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What Tucker Carlson won’t tell you about U.S. military aid to Israel
Tucker Carlson sat across from United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport and delivered a version of an argument that demagogues have recycled for centuries.
“Our country is not thriving,” Carlson said, “and we’re spending tens and tens of billions of dollars over time defending Israel.” His implication was clear: that same money could be spent fixing things at home. Why are we sending around $3.8 billion a year to a country with universal healthcare when many Americans can’t afford a dentist?
It’s a powerful line. But here’s the math Carlson doesn’t want you to do. The federal government spends roughly $7 trillion a year. We send more than $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel; that represents 0.054% of the budget. That’s approximately five cents out of every hundred dollars. The government spends the equivalent of the entire Israel aid package every five hours.
“Fine,” you might say, “but $3.8 billion is still a lot of money.” It is. But if that’s your standard, why single out this line item? After all, the government made $162 billion in improper payments last year — money sent to the wrong people, in the wrong amounts, by accident. That’s 42 times the annual aid to Israel.
If Carlson cared about fiscal responsibility, he’d be screaming about accidental overpayments, not a line item that rounds to zero. But he’s not. Because the money was never the point.
I say this not as a defender of any particular aid package. It’s legitimate for Americans to debate the merits of the U.S. sending military aid to Israel. I say this as an economist who has spent a career watching this exact rhetorical trick be deployed across the political spectrum, by politicians and pundits who know better.
What Carlson is doing is creating what’s known as a false dilemma: presenting two options as if they’re the only possibilities. Either we fund Israel’s military, or we fix our own pressing domestic problems. Pick one.
It sounds intuitive because it maps onto how households think. Each of us is used to making these daily calculations. If, say, I spend $100 going out to dinner, I can’t spend that money on groceries that would keep me fed for much longer.
But a government with a $7 trillion annual budget is not a household. We can easily conceive of how much money $100 is, and how far it will stretch. Almost none of us can readily do the same for $7 trillion.
That vast, vast sum funds thousands of programs simultaneously because it has to. Governments work in “stereo”: They have to fund defense, education, healthcare, foreign policy, disaster relief and food safety, all at once, all the time. And that’s just a fraction of the list.
The idea that we must choose between sending aid to an ally and fixing potholes in Ohio is designed to make you feel like someone is stealing from you. And it works.
Carlson knows that he’s deceiving his audience. He understands that cutting Israel aid to zero would not build a single hospital or hire a single teacher. Instead, it would most likely be redistributed within the State Department’s foreign operations budget, or shave a vanishingly miniscule amount off the huge and ever-growing U.S. budget deficit. Not exactly a game-changer for American healthcare.
He makes the argument anyway, because zero-sum thinking is one of the most powerful instincts in politics.
A recent study by some of my economics colleagues surveyed more than 20,000 Americans and found that people who see the world in zero-sum terms —where one group’s gain must come at another’s loss — are drawn to populist positions across the spectrum. On the left, they favor more economic redistribution; on the right, more immigration restrictions. The cognitive instinct is the same; only the target changes.
Both sides shamelessly overuse this tactic. Sen. Bernie Sanders, for instance, regularly plays it from the left — also, occasionally, regarding Israel. “We need health care for all Americans, not weapons for a war criminal,” he wrote on X this month, in response to a U.S. sale of arms to Israel.
Back in 2016, pro-Brexit campaigners plastered a red bus with the claim that Britain sent 350 million pounds a week to the European Union, money that should go to the National Health Service instead. The number was inflated, the trade-off was false, and Nigel Farage admitted as much the morning after the vote. But it worked: Vote Leave’s own campaign director later conceded that without the NHS claim, Remain would likely have won.
In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez built an entire movement on the premise that oil revenue spent on anything other than social programs was revenue stolen from the poor. He redirected billions from reinvestment in oil production toward social spending, starving the industry that drove the nation’s economy. When oil prices dropped, the productive economy collapsed. The social programs collapsed with it.
The honest version of Carlson’s argument — “I think military aid to Israel is not a good use of American resources, and here’s why” — could be a perfectly legitimate position. We can debate the strategic value of that aid and its humanitarian implications, as well as the proper allocation of the foreign aid budget. But by singling out this one-line item and building an entire narrative around it, Carlson is not making a fiscal argument. He’s constructing a villain. When your obsession with government overreach zeroes in on the half of a tenth of one percent of a $7 trillion budget that goes to Israel, the argument isn’t really about the budget anymore.
“Can you feel the resentment?” Carlson asked Huckabee. “Because it’s real.” He’s right that the resentment is real. Americans are frustrated about healthcare costs, stagnant wages and crumbling infrastructure. Those frustrations deserve serious engagement.
