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Feb. 20, 2026 - The Tucker Carlson Show
02:45:31
Tucker Confronts Mike Huckabee on America’s Toxic Relationship With Israel

The Mike Huckabee interview, and the truth about America’s deeply unhealthy relationship with Israel. Paid partnerships with: Masa Chips: Get 25% off with code TUCKER at https://masachips.com/tucker Paleovalley: Use code TUCKER & get 20% off your first order at https://paleovalley.com Hallow prayer app: Get 3 months free at https://Hallow.com/Tucker Brooklyn Bedding: Get 30% off sitewide with promo code TUCKER at https://brooklynbedding.com #TuckerCarlson #MikeHuckabee #Israel #Gaza #war #Epsteinfiles #chosenpeople #monologue #Mossad #BenjaminNetanyahu #America #IranIsraelwar #news #politics #podcast Chapters: 0:00 Why We Were Interrogated in Israel 25:38 Why Did Huckabee Meet With American Traitor Jonathan Pollard? 34:26 Has Huckabee Advocated to Extradite Sex Offenders Who Flee From the US to Israel? 40:26 Why Are There Still Classified Epstein Files? 49:19 Is the Israel of the Bible the Current Secular Government of Israel? 1:15:50 Is Israel's Christian Population Declining? 1:17:45 Who Has a Right to the Land of Israel? 1:35:06 The Killing of Christians in Gaza 1:47:40 Benjamin Netanyahu's Calls for Genocide 1:52:28 Huckabee Accuses Tony Aguilar of Lying 1:58:05 Fighting Wars on Israel's Behalf 1:58:49 Why Are 9-11 Files Still Classified? 2:00:15 Netanyahu's Many Visits to the White House 2:01:16 The Nuclear Weapons That Israel Stole 2:01:58 Why Is the US Sending Israel So Much Money? 2:03:48 Is Huckabee Okay With Israel Providing Free Abortions? 2:12:30 How Many Americans Support War With Iran? 2:17:49 Was the War on Iraq Really About 9-11? 2:21:53 Israel's Sabotaging of US Negotiations With Iran 2:24:44 How Many Journalists Has Israel Killed in Gaza? 2:25:53 Is Huckabee Concerned About the Persecution of Christians?

Participants
Main
m
mike huckabee
r 01:05:21
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tucker carlson
dailycaller 01:39:19
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Speaker Time Text
Interview Backstory Revealed 00:01:58
tucker carlson
We're about to play you an interview we did with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee two days ago in Israel.
In general, it's never worth talking about the backstory behind an interview.
It's kind of not the point.
It makes it about the interviewer, not the person being interviewed.
For one thing, for another, it's not that interesting most of the time.
And for another, it's kind of off the record.
You know, the other person hasn't consented to you telling the story.
So in general, we don't do that.
Who'd want to hear that?
Let the interview speak for itself.
But in this case, we want to tell you just a few things about how this interview came about because they are pretty interesting, revealing, and now weirdly relevant, apparently.
So this interview with Mike Huckabee came about a couple of weeks ago on Twitter.
One of our producers showed me, he said something to the effect of, you're talking to Middle Eastern Christians, Tucker Carlson.
Maybe you should talk to me.
Why don't you come do an interview?
And I paused for a minute.
I've thought in the past about trying to interview Mike Huckabee, whom I've known for over 30 years and worked adjacent to at Fox.
And I had mixed feelings about it, mostly because it's hard, if you're me, to interview Mike Huckabee because of just the personal affect.
Mike Huckabee is jovial, comes off as friendly.
He's a grandfather.
When annoyed, I can be nasty in interviews.
And so it takes a lot of self-control to interview someone like Mike Huckabee, not because I hate him, but because it's hard to ask him tough questions and not come off as a jerk, which I often am.
So, but I thought in this case, yeah, I should definitely do this for a bunch of different reasons.
Mainly, the United States is moving toward a big war, a real war with Iran, a regime change war, the biggest war we've had since the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003.
Demanding Security Measures 00:06:40
tucker carlson
And Israel is driving that.
We are doing this at the behest, at the demand of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
So it seems like now is the time for more Americans to understand the dynamic between the U.S. and Israel and to call attention to that.
