{"id":101594,"date":"2026-05-07T02:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T02:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/101594\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T02:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T02:05:14","slug":"fighting-for-attention-podcasters-are-stoking-outrage-against-israel-and-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/101594\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting for attention, podcasters are stoking outrage against Israel and Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several days ago, the many fans of Hasan Piker could watch the controversial left-wing anti-Zionist streamer for eight hours and 18 minutes straight<\/a>, as he discussed the Iran war, cracks in US President Donald Trump\u2019s voter base and, of course, Israel.<\/p>\n

Much of the back half of the segment comprised an interview with, and rally for, Cori Bush, the anti-Israel former Democratic congresswoman from St. Louis now running to regain her seat. Pro-Israel groups spent millions to defeat Bush in 2024<\/a>; on Friday, Piker told Bush supporters from the stage that Israel had worked to \u201csubvert the democratic process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, the New York Times published a nearly two-hour interview<\/a> with Tucker Carlson, the controversial right-wing anti-Israel podcaster. The interview focused largely on his views on Israel and the Jews.<\/p>\n

Carlson claimed that Trump was being held \u201chostage\u201d by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u201cand by his many advocates in the United States.\u201d He denied, as he often does, that he\u2019s an antisemite. He also said he doesn\u2019t know what the \u201cProtocols of the Elders of Zion\u201d is.<\/p>\n

Two days before that, he posted a two-hour video of his own<\/a> in which he interviewed Marjorie Taylor Greene, the anti-Israel Republican former congresswoman who once shared a video<\/a> claiming \u201cZionist supremacists\u201d were seeking to replace Europe\u2019s white population with migrants. Carlson has also promoted a version of that conspiracy theory<\/a>, called \u201cThe Great Replacement.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In his own monologue, Carlson railed against \u201cpeople who pushed us into regime change war with Iran.\u201d He added, \u201cThose same people are also the ones, literally the same people, who are pushing the United States to continue to allow the rest of the world to move here.\u201d One of those people, he added, is Rep. Mike Lawler, \u201cthe sponsor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, or something to that effect, a censorship bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tMegyn Kelly (left) interviews Tucker Carlson on her show the day before the outbreak of the war with Iran, February 27, 2026. Both former Fox News hosts, they now each run eponymous companies and have been harsh critics of Israel. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n

If this all feels head-spinning, it is. It\u2019s also become the norm for political commentary and discourse online, including from politicians themselves. And it\u2019s feeding the never-ending debate in the US about Israel and Jews.<\/p>\n

A race for attention with no guardrails<\/p>\n

Some of the most influential commentators \u2014 Carlson, Piker, Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly \u2014 have audiences of millions who tune in online several times a week to hear them talk, unfiltered, for hours on end.<\/p>\n

One of their favorite ways to fill these hours is by holding forth on Israel. By now, their views on the Jewish state, its military actions since October 7, 2023, its treatment of the Palestinians, and its influence on the US are well known (with the possible exception of Rogan, who\u2019s more eclectic).<\/p>\n

But they keep talking about it, rehashing their almost uniformly negative opinions time and again.\u00a0 That, in turn, spawns a secondary round of discourse about what they said, whether it was antisemitic and how it fits into US politics today.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just because Israel is always in the news. It\u2019s also because it\u2019s a subject that\u2019s easy to generate outrage over.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s media economy \u2014 with seemingly infinite podcasts, streams, cable channels and publications to choose from \u2014 it\u2019s increasingly hard to hold people\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

Pundits have long kept listeners hooked by being outrageous (think Rush Limbaugh). Today, the podcasters who have built loyal audiences are often the ones who stream and post constantly \u2014 and who can punctuate their hours-long episodes with shocking or provocative things that make their followers\u2019 ears perk up, and that generate shareable clips on social media.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tPanelists, from left, Jon Lovett, of \u2018Pod Save America,\u2019 Jessica Tarlov, co-host of Fox News\u2019 \u2018The Five,\u2019 Tim Miller, of \u2018The Bulwark Podcast,\u2019 Hasan Piker, and Symone Sanders Townsend, co-host of MSNBC\u2019s \u2018The Weeknight,\u2019 speak during Crooked Con, November 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe winners of the attention wars today are typically people who said some outrageous things in the past \u2014 or are still saying them in the present,\u201d the New York Times columnist and podcaster Ezra Klein, who himself puts out hour-long episodes every few days, wrote in a recent column<\/a> defending Piker.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re dealing with podcasters or streamers who talk, unstructured and unrehearsed, for hours each week, if not every day, there\u2019s going to be so much said that it\u2019s almost inevitable that a dossier of dumb statements can be compiled,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no obligation to \u2018separate\u2019 myself from anyone. I run my own media company and my own show.<\/p>\n

Not too long ago, those outrageous statements were liable to get a talk show host fired. As recently as 2023, Carlson was axed<\/a> from his popular nighttime spot on Fox News after a litany of offensive comments.\n<\/p>\n

But the guardrails have fallen. Carlson now runs an independent, eponymous network that gets more views<\/a> than his Fox show. He can no longer be fired, no matter whom he insults. Piker streams on the gaming platform Twitch, not on cable news. And their audience, listening in the privacy of their cars, homes and AirPods, face little social cost for tuning in to antisemitic or anti-Israel content.<\/p>\n