What they don’t deserve is to be exploited. The false dilemma of us or them is shameless manipulation driven by resentment — Carlson’s word — if not something far worse.
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Leqaa Kordia, the last Palestinian Columbia protester still in ICE detention, has been released
(JTA) — Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman and the last person still detained in the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests last spring, was released from ICE custody on Monday.
Kordia’s release came weeks after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani petitioned President Donald Trump in person on her behalf. Mamdani celebrated the development in a statement.
“In my meeting with President Trump last month, we discussed ICE’s actions at Columbia University. I asked that the federal government release Leqaa Kordia and drop the cases against four others,” he tweeted. “I am grateful that Leqaa has been released this evening from ICE custody after more than a year in detention for speaking up for Palestinian rights.”
Kordia, 33, who immigrated to New Jersey from the West Bank in 2016, had been held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March after she was arrested for her involvement in a pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia in 2024. Kordia had overstayed her student visa and was never a student at Columbia.
On Friday, an immigration judge ordered her release on $100,000 bond. It was the third time that the judge had ordered her release, which was granted after the government declined to appeal.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year,” Kordia told reporters after being released from the detention center.
Kordia was among a number of people arrested last spring amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on noncitizens who had participated in anti-Israel protests, some of which drew allegations of antisemitism, on university campuses.
Among those arrested was Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate whose release Mamdani also called for. Earlier this month, Khalil broke the Ramadan fast at Gracie Mansion with Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji. Duwaji, whose pro-Palestinian social media posts have increasingly drawn scrutiny, also celebrated Kordia’s release on Instagram.
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For the first time ever, NBA game features 3 Jews — Deni Avdija, Danny Wolf and Ben Saraf
(JTA) — BROOKLYN — The Barclays Center had the energy of a bar mitzvah party on Monday night, as kippah-clad basketball fans and kids waving posters with Hebrew words of encouragement came to cheer on an NBA first: a game featuring three Jewish players — all Israeli citizens.
The Brooklyn Nets were hosting the Portland Trail Blazers — whose forward Deni Avdija recently became the first Israeli All-Star in the league.
He joined Danny Wolf and Ben Saraf, two Jewish players who have galvanized the Nets’ Jewish fanbase since joining the team this year. Saraf was raised in Israel and got his start in basketball there, while Wolf grew up in Illinois and secured Israeli citizenship to play for Team Israel in international competitions.
Avdija, who normally averages about 25 points per game, struggled to find a rhythm on Monday night, as did Wolf, who has intrigued scouts with the ball handling skills of a point guard despite his nearly 7-foot height. But Saraf impressed, scoring 15 points and notching four assists and four steals in 24 minutes of play.
Saraf’s efforts were not enough to buoy his team, though, and the Nets lost to the Trail Blazers, 114-95.
That hardly dimmed the enthusiasm of the crowd, who thrilled at seeing Avdija and Saraf hug on the court before the game and exchange jerseys after the game in a show of respect and friendship.
Some draped in shawls printed with a fusion of the Israeli and American flags lingered court-side for a chance to get Avdija’s attention. At times when the game was quiet, some fans could be heard shouting “Deni! Deni!” Some wore hats with “Brooklyn Nets” spelled in Hebrew.
Avdija said in a postgame press conference that he had been surprised to see the arena sold out and that the energy reminded him of the Menora arena when he played for Maccabi Tel Aviv.
“I haven’t fully processed it yet,” he said about the significance of having three Israelis on the court. “It’s tough that many people from Israel couldn’t come because of the war. I hope everyone is okay. Representing on the biggest stage — it’s emotional for me and for many others. One of the most fun nights I’ve had.”
Saraf, too, said the game was a highlight for him.
“A very emotional night. It’s too bad that we lost, but it’s bigger than that. The number of Jewish and Israeli fans here — when Deni was introduced, the whole crowd stood up. Every basket, it was emotional for me, for Danny Wolf, for everyone. It was a big event.”
He added, “Three Israelis on the court at the same time was something very special.”
It is possible that the trio represents not just all of the Israeli citizens but all of the Jews currently playing in the NBA. A fourth player was reportedly exploring converting to Judaism, but he has not publicly disclosed whether he completed a conversion.
The previous record for number of Israelis in an NBA game was two. It came on Oct. 30, 2023, when Omri Casspi and the Houston Rockets played the Dallas Mavericks and Gal Mekel, whom the Mavs had recently picked up, made his debut with the team. They were the first and second Israelis in the NBA.
The game also appears to tie the league record for the number of Jews in a single game, set on Nov. 10, 1953. In that game, Dolph Schayes scored 11 points for the Syracuse Nationals, while Irv Bemoras and Red Holzman both took the court for the Milwaukee Hawks.