And for another, Huckabee's behavior in the last year in Jerusalem as the ambassador has been very, very striking.
He famously had a meeting with the most damaging spy in American history.
And why did he do that?
He hadn't been asked by anybody up until two days ago, why did you do that?
So I wanted to be able to ask him that.
And so we accepted and then began the usual negotiations about when and where the interview would take place.
And we were constrained because we weren't expecting this.
We wanted to do it quickly, but we had tons of travel.
So we threw them a date, them being the American embassy.
We can do it on this date.
And they were very accommodating.
And then the question became, well, where do we do it?
Maybe a Christian holy site.
We said, we've got to get in and out really quick.
Got to be back to do a bunch of other interviews, but we've got this timeframe.
They said, well, why don't you do it at the U.S. Embassy?
Or maybe we said that.
Great U.S. Embassy.
So the U.S. Embassy is about an hour, 55 minutes from the big airport in Israel, Ben-Gurion.
So we said, okay, what about security?
Now, at this time, the Israeli government, the prime minister included, were attacking me in this show.
Netanyahu, who suggested I was a Nazi, for example.
And so we thought, you know, how about security?
Obviously.
Not because the Israeli government necessarily would do something bad, but because there are a lot of people in Israel who think, because they've been told, you know, that I'm an anti-Semite or a Nazi or want to kill Jews.
It's kind of crazy overstatement.
All untrue, obviously.
But it would be good to have security.
And I should say, having done interviews on six out of seven continents over 35 years, I'm not very security conscious at all.
Never really feel uncomfortable.
Would this seem like a prudent thing to do?
So we were told by the embassy spokesman, no, we're not going to provide security.
And so we said, okay, I guess we'll get private security, but could we get someone from the embassy to ride in the car with us from the airport to the interview?
And we were told, no, could we get what they call a control officer, just an American, with us in an official capacity as an embassy employee with us?
No, quote, for legal reasons, we can't do that.
So I thought, well, that's very strange.
And then they said, but instead, we're turning you over to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, MFA, and they're going to arrange everything in Israel.
Well, this was within 24 hours of the deputy foreign minister, Sharon Haskell, releasing a video calling me an anti-Semite and an enemy of Israel.
This was the person who the embassy was telling us was going to handle all of our travel.
So it was at this point that I just called.
I called the spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Israel and I said, okay, I'm an American citizen responding to an invitation from the American ambassador to Israel.
And by the way, I'm the son of U.S. ambassador, so I have some sense.
I'm not an expert, obviously, but I have some sense of how this works.
And I think that the U.S. ambassador has discretion to send somebody from his office to the airport to accompany someone in.
I think that's right.
And if it's not right, tell me what law you're talking about, what legal reason you're talking about that would prevent that.
And now you're sending me over to a government official who's been calling me a Nazi.
That's the person in charge of getting us to the embassy.
Like, what is going on here?
And the embassy spokesman, who's totally nice, said, well, this was the decision of someone called David Brownstein.
He's the DCM, the number two guy in the embassy.
And I said, well, put him on a text exchange.
Like, what is going on here?
And so Brownstein got on and didn't answer the question, but basically said, well, okay, let's just do the interview at the airport in the diplomatic reception area at the airport.
Okay, I said, we're going to be flying in from Europe and we had to be in and out really quickly.
So at great expense, we chartered a plane, which I never do because I'm cheap.
But we did.
And so then I said to them, okay, I want to send you the flight information, tail number, flight number, route, and I want you to pass that on to the Israeli military just so they don't mistake us for an Iranian drone or something.
I mean, not to be paranoid, but again, this is probably the most violent country in the world, Israel.
Is there a country in the world where a higher percentage of the population has held a gun or shot someone?
I mean, I don't know the answer, but this is a country famously waging a seven-front war with all of its neighbors.
You know, so this is also the country that bombed the USS Liberty knowing, and we know this from NSA intercepts, that it was an American ship.
So don't, you know, just send the military our flight information.
And, you know, we can all just sort of know it's on the record and we can all calm down a little bit.
No, they said.
The U.S. Embassy said, no, this is your flight is not a matter of concern to the Israeli military.
