Anti-Semitism and the American Right

My speech at the Second International Conference on Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem this week.

Marco Rubio, Tucker Carlson, and Suzie Wiles at the White House, January 11

I. Anti-Semitism in the Republican Party

I’d like to say a few words today about the place of Jews—and of anti-Semites—in the Republican party in America. The subject is pressing because since October 2023, Democrats have largely made their peace with the anti-Jewish hatred of the neo-Marxists and Muslim Brotherhood supporters in their party. In fact, the influence of anti-Semites on the American left has become so blatant and so ubiquitous that most of my American Jewish friends have concluded Jews have no future in the Democratic party of Zohran Mamdani and Ilhan Omar. And if the Republicans were to go down this same road, it’s not clear what would be left of Jewish life in America.

Over the past eighteen months, the possibility that the Republicans, too, would embrace anti-Semitism has become all too real, with some of the most influential podcasts on the political right transforming themselves into platforms for relentless anti-Jewish messaging: Not just for arguing against Israeli policies toward Gaza or Iran, but for the explicit and savage targeting of Jews, Judaism, and Zionism on a regular basis.

And so the question has to be asked—and it has been asked loudly and combatively by some of you over the past six months: Do these shows represent the future of the Republican party?

II. The Trump Administration and Tucker Carlson

The Trump administration and its allies have been blindsided by these podcasts, and by the Jewish outrage over them. For months, they largely failed to respond. But in recent weeks, the Trump administration has stepped in to impose order.

On January 11, President Trump took the clearest possible stand against anti-Semitism in his political coalition. Asked if he condemns anti-Semitism on the right, he said, “certainly,” and then added: “I think we don’t need them. I think we don’t like them.”¹

But then on January 16, President Trump met with Tucker Carlson for lunch at the White House—which also arranged to have Tucker photographed together with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles.²

Finally, on January 19, Tucker aired a show in which he said some kind things about two Jews sympathetic to the administration—Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and myself—and then concluded by saying: “That’s why I would never be anti-Semitic. You can’t generalize.”³

These events were obviously choreographed to put an end to six months of nightmarish infighting on the political right. Which makes sense. The Republicans are facing tough midterm elections in November, and they don’t want to lose Congress over anti-Semitism.

III. Tucker’s Show and Anti-Semitism

The problem is that by now, not too many Jews are likely to accept Tucker’s disavowal of anti-Semitism at face value.

Why? Because for the last eighteen months, Tucker’s interview show has become a circus of aggressive anti-Jewish propaganda. Anti-Semites know you can tune into Tucker’s show if you want to hear:

1. That Jews are a demonic force in history.

2. That Jews have a plan to systematically destroy every Christian community in the Middle East.

3. That Jews control the American government.

4. That Jews shot Kennedy.

5. That Jews propped up Winston Churchill financially so he could start an unnecessary war with Hitler.

6. That the Jewish Bible is about revenge and genocide, and doesn’t teach us to be gracious to one another.

7. That Christians who think Jews are God’s chosen people aren’t Christians at all, but heretics.

And so on.

There’s much more of this. But you get the picture.

These aren’t normal political messages, disagreeing with other members of the Trump coalition on legitimate policy issues. They’re abusive, wild slanders, and their repeated appearance on Tucker’s show has persuaded almost every Jew I know that the program’s purpose is to drive Jews—along with tens of millions of Zionist Christians—out of the Trump coalition and out of the Republican party.

And if that’s not anti-Semitism, then what is?

IV. How Was the Fight Over Tucker Lost?

For at least the last six months, Jews and Zionist Christians have been saying that Tucker is one of the leading promoters of anti-Semitic propaganda in our time—and that for this reason, he shouldn’t be treated as a partner in good standing in the Trump coalition. They said it to Charlie Kirk. They said it to Kevin Roberts. And they’ve been saying it to the Trump administration.

So how is this effort to distance Tucker from power and influence in the Republican party going?

Judging by President Trump and Secretary Rubio’s photo op with Tucker at the White House two weeks ago, I’d say it’s been a total failure.

How do we explain this defeat?

One possibility is that Tucker is just too powerful, and no one’s going to touch him politically right now. Tucker is an influential supporter, the Republicans need him to win elections, and that’s just the way it’s going to be.

