Inside the Combative Carlson–Huckabee Interview: How Religion Shapes Washington’s Stance on ‘Israel’

The interview conducted by right-wing U.S. media figure Tucker Carlson with the U.S. ambassador to “Israel,” Mike Huckabee, was not merely a window into the territorial greed of the Christian Zionist alliance across six Arab countries. It also laid bare the depth of the rift running through the Trump-aligned conservative movement, MAGA, a divide that has widened sharply since the events of October 7.

The exchange exposed a stark clash between two competing worldviews: an ideological, faith-based commitment to “Israel” on one hand, and a national-interest argument on the other—one increasingly voiced by conservatives who argue that U.S. policy is being bent to serve “Israel” more than the United States itself.

It also highlighted a growing fault line within the Republican Party’s conservative wing, separating advocates of unconditional support for the Israeli Occupation from those calling for a looser, more transactional foreign policy that puts American interests first.

The conversation, which stirred controversy across political and media circles in Washington and beyond, did not shy away from moments of confrontation. Carlson openly challenged and rebuked the ambassador over his religiously driven bias toward “Israel,” a stance that underscored the broadcaster’s evolution into one of the most vocal conservative critics of the Israeli Occupation.

Fundamental Questions

The interview with a Trump-era ambassador rooted in Christian Zionism made one thing unmistakably clear: doctrinal belief has become a powerful force shaping American political decision-making.

That current frames its support for “Israel”—and for the occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands—through biblical interpretations tied to apocalyptic prophecy, rather than conventional strategic logic. In doing so, the exchange exposed not just a policy dispute but a deeper fracture within American society itself, extending even into the Trump-aligned MAGA camp, over the meaning of the slogan “America First.”

Does it mean safeguarding U.S. interests—or granting “Israel” unquestioned priority?

Both Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee emerge from the same political ecosystem, yet Carlson has increasingly turned his fire on what he sees as a distortion of Trump’s agenda. During the interview, he pressed a series of blunt questions: why should the United States shoulder the burden of distant conflicts? Why are Americans expected to bankroll “Israel’s” wars when they bear little relation to “Make America Great Again”? And what, exactly, is the U.S. position on “Israel” and Gaza?

Huckabee’s answers were striking in their absolutism. He went so far as to argue that “Israel” has a right to territory spanning six Arab countries, casting the “conflict” not merely as political but as fundamentally religious and civilizational.

The contrast laid bare a widening split within the MAGA movement itself: on one side, an isolationist, nationalist wing—embodied by Carlson—that favors shrinking foreign entanglements and curbing military aid to “Israel”; on the other, an evangelical conservative bloc, represented by Huckabee, that views support for the Israeli Occupation as a religious obligation rooted in Christian Zionist theology.

The interview also underscored how religion has become a governing force in U.S. foreign policy. Huckabee, drawing openly on his background as an evangelical pastor and his closeness to the Christian Zionist base, spoke in explicitly theological terms—without apology.

In the end, the conversation revealed just how deeply the religious convictions of segments of America’s political elite shape the justification for backing “Israel,” even when that support comes at the expense of U.S. interests and the reputation of its military.

It also highlighted the outsized influence of the evangelical movement on Washington’s Middle East policy—an influence that persists despite the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government toward Palestinian Christians, including displacement and repression, exposing a stark and uncomfortable contradiction at the heart of American Christian support for “Israel.”

A Revealing Exchange

The interview proved unusually candid, exposing remarks by the U.S. ambassador that stunned even seasoned observers. In his exchange with Tucker Carlson, Mike Huckabee often sounded less like an American diplomat than an Israeli official—defending “Tel Aviv” and justifying occupation and military violence through overtly religious reasoning. The comments triggered a wave of political and media backlash.

The sharpest criticism followed Huckabee’s assertion that “Israel” holds a “biblical right” to territory stretching “from the Nile to the Euphrates,” a claim he defended in explicitly theological terms, drawing on both the Torah and the New Testament—speaking, it seemed, more as an evangelical pastor than as a representative of U.S. foreign policy.

Those remarks ignited widespread outrage, given that such a vision would encompass lands in at least six Arab countries: Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

During the exchange, Carlson cited a passage from the Book of Genesis describing a divine promise to Abraham and his descendants of land between the rivers and pressed the ambassador on whether this amounted to a God-given entitlement to historic Palestine and neighboring Arab states. Huckabee’s response was blunt: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

He grounded his argument in the Christian Zionist reading of Genesis 15:11, which declares, “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.’”

From that premise, Huckabee concluded, “Israel is a land that God gave, through Abraham, to a people that he chose. It was a people, a place, and a purpose.”

The exchange laid bare how theological belief, not merely strategic calculation, is shaping the language, and potentially the direction, of American policy toward the Israeli Occupation.