I said, okay, now you're making me uncomfortable.
Isn't the airspace of Israel the purview of the Israeli military?
Aren't they in charge of maintaining the integrity of their airspace?
When you fly over the country of Israel or any country, its military keeps track of you because that's their job.
So why wouldn't you send our flight information to the Israeli military?
You're making me nervous.
I sent this exchange.
I took a screenshot of it and sent it to a bunch of people, including in the U.S. government, because I'm not a paranoid person and I'm not a jumpy person.
I said, is this weird behavior?
Yeah, it's really weird behavior.
All of them said that.
So I got pretty aggressive and just said, look, you got to do this.
Okay.
And they, to their credit, got back to us and said, yes, we will do that.
But I just thought that was completely bizarre and menacing, by the way.
Now, at the same time, and I think this is relevant, certainly it goes to motive.
I was attempting to set up a meeting as I have been for the past three months with the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who I've dealt with a lot in the past and who denounced me as a Nazi in public, a member of the woke Reich.
Setting Up a Threatening Meeting 00:02:19
tucker carlson
And why was I trying to do that?
Not an interview.
I knew he wouldn't sit for an interview, but I wanted just to meet with him in person.
One, to show that I'm willing to go to Israel.
I don't hate Israel as a country.
But two, just to say directly to him, this is bad.
This should be de-escalated.
This kind of rhetoric doesn't help anybody calling people, calling me specifically a Nazi and an anti-Semite when you know that I'm not.
By the way, if I was, I would just admit it.
I've said many times I think anti-Semitism is immoral.
It's against my religion, just as hating any group on the basis of their bloodline is immoral.
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And so I really pushed hard for this meeting, and I called a lot of people who know him and who are in regular contact with him.
In fact, I went to go see some of those people directly.
Please, can you help me get a sit down for five minutes with Benjamin Netanyahu?
And I probably called or met with six, seven, eight, maybe more people on this question.
People in official capacities, people in the Israeli government.
I know.
I know a number of people in the Israeli government, people in Israel, a friend of mine in California who knows him.
I mean, I really, really tried.
And I did so for two reasons.
Struggles for Family Safety 00:02:34
tucker carlson
One, because there was a threat to my family.
The Israeli government and Netanyahu himself tried to punish two members of my family.
I won't be more specific, but actually punish two members of my family because he, as he has said in public many times, believes in blood guilt, Amalek.
You know, when someone commits a crime against you, you punish not just him, but his family, his bloodline.
There's no idea that's less Western than that, more anti-Christian than that.
Christians reject that.
Netanyahu doesn't.
That's why he's talking about Amalek.
And he was going after my family, literally.
So I felt very threatened by that.
But moreover, I think it's bad for my country to have people using that kind of language, round him up, bring him to the camps, gas chambers, Nazis, anti-Semitism.
It scares the heck out of people.
It makes people crazy and hysterical.
And certainly in my case, none of that is true.
I hate collective punishment.
I hate attacking people on the basis of their bloodline.
I hate anti-Semitism and anti-white racism and all of this, or any kind of racism, period.
And I've said that a lot.
So using that kind of language against someone who is not fundamentally your enemy, who just, in my case, I want Christians in areas controlled by Israel to be treated with dignity, to have rights.
And I don't want the U.S. government involved in a war, a regime change war with Iran.
Those are my priorities, and I've said them out loud.
I have no secret agenda.
So to attack me as a Nazi for saying that suggests a total unwillingness to compromise.
You know, anyone who doesn't agree with us 100% must be destroyed.
His family must be attacked, my family, and must be written off as a Nazi.
Well, when you do that, it makes people hysterical.
It increases the temperature to a point that someone's going to get hurt if you keep talking that way.
And it's just bad.
It's bad for the United States.
It's bad for the world.
So I wanted to deliver that message.
I finally wound up talking to a guy called Yoram Hazoni, who is an Israeli who famously organizes the American conservative national conservatism conferences.
And I said to him, look, you're having a national conservatism conference in Jerusalem this summer.
You asked me to speak at the first, I think the first national conservatism conference in the United States.
And I did.
Obviously, I believe in national conservatism, America first.
