Huckabee defended his record, pushed back on several of Carlson\u2019s characterizations, and offered what he called a faith-based case for the US-Israel relationship. Not all claims made during the exchange stood up to scrutiny.<\/p>\n
Tucker Carlson during a visit to Israel. (credit: X\/@TuckerCarlson)<\/p>\n
Former Fox News anchor Melissa Francis, who told the Post she helped facilitate the sit-down, said Carlson had tried to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through intermediaries but was rebuffed.<\/p>\n
Author and political theorist Yoram Hazony told Carlson it \u201cwould not be in his political interest to meet with you,\u201d according to Carlson\u2019s account. Francis said Netanyahu \u201cwas not interested.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carlson’s monologue before the interview<\/strong><\/p>\n Carlson preceded the sit-down with a 25-minute monologue in which he laid out his case against Israel, the embassy, and Huckabee personally.<\/p>\n After critics noted Carlson had flown in by private jet, he addressed it in his monologue, saying he had chartered the aircraft \u201cwhich I never do because I\u2019m cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlson filmed the promotional video for his 2024 interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin from the rooftop of the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow. He owns three homes, including two waterfront properties on Gasparilla Island, purchased for a combined $8.4 million. His stepmother is an heiress to the Swanson frozen-food fortune.<\/p>\n In the monologue, Carlson called Israel \u201cprobably the most violent country in the world\u201d based on the number of citizens who have \u201cheld a gun or shot someone\u201d \u2013 conflating mandatory military service with criminal violence in a country whose homicide rate is a fraction of Honduras, Venezuela, or South Africa, and which the 2025 Global Peace Index ranks above Russia, Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Syria.<\/p>\n He put the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States at \u201c60 million\u201d \u2013 three to six times higher than any credible estimate \u2013 and called Israel \u201ca police state\u201d where \u201cthey put software on your phone,\u201d overstating the documented use of NSO Group\u2019s Pegasus spyware, which has targeted specific individuals rather than visitors broadly.<\/p>\n Pollard, embassy meeting<\/strong><\/p>\n The interview opened with Carlson confronting Huckabee over his meetings with Jonathan Pollard, the former US Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel in the 1980s.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone I\u2019ve talked to in preparation for this has said the same thing: Jonathan Pollard,\u201d Carlson said.<\/p>\n He called Pollard \u201cthe greatest traitor in modern American history\u201d and said he had sold \u201cour battle plans against the Soviet Union\u201d to Israel, which, according to Reagan-era CIA director William Casey, then passed the intelligence to the Soviets.<\/p>\n Pollard\u2019s case is among the most damaging espionage cases in US history, though intelligence professionals have debated whether Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen \u2013 both of whom spied for the Soviet Union and whose espionage led to the deaths of US agents \u2013 caused greater damage.<\/p>\n Former CIA director James Woolsey noted that Pollard \u201cdid not get anybody killed and was not spying for an enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n The declassified CIA Damage Assessment found that Israel\u2019s intelligence requests to Pollard focused on regional intelligence \u2013 information on Arab states, Pakistan, and Soviet weapons systems \u2013 rather than US war plans against Moscow.<\/p>\n The claim that Israel passed Pollard\u2019s intelligence to the Soviets, first reported by Seymour Hersh, has never been proven. Israel denies it.<\/p>\n Carlson then raised Pollard\u2019s 2021 interview with Israel Hayom<\/a>, in which Pollard said \u201call Jews should have dual loyalty\u201d and told young Jewish Americans with security clearances that \u201cnot doing anything is unacceptable\u201d and that loyalty to Israel should be \u201cmore important than your life.\u201d<\/p>\n Those remarks were widely reported and condemned.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you see why the US ambassador hosting a convicted betrayer of his own country who\u2019s encouraging Americans to continue to betray their country would seem shocking?\u201d Carlson asked.<\/p>\n Huckabee said Pollard had visited the embassy at his own request after Huckabee sent condolences when Pollard\u2019s wife died. \u201cI think we met for maybe 30 minutes. We had a nice, pleasant visit,\u201d Huckabee said.<\/p>\n He pointed out that the meeting was hardly clandestine. \u201cTucker, if you\u2019ve ever been to the US embassy, you would know there\u2019s no such thing as a secret meeting at the US embassy. There are cameras everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cI did. And frankly, I don\u2019t regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n Huckabee also said Pollard had been \u201csentenced to 30 years.\u201d Pollard was, in fact, sentenced to life in prison. He served approximately 30 years before being paroled in November 2015.