Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
Tucker Carlson has finally reduced his version of “America First” to its revealing proposition: an American politician who supports the State of Israel must be presumed to be serving the State of Israel rather than the United States of America.
Appearing with podcaster Saagar Enjeti, Carlson savaged Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for the United States Senate from Michigan. Carlson declared that he would not vote for Rogers “at gunpoint,” characterized him as a tool of the State of Israel and the intelligence agencies, and suggested that he should be kept far away from political power. Carlson and Enjeti then spoke approvingly of Rogers’s Democrat opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, a physician born in Uganda, whose campaign Enjeti described as almost “Trumpian” because it opposes foreign military assistance and clothes progressive policies in the language of “America First.”
This was not a political analysis. It was character assassination masquerading as populism. Mike Rogers is not an Israeli official, an agent of a foreign government, or an ideological adventurer demanding that Americans sacrifice themselves for somebody else’s country. He is an American veteran, a former FBI agent, a former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and a politician who believes that the State of Israel is a valuable ally. One may disagree with particular Israeli policies, American military assistance, Benyamin Netanyahu, or the conduct of the war in Gaza. Those are legitimate subjects of democratic debate. Yet, Carlson did not seriously debate them. He questioned Rogers’s loyalty.
That distinction matters. To call an American politician a “Tool of Israel” is not merely to criticize his judgment. It insinuates that his allegiance has been purchased, captured, or transferred. It places support for the Jewish state under a presumption of corruption, while treating hostility toward the State of Israel as evidence of patriotic independence. This is an intellectually dishonest standard that Carlson does not apply consistently to any other alliance. Would he call every advocate of NATO a “Tool of Europe?” Is every supporter of Taiwan a “Tool of Taipei?” Is every politician who favors Ukraine’s survival a Ukrainian agent? Curiously, Carlson reserves his ugliest language for those who defend the State of Israel.
The contrast with Abdul El-Sayed is especially disturbing. El-Sayed has called the State of Israel a “rogue state,” accused it of genocide and apartheid, and repeatedly declined to give a direct answer when asked whether the State of Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. He has also associated politically with Hasan Piker, the extremist internet personality whom Rogers has described as both antisemitic and anti-American. Carlson apparently regards these facts as less disqualifying than Rogers’s support for a democratic ally.
This exposes the hollowness of Carlson’s “America First” formula. In his hands, it no longer means judging every foreign commitment by the concrete benefit to the United States of America. It means praising almost anyone who opposes the State of Israel and condemning almost anyone who supports it. “America First” becomes not a strategic doctrine, but an ideological solvent – one capable of transforming a progressive Democrat into an honorary “Trumpian,” while turning a Republican national-security veteran into a suspected foreign instrument.
There is, moreover, a profound difference between restraint and abandonment. A prudent American foreign policy should resist unnecessary wars, demand accountability for foreign assistance, and refuse to give any ally a blank check. Yet, strategic restraint does not require strategic blindness. The State of Israel supplies intelligence, develops military and technological capabilities, opposes the Islamic Republic of Iran’s terrorist regime, and remains one of the few durable American partners in an exceptionally hostile region. Support for the State of Israel can, therefore, rest upon American interests without requiring theological enthusiasm, or sentimental attachment.
Carlson’s assault must also be viewed against the background of his political pilgrimage to Viktor Orban, the by now decisively defeated Godfather of the Hungarian Gangsterocracy. During his 2023 visit, Carlson praised the poorest and most corrupt country in the European Union as a “fantastic country,” suggested that it preserved the normality of America, in which he had grown up, and attacked the then American Ambassador in Budapest for his legitimate criticism of the Viktor Orban’s Un-American criminal regime. Carlson, the uncompromising champion of investigative and unbiased journalism, advised his Budapest audience at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium thus: “Do not be arrogant! Do not think you know everything! Do not think you are right, and do not be so quick to judge!” Excellent advice – which Carlson might profitably follow.
Moreover, in Hungary, where the name Carlson was well known because his father was Viktor Orban’s Chief Washington, D.C. lobbyist earning tens of millions of dollars, did not investigate reality at all; he performed politically in the interest of his family. More importantly, he never disclosed to the unsuspecting viewers of his show his father’s long-standing financial dependency on the Hungarian connection. Finally, he allowed himself to be disgraced professionally by allowing an authoritarian propaganda machine to make him the official face of international legitimacy for the most tyrannical as well as corrupt regime within the European Union. In this context, he completely ignored the concentration of media power in the hands of Viktor Orban, the shamelessly ruinous robbery of Hungary by the so-called “elite,” the erosion of institutional checks, and Viktor Orban’s treacherous relationships with Moscow and Beijing. He greedily accepted Viktor Orban’s lies for Hungarian reality.
Carlson is now making the same highly reprehensible intellectual betrayal in Michigan. He sees the label “America First,” hears opposition to foreign aid, and assumes that he has discovered patriotism. He sees support for the State of Israel and assumes servility. In both cases, his moronic interpretations are substitutes for investigation. The result is particularly grotesque because Carlson presents himself as a sworn enemy of ideological conformity. Yet, he is building a conformity of his own. Under his emerging orthodoxy, conservatives are expected to prove their independence by denouncing the State of Israel, distrusting America’s intelligence institutions wholesale, excusing hostile regimes as misunderstood, and treating almost every exercise of American power as inherently corrupt. Anyone who dissents can be expelled from the populist congregation as a globalist, warmonger, intelligence asset, or foreign agent. This is not conservatism. Conservatism begins with prudence, historical memory, moral discrimination and respect for complexity of political life. Carlson increasingly offers resentment, insinuation, and theatrical absolutism.
Mike Rogers can and should be questioned about the State of Israel, intelligence policy, surveillance, war powers, and the proper limits of American commitments abroad. Yet, he deserves arguments, not smear. His support for the State of Israel does not make him less American, just as criticism of the State of Israel does not automatically make someone antisemitic or unpatriotic. The decisive question is whether a policy advances American security, American prosperity, and a defensible international order.
Carlson no longer appears to be interested in that disciplined inquiry. His political method has become dangerously simple and self-serving: elevate the adversaries of the State of Israel as courageous dissenters, and portray the State of Israel’s supporters as morally abhorrent. This is not “America First.” It is Tucker Carlson first – his prejudices, his grudges, and his appetite for depraved provocation placed above the interests of both the Republican Party and the United States of America.