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Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary on the manosphere takes a detour into antisemitism
“LOUIS IS A DIRTY J-E-W.”
This comment features during Inside the Manosphere, a new Netflix documentary from Louis Theroux, during a conversation between Theroux and podcaster Myron Gaines, host of Fresh and Fit Podcast.
It’s not the only time someone calls Theroux a Jew; Harrison Sullivan imitates Theroux, tenting his fingers conspiratorially and leering as he says the documentarian “just sat there with his Jew fingers.”
Theroux, however, is not Jewish. He has also made several edgy documentary specials for the BBC interviewing extremist settler groups in Israel, which have received acclaim from Israel’s critics and hostility from its supporters. And either way, the focus on Theroux’s supposed Jewishness seems off topic for a documentary on the manosphere, the generalized term for the world of podcasters, YouTubers and online streamers who cater to men.
The manosphere includes both mainstream creators like Joe Rogan as well as extremists like Andrew Tate, who was arrested in Romania for sex trafficking. Most creators in this world are anti-LGBTQ and endorse traditional gender roles, often familiar stuff about how women should be the primary caregivers for children and men should be breadwinners. Sometimes, however, on the fringes of this world, there are more extreme beliefs, like that women should not have the right to vote or need to be hit as a form of discipline by men; there are even open endorsements of rape.
Theroux spends most of the documentary talking to a few of the more extreme figures in the manosphere, including Gaines, the streamer Sneako, and Sullivan, who goes by the cringe handle of HSTikkyTokky. He follows them to their gyms, meets their girlfriends and watches as they produce content, largely by accosting people — mostly young women — on the street to slut-shame them. He speaks to the adoring young men who greet them in public. He gently asks follow-up questions, such as whether they all hate women. (The content creators, to a man, insist they love women, offering as proof their desire to have sex with as many of them as possible.) He wonders aloud whether young men can actually make any money off of the get-rich-quick courses hawked by many of the manosphere influencers.
Still, none of this obviously connects to antisemitism. The manosphere generally directs its ire at women, not Jews. Why, then, was Theroux accused — because it is, clearly, an accusation — of being a Jew?
In the current world of online extremism, it can sometimes be difficult to draw connections between different extremist ideologies. There’s not a clear throughline between antisemitism and the violent misogyny of, say, incel, (involuntary celibate) forums. Nor is there an obvious connection between the pseudoscientific skepticism of the anti-vax world and hatred of Jews. And giving disillusioned young men advice on how to be more manly and succeed in the world — or at least grifting off of their desire to do so — has little to do with Jews.
But for the most part, the main reason antisemitism springs up in the manosphere or in other extremist spaces is simply because it, too, is an extremist belief, and beliefs on the fringes tend to bleed into each other. There are sometimes distorted ideas that can connect the two, like an offshoot of the age-old antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews control world governments, which feeds into some anti-vax groups who believe that Jews are unleashing secret poison in the form of vaccines. But once you’ve decided one crazy thing is true, like that women are biologically only suited to be the property of men, so many other seemingly crazy things start sounding just as reasonable.
The comment about Theroux being a Jew came when he objected to a bit of pseudoscience Gaines presented during Fresh and Fit Podcast, asserting that women retain DNA from every man they’ve had sex with, genetic material they then pass on to children they have with a different partner. Theroux called this misinformation — because it is — and users in the chat trashed him by calling him a Jew.
Later in the documentary, Sneako gave an unprompted rant on camera about the Antichrist, Satanic symbols on magazines in a store window and the “one world government” causing it all, which, the influencer says, was started by the Rothschilds. Theroux finally pushed on the antisemitism.
“Is it Jewish in character?” he asked. “Because that does have some of the hallmarks of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.”
Sneako denied that a Rothschild-run world government had anything to do with Jews. But plenty of other influencers — including, outside the documentary, Sneako himself — have been more open. “Fuck the Jews,” HSTikkyTokky chants in a clip. In others, manosphere creators blame Jews for “feminism,” “homosexuality,” and “vibrations that are going to negatively bring you down.”
Theroux’s signature mild British mien allows him to blandly ask questions and let the influencers say whatever they want and allows the audience to observe alongside him.
He does little to explain either the antisemitism or the misogyny. That’s a strength; conspiracy theories do not operate by logic, and trying to force them into a rational framework can backfire, allowing proponents to proffer their own evidence, however faulty.
Antisemitism is an age-old hatred. Misogyny is nothing new either. That’s all they have in common. But as Inside the Manosphere shows, that’s enough for both to spread.
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