As the questioning grew more pointed, Mike Huckabee appeared to retreat from his earlier claims. Pressed by Tucker Carlson, he sought to soften the impact of his remarks, saying “Israel” was not seeking to control the full sweep of territory described in religious texts, from the Nile to the Euphrates, but rather to retain areas it currently inhabits and considers “legitimately” its own.

Christian Zionist doctrine, however, advances a far broader claim. It holds that Jewish control over the land represents a divine promise that must be fulfilled as a prelude to the return of Christ, a moment this theology associates with a final and catastrophic reckoning for humanity, including Jews themselves.

In the interview, which quickly went viral in the United States on X, Huckabee argued that the United States must “bless Israel” if it wishes to receive God’s blessing in return. He cited the Book of Genesis, asserting that God blesses those who bless “Israel” and curses those who curse it, and added that this was not something humans were entitled to question. He further claimed that the biblical reference to “Israel” applies directly to the modern Israeli state, an interpretation contested by many Christian theologians in the United States and abroad.

That reading was publicly challenged by Jews United Against Zionism, which responded through its X account, Voice of the Rabbis. The group rejected evangelical Christian Zionist claims about the “Land of Israel” and stressed that Judaism contains no biblical promise of political sovereignty.

“It is for what all Jews pray for three times a day: G-d’s return - yes, G-d’s return - to the land, on whose throne will sit a resurrected King David, together with the resurrected righteous, [to reap their next-worldly reward]. Nothing less than that was ever yearned for, and nothing less than that was ever promised,” according to the statement.

Many Jews, particularly within Orthodox communities, write “G-d” instead of “God” out of reverence for the divine name.

“No god in even a pagan's imagination would promise to his people the war-torn deathtrap and rebellion against him that is Israel today. The state of Israel is not what we've been waiting for 2,000 years. It's the opposite,” the group added.

The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine (HPCCAP) responded sharply to the ambassador’s remarks, saying that justifying Israeli Occupation policies through religious language amounted to a “dangerous theological and moral deviation.” 

The HPCCAP warned against turning a political “conflict” into a religious and doctrinal confrontation that threatens international peace and stability. It described Huckabee’s claim of a so-called “biblical right” for “Israel” to seize territory stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates as a reckless reliance on religious interpretations used to legitimize colonial and expansionist political projects.

A Suspicious Tie

Carlson pressed the ambassador from multiple angles about what he called America’s deeply unhealthy relationship with “Israel.” Why, he asked, does the United States fight wars on “Israel’s” behalf? Is the “Israel” mentioned in the Bible the same as today’s secular Israeli government? Who, exactly, has a legitimate claim to the land? And why does Washington continue to send vast sums of money to “Israel?”

He also raised the issue of Israeli nuclear weapons, asserting that “Israel’s” nuclear arsenal was developed using materials stolen from the United States, specifically from a nuclear facility in Pennsylvania.

Carlson went further, questioning the steady decline of the Christian population in “Israel” and the killing of Christians in Gaza, while evangelical Christians aligned with religious Zionism continue to defend the religiously radical “Tel Aviv” government. He asked Huckabee directly whether he was concerned about the persecution of Christians there.

Carlson noted that many Christians were expelled when Jews took control of the land, saying that countless Christians were forced to flee, lost their homes, and were never allowed to return.

Huckabee claimed that the Israeli army was more humane than the U.S. armed forces. He defended “Israel’s” war on Gaza, including the killing of children, and went so far as to justify those war crimes. Some of the children killed, he said, had been recruited by Hamas. “They were terrorists,” he claimed, referring to minors as young as 14.

This prompted Carlson to mock him, asking if he realized what he was saying.

In a later interview with the Saudi channel Rotana Khalijia on February 21, 2026, Carlson criticized Washington’s support for “Israel” at a time when the United States is grappling with deep domestic crises. “Israel,” he said, has become a very heavy burden on the United States, adding that the U.S.-Israeli relations are actively harming American interests.

Carlson, who once supported the war on Iraq, has since evolved into a leading voice of the nationalist populist wing of the “Make America Great Again” movement. Since leaving Fox News in 2023, he has sharpened his criticism of “Israel” and its American backers, drawing fierce backlash. Israeli Occupation officials and Christian Zionist figures have accused him of promoting conspiracy theories and antisemitic rhetoric.

In comments to Daily Mail, he said he and his production team were detained and interrogated at “Tel Aviv” airport following his interview with Mike Huckabee, and their passports were confiscated.

The incident prompted a response from U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a vocal critic of Christian Zionism, who wrote that Carlson’s treatment in “Israel” was unacceptable. “We won’t tolerate this. You just made it worse.”

The ‘European’ Netanyahu

Challenging Huckabee’s claim that Jews hold a “divine promise” to the occupied land and that it’s a cornerstone of Christian Zionist ideology, Carlson confronted the ambassador with historical records showing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ancestors had no direct connection to the region.