I think every nation should put its own people first.
American Conservative Nationalism 00:09:15
tucker carlson
That's why you have governments.
And I would like to speak at this one.
And moreover, I would like you to ask your friend Benjamin Netanyahu to meet with me.
And we had this sort of long back and forth.
And it was, no, you cannot speak at the National Conservatism Conference because you're an anti-Semite.
No, I'm not.
I said, yes, you are.
He said.
And I said, well, I really would like to speak to Bibi to kind of de-escalate this.
And he said, it would not be in his political interest to meet with you.
It's almost verbatim what he said.
Therefore, no.
So then I realized, you know, you're dealing with people who are unreasonable, who are inflexible, who are in fact fanatical.
And then add to that, of course, that my tax dollars are paying them.
You know, it's all pretty distressing.
So that was the backdrop behind our very brief and highly intense trip to Israel.
So we show up on Wednesday, flying from Europe, again, at great expense, and show up at the diplomatic terminal of Ben-Gurion Airport where this interview is going to take place, which is bizarre in itself, a filthy building.
The windows are so dirty in the terminal, you can't see out them barely.
There's like exposed drywall.
The whole thing is depressing and grim.
There's litter outside.
Like, what is this?
This is the diplomatic terminal in Israel.
I thought that was very strange.
Having been in a lot of diplomatic terminals, I've never seen a rattier one.
We go in and Huckabee's there.
And of course, he's totally friendly, as he always is.
Very, very friendly guy and cheerful and would sort of chat.
And the whole place is filled with these guys in t-shirts, thuggish looking guys in t-shirts who are some kind of security.
So we do the interview.
You're about to watch it.
It's very long, two and a half hours-ish.
And I try my hardest to be friendly.
I think I kind of succeeded.
You can judge for yourself.
But I really got the sense.
And again, you can decide as you watch it that Huckabee was not able to answer any of the questions, but also not really in charge.
You really got the feeling of a guy sort of trying his best to repeat the talking points, but very constrained, like unable to say certain things, not because those things might harm the interest of the U.S. government.
He was happy to attack, for example, the U.S. military and say they're more brutal than the Israeli military, okay?
But unwilling to say certain things because they might reflect poorly on the Israeli government.
And you sort of thinking about this for a second, you're like, wait, you're the U.S. ambassador.
You're our representative to a foreign country.
Why is your red line criticism of that country?
Shouldn't you be representing us?
And it was very obvious he was representing the Israelis.
Obvious.
And again, you can judge for yourself.
But anyway, so we do this interview.
It was cordial.
And at the end, we're set to fly out.
We have a time.
We have to get out.
And the plane is sitting right outside and we're ready to go.
And for some reason, the Israelis still have our passports.
There are five of us there.
And four of us are flying out on this plane.
One's flying out commercial with our gear.
So my business partner and I sort of standing there.
We've never left the airport, never went anywhere.
But our two producers have spent the night the night before in Tel Aviv.
And they're called into rooms and given the third degree.
Now, keep in mind, they're about to get on a plane and leave.
In fact, we're late.
We have to get out of there.
We have a slot to get out.
And security, whoever this is, won't let them go.
So I don't really know what's going on at this point.
I'm like, where are our guys?
We got to get out of here.
So one of them comes out and he says, that was the weirdest experience of my life.
They asked me questions about the interview.
Who did you speak to?
Keep in mind, this was like eight feet from where we did the interview.
Well, the U.S. ambassador.
I'm like, Huckabee, what did you talk about?
Why did you ask those questions?
Was it a hostile interview?
Now, of course, everything in the diplomatic terminal is taped.
Everything in Israel is taped.
It's a police state.
It's a surveillance state, obviously.
You go to Israel, they put software on your phone.
Everybody knows this.
They're constantly spying on you more than probably any other country.
And so they know the answers to these questions, but they're asking my producer, like, where do you work?
How many people work there?
Do you go to the office?
Where is the office?
What are their names?
They're doing like an Intel op and humiliation exercise on my producer.
This isn't security.
We're leaving right now.
And they're holding his passport.
The interrogator is holding the passport in his hand as he's asking these questions.
So he's telling me this.
