Tucker Carlson’s attempt at levity was greeted with deathly silence during a speech at the Turning Point USA summit AmericaFest.
The former Fox News host was speaking at the conservative youth movement’s four-day conference in Phoenix, Arizona, when he stumbled onto the topic of Islam and Muslim Americans.
Carlson has been under fire for his alleged close ties with Qatar, and he sparked fury from conservatives including Sen. Ted Cruz and commentator Laura Loomer this month when he said he intended to buy property in its capital, Doha. Loomer has taken to calling the podcaster “Tucker Qatarlson” and claimed he has been “promoting Islam extensively and has been downplaying the threat of Islamic terrorism and mass Islamic immigration in the West.”
That skepticism was visible in the audience in Phoenix when Carlson spoke Thursday.
“It’s a variation of what I said before but I couldn’t mean it more fervently,” he said during an energetic and impassioned Q&A session in which he was asked how to heal the political divisions in the U.S. “Orient the Republican Party around the single most popular and true message ever articulated by an American politician, which is put your own country first. That’s why Trump got elected in 2016. It’s why he’s president now. America first.
“And don’t think of everything in narrow partisan terms. That’s a trap. Most people agree with that. Most Americans have more in common with each other than they disagree on, and almost everybody agrees on that. And, almost everybody is willing to tolerate a good-faith argument about how to get there, except a few, and they’re the ones running around calling everyone an antisemite. But everyone else is like, ‘Yeah of course that should be the debate’ and they’ll vote for you, they want that, because they know they haven’t had that. That’s the fact.”
Carlson was spirited, talking quickly with little head wobbles and a waggling finger. But when he pushed ahead, saying that the establishment had weaponized race wars and that people should look beyond religion and find the shared values beneath, he left the Turning Point crowd behind.
“Attacking millions of Americans because they’re Muslims—it’s disgusting. And I’m a Christian, I’m not a Muslim,” he said, in a room where you could have heard a pin drop.
He tried to lighten the mood, picking up the stick Loomer and the gang had used to beat him with and attempting to wield it himself. “I know there’s a lot of effort to claim I’m a secret jihadi. I’m not.” There was a little pause, opening the door for laughter that never arrived. He swiftly moved on.
“You should not attack people on those grounds. And you’re seeing it from Republicans. What the hell are you doing? What you’re doing is trying to divide the country, and I’ve lived through 50 years of this c—. All these fake race wars they’re always promoting. ‘Oh, go hate each other while we loot the treasury.’ That’s exactly what’s going on, and most people are totally sick of that.
“Yes, there’s a possibility for a huge coalition of decent people, once they free their minds from the traps set for them by others, and realize, ‘Wait a second, we all want to make the country better,’ and the 15 percent or 30 percent that don’t, OK. Good luck in Maryland or wherever you wind up, but the rest of us would like to fix it.”
Loomer didn’t waste a second jumping on Carlson’s uncomfortable moment at the event.
“Awkward silence from the audience at @TPUSA’s opening night of AmFest tonight as @TuckerCarlson used his speech to recruit people into supporting Islam,” she said on X. “Tucker was met with virtually no cheers as he made excuses for Muslims, said Islam and Muslims are ‘mostly good,’ and that its evil to be anti-Islam.”
She then turned things up to 11. “If you can’t see that Tucker Qatarlson has become a mouth piece for Islamic jihadists and Islamic sympathizers, then you aren’t paying attention or you’re caught up in the idea of what Tucker used to be.”
Carlson’s relationship with Doha has incensed some conservatives, a topic he addressed during an on-the-record sit-down with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani earlier this month.
“I have been criticized as being a tool of Qatar, and I just want to say—which you already know—which is I have never taken anything from your country and don’t plan to,” he said, according to the Algemeiner Journal. “I am, however, tomorrow buying a place in Qatar. I like the city; I think it’s beautiful. But also want to make a statement that I’m an American and a free man and I’ll be wherever I want to be. I have not taken any money from Qatar, but I have now given money to Qatar.”
Carlson’s speech comes at a curious time in the world of right-wing commentary, with chasms opening in the ranks of online podcast hosts and TV personalities.
One of the fieriest feuds is between commentator Candace Owens and the widow and supporters of assassinated conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who was pivotal in uniting the right for Trump.
Another top-billing bout was sparked by Carlson himself, when he gave racist far-right Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes a platform and a free ride on his podcast. The move drew the ire of Loomer and podcaster Ben Shapiro, who slammed Carlson as “a conspiracist and a crank and a pathological liar” and “the most virulent super-spreader of vile ideas in America.”
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