term ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ you help facilitate (not cause) the thinking that leads to Bondi Beach,” Deborah Lipstadt, a Holocaust historian and the State Department special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism in the Biden administration, wrote on X in a post addressed to Mamdani.
Police said a father and son were behind the mass shooting in Australia, with authorities adding that they would need more time to determine a motive.
Mamdani, a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, faced fierce backlash during the Democratic primary for defending the slogan used by some at the pro-Palestinian protests and perceived by many as a call for violence against Jews. After his surprise primary victory in June, Mamdani clarified that he understood why the phrase alarmed people and noted that it was not language he personally uses, but he declined to explicitly condemn it.
He later said he would “discourage” the use of that phrase after hearing from Jewish leaders who experienced the bus bombings during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
Lipstadt included a link to a June Politico article detailing Mamdani’s initial refusal to condemn the slogan.
Rabbi David Wolpe, the emeritus rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and a harsh critic of Harvard’s handling of antisemitism on campus, wrote, “How about now, Mr. Mayor?” Republicans and Mamdani critics echoed the same sentiment.
New York City is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the United States.
Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams indirectly referenced the controversy during a press conference with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who Mamdani has reappointed to serve in his administration. “That attack in Sydney is exactly what it means to ‘globalize the Intifada,’” Adams said. “We saw the actual application of the globalization of the intifada in Sydney.”
Reacting to Bondi Beach attack, Mayor Eric Adams says:
“That attack in Sydney is exactly what it means to ‘globalize the Intifada.’ We saw the actual application of the globalization of the intifada in Sydney…” pic.twitter.com/3EI3IZp3Dg
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) December 14, 2025
Mamdani issued a statement on Sunday, calling the attack in Sydney a “vile act of antisemitic terror” and “the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world.” He said the deadly attack should be met with urgent action to counter antisemitism. He also reiterated his pledge to “work every day to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe — on our streets, our subways, at shul, in every moment of every day.”
A spokesperson for Mamdani didn’t immediately respond to comment on Lipstadt’s post.
In an interview aired Sunday, Mamdani responded to criticism from Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, who said after a meeting with Mamdani on Thursday that the mayor-elect’s refusal to recognize Israel specifically as a Jewish state could fuel antisemitism.
Hirsch, who also serves as president of the New York Board of Rabbis, was present at a 45-minute discussion with Mamdani as part of the mayor-elect’s outreach to Jewish leaders. Rabbi Joe Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said the conversation was “candid” and “constructive.”
“Rabbi Hirsch is entitled to his opinions,” Mamdani told CBS New York’s political reporter Marcia Kramer on her program The Point. “The positions that I’ve made clear on Israel and on Palestine, these are part of universal beliefs of equal rights and the necessity of it for all people everywhere.” He added, “My inability to say what Rabbi Hirsch would like me to say comes from a belief that every state should be of equal rights, whether we’re speaking about Israel or Saudi Arabia or anywhere in the world.”
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