And I said, this is the most outrageous thing I've ever heard.
Huckabee's gone by this point.
You're an American citizen who's just had a conversation with the U.S. ambassador and some thug is demanding details of that conversation.
And I hope you didn't answer.
And he's like, no, I didn't.
I don't know what to say.
Meanwhile, our last guy, the youngest man who was traveling with us, our last producer, is still in a room being questioned.
So I pull over one of the guys and said, we got to get out of here.
So I don't know what this is about.
It's outrageous.
And, you know, there's nothing I can do about this point, but we got to go.
And this woman comes up to me and says, look, let's just go.
We're going to bring you to the plane and he'll come later.
I said, no, it's my producer.
He's being interrogated, asked totally over the top, fully inappropriate questions that have nothing to do with security at all.
You know, pull up your website.
Show us your text exchanges with other people on your staff.
What are your politics like?
And again, what did you say to the U.S. ambassador and what did he say back to you?
Those are not relevant questions if you're trying to keep your country secure.
Those are Intel questions.
And they're over the top.
And I said, I want this guy out now.
Let's go, you know, we got to go.
And they said, no, no, just leave him here.
We'll bring him to the plane later.
Twice they told me that.
Just leave your guy behind.
No, I don't think so.
So I was enraged by this.
Get on the plane.
We get a text from a reporter who somehow knew that this had happened.
I have no idea how.
I had no interest in publicizing it, actually.
There was, you know, a long trail that showed that the U.S. embassy had been coordinating against us in a public relations battle before we even got there.
You know, they were leaking that we demanded to do it at the airport because we were afraid to go into Israel.
We're cowards.
Okay.
We're cowards.
Right.
And so I just said to the reporter by text, you know, they pulled my guys into a room, interrogating them.
This is outrageous, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The interesting thing is, I never heard from Huckabee or anybody to this moment from the U.S. Embassy about what security did to my producers.
They didn't ask us.
And instead, Huckabee went out and called me a liar.
So it raises, again, the question: who exactly is Huckabee working for?
We're American citizens in a foreign country.
He's our ambassador.
He represents our country.
We pay his salary, but he's taking the side of the foreign government without even calling to say, hey, what happened to you at the airport?
Did you get hassled?
Did your guys get hassled?
unidentified
No.
tucker carlson
He just immediately repeats their lies without even consulting us.
So, like, what are we looking at here?
We're looking at the reality, which is if you're an American in Israel, you can be certain that your government will take the side of the Israeli government and not your side.
And really, is that so different from the experience of Americans in the United States?
Can you be sure that your government will take your side over the Israeli government?
No, of course not.
They will always take the Israeli government's side over yours.
And that's the core problem.
Even if you support a war with Iran, I think we really, the most pressing issue for Americans is that we kill the Ayatollah or whatever.
You still have a fair expectation that your government, because it is yours, you pay for it.
It exists to serve you and for no other reason.
You have an expectation that your government will take your side against a foreign government.
But the daily lived reality, the obvious truth visible to every single American, is that's the opposite of reality.
In fact, if you criticize Israel in your country, your government will work to censor you.
If there's a standoff between you and Bibi, you know whose side your government's going to take, BB's side.
The Natural Order Disrupted 00:02:50
tucker carlson
That is not sustainable.
That is too humiliating.
It's too clearly an inversion of the natural order.
Your government exists for you, not for a foreign government.
But that's not how we live in this country or in Israel.
So that's what we learned.
And one last thing: the Israelis apparently went, probably with the help of Mike Huckabee, went to the surveillance tape inside the diplomatic terminal and pulled some clip.
And they're, of course, getting all their little bots online to promote it of me with my arm around somebody to show that actually I'm lying about what happened.
That person was our driver who drove us from the plane to the terminal, a short drive.
Very nice guy, good guy, Israeli guy.
And right when we arrived, and he said, could I get a picture?
Of course.
He's a nice man.
So I just put my arm around him, took a picture.
That's what that is.
That was before the interview.
It was before our producers were hassled by the thugs and asked ridiculous questions.
It was before any of this happened.
So that's just another installment of the propaganda war.
I thought we'd give you the backstory on that.
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So with that, here is our interview with Ambassador Mike Huckabee.