<\/p>\n Carlson to Huckabee: ‘That is calling for genocide’<\/strong><\/p>\n The interview\u2019s most intense exchange concerned what Netanyahu said on the eve of war.<\/p>\n On October 28, 2023, as the ground invasion of Gaza<\/a> began, the prime minister addressed IDF soldiers in a televised speech. \u201cYou must remember what Amalek has done to you,\u201d he said, quoting Deuteronomy 25:17.<\/p>\n Carlson walked Huckabee through 1 Samuel 15, in which God commands the Israelites to \u201ckill the men, kill the women, kill the children, kill the infants, kill the donkeys, kill the camels, kill everything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is genocide,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cGod is calling for the genocide of the Amalekites. And the prime minister of Israel described the Palestinians in Gaza as Amalek. That\u2019s calling for genocide. And you know that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI totally disagree,\u201d Huckabee said, adding that he did not know whether it was \u201can illustrative metaphor.\u201d<\/p>\n Huckabee then made a point that went to the heart of the accusation: \u201cBecause if Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could have done it in two-and-a-half hours.\u201d Israel possesses one of the most powerful military forces in the Middle East. His argument rested on the premise that if the intent had been total destruction, Israel had the capacity to do so long ago.<\/p>\n Carlson pressed further: \u201cWhen you say that at the outset of a war, and then you wind up with massive civilian casualties\u2026 then I have to ask you, what is that? And is that kind of thinking consistent with Western values and with Christianity? Do we as Christians believe it\u2019s okay to kill people\u2019s children?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, we don\u2019t,\u201d Huckabee said. \u201cAnd neither do the Israelis, because they didn\u2019t go after their children.\u201d<\/p>\n The Prime Minister\u2019s Office has stressed that the verse Netanyahu quoted \u2013 a commandment to remember, from Deuteronomy \u2013 is not the more violent passage Carlson cited. The phrase appears on Holocaust memorials and at Yad Vashem, and Israel\u2019s legal team at the International Court of Justice described it as a standard Jewish commemorative expression about antisemitic violence, calling South Africa\u2019s use of it in its genocide case a \u201cgrave distortion.\u201d<\/p>\n The Amalek reference has been used throughout Jewish history as a typology for existential threats, most commonly applied to the Nazis. The rabbinical consensus is that Amalek no longer exists as a people and cannot be identified with any modern group.<\/p>\n The sharpest confrontation came when the conversation turned to civilian casualties and the IDF. Carlson asked how many civilians had been killed in Gaza. Huckabee said the only available numbers come from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which he called \u201cdubious.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow many kids were killed?\u201d Carlson asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. I\u2019m sure it was thousands. And it\u2019s thousands too many,\u201d Huckabee said.<\/p>\n The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has reported over 17,000 children killed since October 7, 2023. Those figures have not been independently verified, and Israel has repeatedly questioned the ministry\u2019s methodology and its failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians.<\/p>\n Huckabee defended the IDF, saying the military sends text messages, drops leaflets, and makes phone calls before strikes. \u201cNobody does that. The US doesn\u2019t do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Carlson seized on the comparison. \u201cYour dig at the United States is very revealing,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause your priorities are very clear. As an American, permit me a moment of outrage. I said many civilians have been killed, and you said right in the middle of your elaborate defense of the IDF\u2019s killing of civilians, including children, you said they do a better job than the United States does. That\u2019s my country and my government.\u201d<\/p>\n Huckabee responded by pointing to his flag pin: \u201cWhat flag am I wearing here?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, that\u2019s, of course, my flag as well,\u201d Carlson said.<\/p>\n When Carlson pushed Huckabee to cite numbers supporting his claim that the IDF had achieved a lower civilian casualty ratio than any army in modern urban warfare, Huckabee could not.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t know the numbers, do you?\u201d Carlson said.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the conversations that I\u2019ve had with the people who fought there,\u201d Huckabee said. \u201cI don\u2019t have the exact numbers for you.\u201d<\/p>\n The IDF\u2019s warning system \u2013 phone calls, text messages, leaflets, roof-knocking, and daily evacuation maps \u2013 is well documented and widely regarded as unprecedented in scale. The US military has used similar tactics, including leaflet drops and broadcast warnings, but less frequently and not at the systematic level that has become standard IDF practice.