A second possibility is that Jews and Christian Zionists are just too weak in Republican circles to take him down a notch politically. A lot of people have this idea that we Jews are connected all over the place in the Republican party. But maybe that view isn’t exactly right. I’ll come back to this point in a moment.

A third possibility is that Jews and Zionist Christians have plenty of connections in the Republican party, but that the case against Tucker over the last six months just wasn’t presented in a way that was professional, serious, and competent enough to be persuasive.

Sure, many of you think that Tucker is a leading promoter of anti-Semitism, and that the Trump movement should just ditch him.

But that’s obviously not what President Trump thinks about Tucker, who did extraordinary work building up the Trump movement over seven years as a host on Fox News. On top of that, Tucker is a very smart, passionate, and very likeable man when you meet him in person. I had lunch with him once, years ago, and I thought he was great. I invited him to NatCon 1 and he gave one of the best speeches we have ever hosted.

And Tucker has been saying—as clear as the day—that he is not an anti-Semite.

Now, if you think otherwise, you are going to have to convince people. You will have to make your case, in a persuasive way, to people who don’t spend a lot of time watching podcasts.

Have Tucker’s critics done that? Well, if they have, where is the 15-minute explainer video, that I can show my friends on the political right, which proves that this very serious accusation against Tucker is true? Where is the carefully assembled research, with links and dates and timestamps, that could convince an impartial public figure who is open to being convinced?

The answer is: There is no such 15-minute explainer video. There is no such serious research. They don’t exist because, for some reason, there are no Jews or Zionist Christians, who think it’s their job to produce such things. Or if there are people who think it’s their job, they haven’t circulated anything of the sort—to me or to anyone else in Washington who’s in a position to do anything with it.

This is an extremely high level of incompetence by the entire anti-Semitism-industrial complex, some of whose representatives are sitting right here in this room. Maybe some of you think you were persuasively “fighting anti-Semitism” over the last six months. But the unfortunate truth is that you weren’t.

V. Jews and the Republican Party

Let’s go back to the question of how well-positioned Jews and Zionist Christians are to have a say in the Republican party today. Right now, the party is divided into three distinct factions:

First, there’s what I’ll call the liberal wing of the Republican party, which is led by figures such as Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz. This liberal wing once dominated the party. But since 2016, it’s been shrinking, and it’s unlikely that a candidate with liberal-Republican views would win the support of more than 25 percent of the party’s primary voters today.

Second, there’s the nationalist wing of the Republican party, as represented by President Trump, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth. This camp is distinguished from liberal Republicans by its support for an industrial policy to restore America’s manufacturing capabilities, its outspoken rejection of compromise on immigration issues, and its skepticism of long foreign wars. The nationalist camp today represents the great majority in the Republican party, with a likely vote-share of 65 percent or more in a contested primary.

Finally, there’s the alt-right (or “alternative right”), which was mostly a fringe phenomenon until 2023, when big-name media figures Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens moved into this space. Still, it’s unlikely that more than 10 percent of Republican voters would support a presidential candidate with alt-right views.

As you know, liberal Republicans are very supportive of Jews, Judaism, and Israel these days, whereas the alt-right is strongly anti-Semitic.

That leaves the nationalist wing, which has been pretty quiet on these issues over the last six months, leaving the whole, noisy shooting match to be fought out between the liberal wing of the party and the alt-right. So it’s been Mark Levin or Ted Cruz, for example, dishing it out and taking it from Tucker Carlson—week after week, month after month.

VI. Jews and Nationalist Republicans

However, the struggle for the soul of the Republican party is not taking place in these overheated, firing-squad-style, online confrontations between the liberal Republicans and the alt-right.

The actual battle over the future of Jews in the Republican party is taking place where the majority is: Within the big nationalist camp at the center of the party.

Many Jews, including some Israelis, mistake the online fights for political reality. So you get all these Jews jumping on the bandwagon and amplifying the rhetoric and arguments coming out of the liberal Republican camp. They think that by retweeting Mark Levin, they’re somehow “fighting anti-Semitism.”