I hope it's informative.
Jonathan Pollard's 30-Year Sentence 00:06:11
tucker carlson
Ambassador, thank you very much for having us, for inviting me.
I was grateful to be invited.
unidentified
Thank you.
tucker carlson
I was grateful because I don't like all the name calling.
I've engaged in some of it.
I want to apologize for that.
I don't, but I, in general, I don't think people should be going immediately to Motive, calling each other Nazis or anti-Semites.
I said, I hate the Christian Zionists.
I lost control of myself.
Of course, I don't.
I've apologized for that.
I have problems with my anger.
And so I just want to apologize to you since you are a Christian Zionist.
mike huckabee
You and I have known each other for over 30 years.
tucker carlson
Over 30 years.
That is totally true.
mike huckabee
Back when you were in Little Rock.
tucker carlson
So the newspaper.
mike huckabee
That's why I wanted us to have a conversation, talk to each other and not about each other.
tucker carlson
And I appreciate very much your coming here to hours, unfortunately, because I kind of shoehorned this in, but I hope that I will be back soon.
And I hope that I can come back soon because I want to, I actually like, despite what you may hear, I actually like the country.
I've been here a lot.
And there are a lot of things I love about it.
And I want to talk to people in it for like a week and get a better sense of it.
So I want to ask you, everyone I've talked to in preparation for this has said the same thing.
Jonathan Pollard, I'm just going to show the name to you and have you explain.
mike huckabee
No, I'm glad you asked.
You know, of course.
Interestingly, there's been a lot of things about it.
You're the first person who has asked me about it, which I find amazing.
So I'm glad you do.
unidentified
Really?
Yeah.
mike huckabee
The very first time.
tucker carlson
Good.
Well, it's better to hear it.
mike huckabee
Sure.
I met Jonathan Pollard two times.
Once I was making a speech in Jerusalem.
This has been a few years ago.
His wife was still alive at the time.
And he was there.
And someone introduced me to him and his wife.
I said hello to them.
That was it.
Hi.
Nice to meet Esther, his wife.
And that was it.
I went and made my speech and I left.
Later, his wife passed away here in Israel, and I sent him a note and just said, I'm sorry to hear about your wife.
I remember meeting her at the hotel and sorry to hear it.
He then asked, could he come and see me?
He wanted to come and thank me for being kind to him.
He came to the embassy.
I think we met for maybe 30 minutes.
We had a nice, pleasant visit.
The funny thing was the New York Times reported that it was a secret meeting.
Tucker, if you've ever been to the U.S. Embassy, you would know there's no such thing as a secret meeting at the U.S. Embassy.
There are cameras everywhere.
You walk through Marines.
You walk through security.
You walk through the front office and there's a dozen or more people that are going to check you out when you come.
And before you get there, you're going to have to give us your passport information.
You're going to have to be vetted and screened and all of this stuff.
So the idea that it was secret was ludicrous.
The whole idea is, look, Jonathan Pollard did something that was terribly wrong.
He sold secrets.
He shouldn't have done it.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison and spent 30.
Actually, he was, I think, yeah, I think he was sentenced to maybe more than 30 years, but he spent 30 years in prison.
Most people convicted of something similar, which was one count, I believe, would have spent two to four, but he spent 30.
I don't have a problem with him spending 30 because I think what he did was despicable.
I'm not defending anything about what he did.
But even people like the former director of the CIA, a number of other senators on the Senate Foreign Relations of the Senate Intel Committee said that he should be allowed to leave and move to Israel if he wanted to.
So it, to me, was not as big a deal that I had this basically courtesy meeting.
He wanted to thank me for being nice to him when his wife died.
That's pretty much the same.
tucker carlson
You advocated for his release when you ran for, I remember it, in 2011, long before he had served 30 years.
And I agree with you that there are a lot of people languishing in prison, you know, in our country and in this country, many countries, you know, for longer periods than they deserve.
And I think it's a Christian impulse to want to see them free.
But this was the greatest traitor in modern American history who sold our battle plans, sold our battle plans against the Soviet Union, our main enemy in the Cold War, to the Israeli government, which according to our Reagan CIA director, Bill Casey, then gave them to the Soviet Union.