<\/p>\n ‘Terror kids’ and live ammunition<\/strong><\/p>\n In Huckabee\u2019s description of child casualties, he said, \u201cSome of the kids who were killed had been recruited to be in the military. Kids as young as 14 years old. They were terror kids.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you hear yourself?\u201d Carlson replied.<\/p>\n Carlson later returned to the exchange: \u201cYou told me that 14-year-olds deserve to die, because they\u2019re working for Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re putting words in my mouth,\u201d Huckabee said. \u201cI never said deserve to die.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo do you think a 14-year-old child has agency?\u201d Carlson asked. \u201cDo you think that he deserves to die, because he\u2019s being used by adults? Isn\u2019t his death a crushing tragedy?\u201d<\/p>\n Hamas has run military training camps for children and has been implicated in attacks carried out by minors, according to UN reports and international monitoring organizations. The recruitment of children under 15 into armed groups constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute, and international law treats recruited children as victims \u2013 not combatants.<\/p>\n Carlson also pressed Huckabee on the use of live ammunition near aid distribution sites. \u201cAre you okay with using live ammunition at aid distribution sites for families, women, and children?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Huckabee said: \u201cVery rarely did this happen near aid distribution sites.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow about at all?\u201d Carlson replied. \u201cAre you okay with that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Huckabee answered.<\/p>\n What has actually happened near Gaza\u2019s aid distribution points remains sharply disputed. The IDF has said troops fired warning shots at suspects who deviated from designated routes, away from the sites themselves.<\/p>\n The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, has denied that gunfire occurred at its distribution centers. Hamas has accused the IDF of firing on civilians seeking food \u2013 a claim Israel denies.<\/p>\n Fugitive sex offenders? ‘Send him back’<\/strong><\/p>\n Carlson then shifted to leverage. \u201cWe\u2019re obviously the single largest source of outside funding for this country,\u201d he said \u2013 a statement that is true of military aid, though almost all of it flows back to US defense contractors rather than funding Israel\u2019s domestic budget.<\/p>\n He pressed Huckabee on what he described as \u201cdozens and dozens\u201d of accused sex offenders from the United States who had fled to Israel, citing the recent case of Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a senior Israel National Cyber Directorate official arrested in a Las Vegas sting in August 2025 on charges of soliciting a minor online, who posted bail and returned to Israel without surrendering his passport.<\/p>\n The broader issue is well documented. A CBS News investigation and Jewish Community Watch, an American Jewish organization founded by Orthodox abuse survivors, tracked over 60 such cases between 2014 and 2020, prompting Israel to require FBI background checks for immigrating Americans.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it would fall to you to advocate with your friend, the prime minister,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cHow can you take an accused child molester and shield him from American justice? Send him back to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere has never been a request for me to engage in that,\u201d Huckabee said. \u201cI would be happy to do it if the White House sent a message to me.\u201d<\/p>\n On the principle, Huckabee was careful. \u201cIt\u2019s an allegation. Let\u2019s be clear. One thing about our system of jurisprudence is that you\u2019re innocent until proven guilty. But if charges exist, should he be extradited? I would say so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Epstein, Herzog, and Barak<\/strong><\/p>\n Carlson did not ease up when the conversation moved to Jeffrey Epstein. He told Huckabee that President Isaac Herzog \u201capparently was at Pedo Island.\u201d<\/p>\n The accusation hangs on a single name \u2013 \u201cHerzog\u201d \u2013 that appears in a 2014 email buried among more than 3 million pages of Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice on January 30, 2026. No major investigative outlet has confirmed that this refers to the Israeli president, let alone verified a visit. The release is so vast that much of it remains unreviewed.<\/p>\n Huckabee did not engage. \u201cI haven\u2019t kept up with that,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve never met the man. I don\u2019t know him.\u201d<\/p>\n Former prime minister Ehud Barak\u2019s connections to Epstein are more extensively documented, including multiple island visits confirmed by scheduling records and photographs reviewed by the Post.<\/p>\n Christians, Law of Return, and spitting<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the interview\u2019s quieter but more substantive threads concerned the status of Christians in Israel \u2013 a subject Carlson has made central to his recent coverage.