But they aren’t doing anything of the kind. That’s because most nationalist Republicans aren’t too inclined to trust the arguments and rhetoric of the liberal camp on very many issues, including this one. In fact, most nationalist Republicans still remember how liberals spent eight years falsely accusing President Trump of anti-Semitism. So it’s not surprising that they find the overheated rhetoric coming out of the liberal camp on the subject of anti-Semitism to be bellicose, alarmist, and unconvincing.

For example, most nationalist Republicans don’t think America today is anything like 1930s Germany. They don’t see any Nazi party in America poised on the threshold of victory. And for that reason, they don’t jump to deplore the agitprop of right-wing podcasters the way liberal Republicans want them to. And when they don’t, this drives liberal Republicans—both Jews and non-Jews—to start misbehaving. They start lashing out at the nationalists, and accusing them of being anti-Semites, or of protecting anti-Semites, or of protecting Nazis, or of being Nazis.

I’ve heard all of this with my own ears. It’s a disgrace. And if the goal is to persuade Trump’s nationalists to build an alliance with Jews on these and other issues, it is also counter-productive.

VII. Political Stupidity of the Jews

In June 1999, I invited Irving Kristol to deliver a public lecture in Jerusalem. His topic was “The Political Stupidity of the Jews.”⁴ His thesis was that because Jews don’t have a living tradition of thinking about political power, we tend to respond to political situations by pronouncing moral judgments—as if pronouncing moral judgments in an agitated way was going to win us friends in high places.

What we’ve seen over the last six months is a textbook case of the same “political stupidity of the Jews” that Kristol described. It’s clear who is in charge of the Republican party: The nationalists are in charge. And they may be for a generation or more.

Given this fact, what would Jews and Zionist Christians be doing right now if they were thinking politically, and were willing to “fight anti-Semitism” using political means?

In short, what would Mordechai and Esther do?

1. They’d be doing everything they can to understand how nationalist Republicans think, what they care about and what’s important to them.

2. They’d be looking for ways in which Jewish interests can be the basis for common ground with nationalist Republicans.

3. They’d be looking for ways to build bridges and friendships and rock solid, mutually beneficial alliances with nationalist Republicans.

But that simply not what’s been happening.

Mostly what Jews and Zionist Christians have been doing for the past six months is sitting outside the nationalist camp—looking at it from a distance, through the distorting medium of tendentious leaks and conspiracy theories, which certain liberal publications regularly publish with the aim of hurting the Republican party as much as they can.

It’s absurd, but a lot of Jewish Republicans and Israeli Likudniks buy into this rubbish. Why? Because it’s a lot easier to believe whatever you read in Jewish Insider—thereby allowing yourself to become a tool in the hands of the left—than it is to do the difficult political work of opening doors and building bridges to the American nationalist camp.

What would you find if you actually invested the time and effort, and opened those doors? Mostly, you’d discover that nationalist Republicans are not anti-Semites. That they are strongly committed to having Jews in their coalition. That they would like to have closer relations with the Jewish community. That many of them see Israel as an inspiration and wish America were more like Israel. In short, you’d discover that most of them are potential friends and allies.

And you’d discover that nearly all them are mystified as to why so many Jews and Zionist Christians invest so much time and energy in attacking them—instead of trying to build strong friendships with them.

VIII. An Opportunity to Build Bridges

At this point, we know that much of what was done in the name of “fighting anti-Semitism” in America over the last 50 years was a complete failure. None of it prevented the takeover of the Democratic party by anti-Jewish movements. None of it appears to be helping in the present battle over the place of Jews in the Republican party either.

But the good news is that the future relationship between nationalist Republicans and Jews hasn’t been decided yet. To a significant degree, it’s up for grabs. Which means we are looking at a truly historic opportunity: The opportunity to build bridges and a potentially solid alliance with the dominant nationalist camp in the Republican party, which could stand for a generation or more.

Finding common ground with nationalist Republicans is the most important thing we could be doing to actually “fight anti-Semitism.” And if we do that well, then maybe we have a shot at pushing anti-Semitism back into the embarrassing irrelevance it deserves.

The speech was delivered at the Second International Conference on Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. You can watch the video of the speech here:

1. Jerusalem Post, January 12, 2026.

2. Newsweek, January 17, 2026.

3. Tucker Carlson interview with Peter Brimelow, January 19, 2026, 00.25.00.

4. Irving Kristol, “The Political Stupidity of the Jews,” Azure, Autumn 1999.

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