Kelly is another former Fox News star who\u2019s since gone independent. In a post<\/a> on X last year about why she wouldn\u2019t disavow Carlson or the far-right antisemitic influencer Candace Owens, she wrote, \u201cI have no obligation to \u2018separate\u2019 myself from anyone. I run my own media company and my own show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Politicians who post<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just podcasters and streamers who are always posting. For the past decade or more, it\u2019s also been politicians.<\/p>\n

Trump, who has been able to understand, leverage and shape America\u2019s media ecosystem more than almost anyone, is his own unending content stream. He posts throughout the day on Truth Social, swaying the future of the Iran war and other world events. When he isn\u2019t doing that, it seems, he\u2019s giving ubiquitous interviews to the media or holding press gaggles.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tUS Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at a town hall at the Franco Center in Lewiston, Maine, on October 15, 2025. (Libby Kenny\/Sun Journal via AP)<\/p>\n

Politicians\u2019 social media activity, past and present, has been regularly scrutinized for many years now, and the most recent person to have that spotlight shone on him is Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, a staunch critic of Israel who has faced blowback for a Nazi tattoo, his past praise online<\/a> for Hamas\u2019s military maneuvers, and a series of controversial remarks<\/a>, including one suggesting women\u2019s choices were responsible for sexual assault they endured.<\/p>\n

Trump won two presidential elections despite (or perhaps because of) his crude and unfiltered social media presence. And Platner\u2019s internet history hasn\u2019t hurt him yet; he\u2019s now the presumptive Democratic nominee<\/a> in a blue state ahead of an election expected to be a wave for his party.<\/p>\n

In the era of nonstop posting and streaming, politicians as well as podcasters have come to each other\u2019s defense. Some Democratic officials have disavowed Piker owing to his praise for Hamas and antisemitic statements he\u2019s made (he has expressed regret for calling ultra-Orthodox Jews \u201cinbred,\u201d and says he condemns antisemitism<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But many other politicians will go on his show or, like Bush, invite him to their rallies. Carlson spoke at the 2024 Republican convention<\/a> and, before a recent break with Trump, was a repeat visitor to the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

Part of the same tribe<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t surprising that Democratic-aligned commentators, like Klein or the popular show Pod Save America, have invited Piker on or defended him. They all differ in their views (including on Israel), but all are fundamentally part of the same tribe of liberal-progressive podcasters, so it makes sense that they would defend each other\u2019s prerogative to stay on the air.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tTwitch streamer Hasan Piker interviews Zohran Mamdani during his New York City mayoral campaign, April 7, 2025. (Screenshot via YouTube\/ via JTA)<\/p>\n

The same dynamic is visible on the right. Kelly has taken heat several times for refusing to condemn Carlson<\/a>. And in a defense of their friendship, she pointed to one of the roots of the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love him, we\u2019re friends,\u201d she said last October<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s an antisemite at all. I don\u2019t listen to all of Tucker\u2019s shows\u2026. I don\u2019t have that many hours in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pundits aren\u2019t only defending each other, but politicians as well. Pod Save America host Jon Favreau has defended Platner on X, calling him<\/a> \u201ca good, decent man who\u2019s struggled and grown and is always trying to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now it is also traversing ideological boundaries \u2014 especially among people who disagree on almost every issue but agree on their opposition to Israel.<\/p>\n

In his New York Times interview, Carlson praised Platner with an allusion to his Israel policy: \u201cI certainly appreciate his foreign policy views,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I appreciate how different they are from everybody else in his party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tDonald Trump (left) speaks with Tucker Carlson during a Tucker Carlson Live Tour show at Desert Diamond Arena, October 31, 2024, in Glendale, Arizona. (AP Photo\/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)<\/p>\n

Later, Platner was asked<\/a> if he\u2019d go on Carlson\u2019s show.\u00a0 \u201cI am struggling with this one,\u201d he said. He reciprocated Carlson\u2019s praise, saying, \u201cThere are elements around foreign policy where there is this very serious shift happening\u2026 He came out and said he was against the war in Iran on moral grounds. That\u2019s a stronger statement on the war in Iran than a lot of sitting Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he also pushed back on Carlson\u2019s conspiratorial views.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should be critical of the Israeli government,\u201d he said. \u201cYou should also recognize that the United States still retains an immense amount of power in that relationship. You should not have this kind of like, \u2018Oh no, America is controlled by the Israelis\u2019\u2026.\u00a0 We can\u2019t leave the door open for what are clearly just antisemitic conspiracy theories.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least one person thought Platner should sit for an interview with the far-right Carlson: Piker, the far-left streamer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe should absolutely do Tucker,\u201d Piker posted<\/a>. \u201cIt makes no sense not to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several days ago, the many fans of Hasan Piker could watch the controversial left-wing anti-Zionist streamer for eight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[27634,33858,22475,37,475,3717,4056],"class_list":{"0":"post-101594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-2023-2025-israel-hamas-war","9":"tag-graham-platner","10":"tag-hasan-piker","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-tucker-carlson","14":"tag-us-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116530847695228305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}