Carlson pointed out that Netanyahu is “Spanish from Poland” and asked how they can know he is directly descended from the people promised this land. There’s no shared language, no continuous religious practice, and many of “Israel’s” founders were secular or nearly atheist. He even suggested a genetic test to determine which descendants of Abraham might have a legitimate claim to the land.

Huckabee, however, maintained that anyone who converts to Judaism has a right to live in the land and that Jews worldwide have historical and biblical ties to it.

When Carlson pressed the point—highlighting that Netanyahu’s family came from Eastern Europe and questioning how they could claim a right to Palestine—the ambassador issued a statement on X, claiming that European Jews make up only about 35 percent of “Israel’s” population. He explained that Ashkenazi Jews, whose families lived for centuries in Europe, are a minority in “Israel,” while Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews represent a much larger share.

Huckabee also sought to discredit Carlson by implying that his line of questioning suggested sympathy for Nazism, arguing that portraying today’s Jews as unrelated to the biblical Israelites was provocative and historically misleading.

Split Over Christian Zionism

The Guardian reported on February 20, 2025, that the sharp exchange between Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee exposed a deep rift within the American right over “Israel.” The interview highlighted how little the Trump administration responded to growing U.S. public frustration with Israeli policies, as reflected in opinion polls.

Some MAGA supporters view the Israeli Occupation with increasing suspicion, yet the U.S. ambassador still insists on its “divine right” to a significant part of the Middle East. Parts of the pro-Trump right increasingly question “Israel” and oppose the genocide in Gaza, while certain evangelical Christians continue to provide distorted religious justifications that excuse “Israel’s” harsh repression of Palestinians.

Reacting to Huckabee’s statements, some Americans on social media described Christian Zionism as a “dangerous ideology that must be eliminated.”

Senator and clergyman Joseph L. Trahan said “Israel” has, since 1954, run a propaganda campaign to brainwash Americans through church teachings that have no basis in the Bible or reality.

He argued that these Christian Zionist teachings directly contradict the gospel of Christ and have no grounding in scripture. He described Christian Zionism as a ridiculous, fabricated program launched in 1954 in the United States to trick Americans into funding all of “Israel’s” wars.

Trahan added that the ideology falsely claims that Christians are obliged to bless “Israel,” a notion absent from any biblical text. He further alleged that any preacher promoting these ideas has been bribed by Israeli lobby groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) or others, to spread this falsehood.

He said these are the actors who now pull the strings at the Pentagon, the White House, and Congress, controlling the mainstream media that broadcasts false news, he concluded.

Christian Zionism is a theological-political ideology with colonial undertones, framing Jews as a central part of a “divine plan” and presenting religious, economic, and political support for “Israel” as a religious duty.

Followers of this movement—including prominent American officials—believe God granted the land of Palestine to the Jews in fulfillment of a covenant with the prophet Abraham, designating them as “the chosen people.” The doctrine, prevalent among U.S. Protestant fundamentalists, has successfully drawn in numerous American politicians and established a foothold in both domestic and foreign policy decision-making.

The roots of Christian Zionism trace back to 19th-century Britain, before spreading to the United States by the mid-1800s. Today it represents the largest U.S. religious current built on end-times prophecy linked to the return of Jews to Palestine.

The organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI), with over 10 million members, is the most prominent American group promoting Christian Zionism. Its slogan, “Help make Israel stronger and her people safer,” reflects its mission. CUFI serves as a key evangelical arm within the Republican Party, particularly on Middle East issues, and its influence grows in Congress and the administration during conservative ascents.

Founded in 2006 and led by evangelical pastor John Hagee of Texas, CUFI exerts considerable pressure on U.S. policymakers. Its theology holds that the existence of “the state of Israel” fulfills biblical prophecy, making support for it a religious, moral, and strategic duty for the United States.

CUFI opposes U.S. pressure on “Israel” over occupied Jerusalem, settlements, and wars on Gaza and Lebanon. It hosts annual summits in Washington bringing together religious leaders and members of Congress, lobbies lawmakers to influence legislation on “Israel” and military aid, and mobilizes the evangelical base for key decisions, such as recognizing occupied Jerusalem as “Israel’s” capital.

The organization forms part of a political-religious alliance within the Republican Party that prioritizes theological considerations over pragmatic political calculations.

Meanwhile, right-wing U.S. media outlets, including Newsmax, propagate narratives urging Christians to recognize Judaism as foundational to Western civilization, claiming that “Israel is America’s savior.” Some even warn that the fall of Judaism means the fall of Christianity and assert that anyone hostile to Jews cannot be a true Christian.

Carlson had long criticized “Israel” and its Christian supporters, famously calling Christian Zionists the most contemptible people in the world in an October 2025 interview, a remark he later partially walked back after provoking widespread outrage.