<\/p>\n In his February \u201cChristian Persecution\u201d episode, as the Post previously reported, Carlson claimed that Christians in Israel are \u201cfar fewer in absolute numbers\u201d than when the state was founded.<\/p>\n Data from Israel\u2019s Central Bureau of Statistics shows the opposite: The Christian population has grown from approximately 34,000 in 1949 to around 185,000 today.<\/p>\n On the Law of Return, Carlson was on firmer ground. Ethnic Jews who convert to Christianity are ineligible for automatic citizenship under established Israeli case law.<\/p>\n Huckabee said he personally knows Messianic Jews who have made aliyah \u2013 some have, through spousal or grandchild provisions \u2013 but the legal position is clear.<\/p>\n Carlson also raised Israel\u2019s 1977 Penal Law restricting inducements for religious conversion, and incidents of ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting on Christian clergy in Jerusalem\u2019s Old City \u2013 incidents the Post has reported on extensively, including arrests, an emergency academic conference, and a pledge from Netanyahu of \u201czero tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n Huckabee did not hedge. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t happen. It\u2019s horrible,\u201d he said, comparing it to antisemitic attacks in New York.<\/p>\n But he drew on five decades of personal experience: \u201cI\u2019ve been coming in and out of Jerusalem and Israel for 50, well, soon to be 53 years. Before I came as an ambassador, I made over 100 trips here. I\u2019ve never been spat on.\u201d<\/p>\n Shadi Khalloul told the Post<\/a> separately that the spitting incidents are perpetrated by a \u201cfanatic, tiny minority\u201d and are \u201cpunished when reported.\u201d He said Carlson was \u201ctotally wrong\u201d about the broader Christian experience in Israel.<\/p>\n And it was on this subject \u2013 Arab and minority citizens \u2013 that Huckabee landed what may have been his strongest moment in the interview.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you realize there are lots of Arab Israelis? They vote. They serve in the Knesset. They serve on the Supreme Court,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd did you know that it was an Arab who sentenced a former president and prime minister to prison?\u201d<\/p>\n Judge George Karra, an Arab Christian Israeli, convicted president Moshe Katsav of rape in 2010 and was later appointed to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n Justice Salim Joubran sat on the panel that upheld both Katsav\u2019s conviction and former prime minister Ehud Olmert\u2019s corruption conviction. It was a rare moment in the interview where Huckabee offered a fact that needed no qualification.<\/p>\n US aid, Iran, and free abortion<\/strong><\/p>\n The final stretch of the interview turned to money, and the question of what America gets for it.<\/p>\n The Council on Foreign Relations reports that since October 7, 2023, the United States has provided at least $16.3 billion in direct military aid to Israel. The Quincy Institute estimates the total at $21.7 billion, including additional arms transfers.<\/p>\n Huckabee claimed the return on investment is \u201c400 to 1,200 percent\u201d \u2013 a figure common in pro-Israel advocacy but not easily traced to an independent analysis.<\/p>\n Carlson tried an angle clearly aimed at Huckabee\u2019s Evangelical base: Israel provides universal healthcare and state-funded abortion. \u201cWhy would we send any money to a country that provides free abortion?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause the money that we send does not pay for healthcare. It does not pay for abortion. It pays for military things,\u201d Huckabee said.<\/p>\n When approaching the Iran situation, the two men talked past each other. Carlson accused Netanyahu of pushing America toward regime change in Iran for decades.<\/p>\n Netanyahu has long publicly opposed Iran\u2019s nuclear program<\/a>, and during the June 2025 war suggested regime change \u201ccould certainly be the result\u201d of Israel\u2019s strikes \u2013 though his government simultaneously said it was not a goal of the operation.<\/p>\n Huckabee argued that Iran is America\u2019s enemy regardless of what Israel wants, citing the IRGC\u2019s designation as a foreign terrorist organization, Iranian plots to assassinate President Donald Trump, and Tehran\u2019s funding of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis \u2013 all confirmed by the US State Department.<\/p>\n Neither man conceded the other\u2019s framing.<\/p>\n The airport incident<\/strong><\/p>\n What happened after the cameras stopped became the trip\u2019s most publicly contested element.<\/p>\n Carlson told The Daily Mail that producers were taken into separate rooms, questioned about the interview\u2019s content, and he was told twice to \u201cleave your guy behind.\u201d<\/p>\n Both the Israel Airports Authority and Huckabee disputed the account, saying the group was asked routine security questions in accordance with standard procedures.<\/p>\nU.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during an interview with Reuters in Jerusalem, September 10, 2025. (credit: REUTERS\/Ronen Zvulun)What flag am I wearing here?<\/strong><\/p>\n