Tucker Carlson, the influential far-right podcaster, lives in Maine and spent more than three decades defending the Republican Party before leaving it this year over his opposition to the war with Iran. He is known for his nativist rhetoric and once said immigrants were making the United States “poorer and dirtier.”
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a son of Egyptian immigrants, lives in Michigan and has spent his adult life pushing for progressive causes. Now Dr. El-Sayed is the Democratic Party’s nominee in a pivotal Senate race, running on a left-wing platform that calls for universal health care and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Yet, in a striking twist that underscores his shifting politics, Mr. Carlson has taken to defending Dr. El-Sayed. Both are vocal critics of the Israeli government and the war with Iran.
In recent weeks, Mr. Carlson has repeatedly spoken in positive terms about Dr. El-Sayed and castigated his Republican opponent, former Representative Mike Rogers, a critic-turned-ally of President Trump with hawkish foreign policy views.
“I wouldn’t vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint,” Mr. Carlson said on his podcast this month, adding, “There’s no one who should be farther from a position of power than Mike Rogers.”
As the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approached, Mr. Rogers targeted Dr. El-Sayed for saying in 2021 that the military actions of the United States after the attacks had “scarred millions” around the world.
Mr. Carlson stepped in to defend Dr. El-Sayed.
“El-Sayed did not celebrate airplane hijackings or cheerlead Al Qaeda,” Mr. Carlson wrote in his newsletter, “he simply said that the U.S. conducting terrorism of its own in response to 9/11 was not exactly an appropriate reaction. He is obviously right.”
Political consultants were puzzled. Could Mr. Carlson really be endorsing Dr. El-Sayed?
In text messages with The New York Times, Mr. Carlson would not go that far.
“I’m a podcaster,” he wrote. “I don’t make endorsements.”
But Mr. Carlson continued to assail Mr. Rogers, a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee who was an early, vocal supporter of the war with Iran, and who has long been a supporter of Israel. Mr. Carlson called Mr. Rogers the “embodiment of the cruelty and stupidity of the national security state.”
“He’s a toady to Israel and an enemy of civil liberties,” Mr. Carlson told The Times, noting that Mr. Rogers had previously lost a Senate race in 2024. “I can hardly believe Republicans nominated him.”
Mr. Rogers’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
To some, Mr. Carlson’s defense of Dr. El-Sayed is an example of what political commentators regard as a horseshoe alliance, a nod to the theory that both ends of the spectrum bend toward each other on some major issues. During Mr. Trump’s second term, some unlikely partnerships between the left and the right have sprung up.
Just last week, Senator Bernie Sanders, the progressive Vermont independent, and Stephen K. Bannon, an architect of the MAGA movement, delivered back-to-back speeches at a convention calling for A.I. regulation. Last year, Representative Ro Khanna, a progressive from California, and Representative Thomas Massie, a conservative libertarian from Kentucky, teamed up to press for more information related to the Epstein files.
“American politics isn’t really aligned on a single continuum,” said Josh Pasek, a professor of political science and communication at the University of Michigan, adding that the left and the right seemed to be aligning more regularly.
Still, Professor Pasek added that such alliances should not be understood as evidence that the far left and the far right were starting to “believe the same thing.” Mr. Carlson’s commentary was more likely a “marriage of convenience,” he said.
Despite their drastic differences, including Mr. Carlson’s frequent embrace of conspiracy theories, he and Dr. El-Sayed can find some common ground in their shared criticism of interventionist foreign policy and the Israeli government. Dr. El-Sayed has called for ending U.S. aid to Israel and made criticism of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee a major theme of his primary campaign.
But Mr. Carlson has gone much further in his criticism of Israel, making baseless suggestions that the country may have known about the Sept. 11 attacks in advance and claiming that it wants to “destroy Europe.” Mr. Carlson also conducted a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier. Mr. Carlson has faced accusations of antisemitism, which he has repeatedly rejected.
“El-Sayed is harshly critical of Israel and its supporters in ways that some Jews find uncomfortable or offensive, and may even make some feel unsafe,” Aryeh Tuchman, the director for the Nexus Center for Antisemitism Research and a former director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said in an email. “But Carlson’s opposition to Israel is bound up with classic antisemitic ideas.”
Some Republican consultants in Michigan said that Mr. Carlson’s posture toward Dr. El-Sayed was somewhat startling.
“It’s one of those things where people tilt their heads and go: Well, why?” said Dennis Darnoi, a Republican strategist in Michigan. “It doesn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason.”
Mr. Darnoi questioned why Mr. Carlson was attacking Mr. Rogers now after not having done so in 2024.
Some things have changed since 2024, though. Back then, Mr. Carlson was often at Mr. Trump’s side as he ran for president. Mr. Carlson even lobbied Mr. Trump to select JD Vance, then a senator from Ohio, as his running mate.
Now, Mr. Carlson spends much of his time railing against Israel and the war in Iran. He has said he is “tormented” by his role in helping Mr. Trump return to the White House. And he has discussed helping to start a new political party, which he has said would support ending all immigration.
Democratic strategists say Mr. Carlson’s commentary might help Dr. El-Sayed make inroads with conservative voters. But it could also carry risks.
Dr. El-Sayed, who has been trailed by criticism of his decision to campaign during the primary with the provocative left-wing streamer and Israel critic Hasan Piker, has ruled out having Mr. Carlson join him on the campaign trail in the fall.
Asked about the idea on the “Pod Save America” podcast this month, Dr. El-Sayed said, “Unlikely — by unlikely, I mean no.”
Still, Dr. El-Sayed said that Mr. Carlson was casting a light on the “corruption inside MAGA.” He said he disagreed with Mr. Carlson on “a lot of things,” but that they agreed that Mr. Rogers “never saw a war he didn’t like” and that he never saw a “corporate contribution he didn’t like.”
Political strategists were split on how — or if — Mr. Carlson’s input would affect the race in Michigan.
“It’s really hard to know,” said Adrian Hemond, a Democratic strategist in Michigan. He added, though, that “the entire theory of the El-Sayed candidacy has been that he can change the composition of the electorate, and he did that to some extent in the primary.”
Still, repeating the feat in November would be more difficult, Mr. Hemond said.
Joe DiSano, another Democratic strategist in Michigan, who does not plan to vote for Dr. El-Sayed because of his positions on Israel, said he saw a “clear advantage” for the Democrat in having Mr. Carlson weigh in on the race. Dr. El-Sayed might be able peel off some disaffected conservative voters who share Mr. Carlson’s views, he reasoned.
“He has to do something to pick up voters he’s losing,” Mr. DiSano said of Dr. El-Sayed.
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