So this was the most profound betrayal of the United States in my lifetime.
Why advocate for that guy's release before he serves his full sentence?
mike huckabee
If that were the case in 2011, it would have been because I had a number of friends that suggested that he had more than served a time and he didn't want to live in the U.S. anymore.
He wanted to live in Israel.
But my association with him, again, I had never met him until I met him in Jerusalem at a hotel.
That was the first time I had ever encountered him.
tucker carlson
I'm friends with a million bad people, or I've talked to a million bad people.
mike huckabee
I'm sitting here with you.
I mean, come on.
tucker carlson
I mean, she's the same with tax collectors.
So trust me, I do not judge people who are friends or know or enjoy the company of immoral people because it's not an endorsement of their immoral behavior.
Pollard is different.
I think once you become U.S. Ambassador, the representative of the President of the United States in the United States of America in a foreign country, and then you invite not only the most damaging betrayer in our lifetimes, but also a guy who continues to advocate for betrayal.
So he gave an interview, as I know you know, in 2021 to Israeli media in which he said, I would encourage Jewish Americans with security clearances to spy for Mossad against their own country, the United States, because, and I'm pretty much quoting him, all Jews should have dual loyalty.
That's a, I mean, that's not repentance.
That's not someone who feels bad about what he did.
That's someone who's encouraging American Jews to betray their country.
That's pretty heavy, don't you think?
mike huckabee
Oh, I do.
And I disagree with that wholeheartedly.
Why Pollard Meets in the U.S. Embassy 00:06:06
mike huckabee
I think, let's remember it was President Trump who probably facilitated his departure.
And I'm certainly supportive of President Trump.
I think you are.
tucker carlson
Pollard's not.
He called him a madman after your meeting.
mike huckabee
That's why I say Pollard is not, for me, the real issue.
It was the fact that he did something that was despicable.
I'm not denying that.
Of course he did.
And he paid dearly for it, 30 years in prison, and he should have.
That's what he should have done.
No question about it.
tucker carlson
But why meet with him in the U.S. Embassy?
Your colleagues said they were shocked.
They said...
mike huckabee
Who were the colleagues that said they were shocked?
tucker carlson
Quoted on background in the New York Times.
I think the meeting was in August.
This could all be fake.
That's why I'm asking you.
mike huckabee
Well, the same New York Times said it was a secret meeting.
And I'm telling you, there's no such thing as a secret meeting in the U.S. Embassy.
tucker carlson
Do you see why the U.S. ambassador hosting a convicted betrayer of his own country who's encouraging Americans to continue to betray their country would seem shocking?
mike huckabee
Well, I would say that it wasn't that I you make it sound like I'm hosting a meeting.
I simply met with him.
meet with people all the time someone just walk in without a no they have to have an appointment Of course they do.
tucker carlson
Oh, so it is hosting him then, I think.
mike huckabee
Well, I don't know if it was hosting, but it was certainly he was able to come to the U.S. Embassy to have a meeting at his request.
I did.
And frankly, I don't regret it.
I met with a lot of people over the course of the time I've been here and will meet with a lot more.
That's it.
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There have been Americans in prison in Israel.
There have also been, and there continue to be, dozens and dozens and dozens of sex offenders, accused sex offenders from the United States who fled to Israel, including one recently, an Israeli government official, who was caught trying to molest a 15-year-old girl and fled to Israel and is not going back to the United States to stand charges for attempted molestation of a child.
Have you advocated for the Israeli government to return him to the United States?
mike huckabee
I'm not familiar with that case.
It has not come to us at the embassy.
So I'm not aware.
Is this the person in Nevada?
tucker carlson
That is correct.
Okay, I heard about it.
I would imagine so.
mike huckabee
Yeah, I heard about it, but I heard about it through open source media.
was never something that was presented to us, but I would have no problem with him being extradited back to the U.S. You're the president's and our country's representative in the state of Israel.
tucker carlson
So I think it would fall to you to advocate with your friend the prime minister to say, wait a second, we have a very close relationship.
We're obviously the single largest source of outside funding for this country.
How can you take an accused child molester and shield him from American justice, send him back to the United States?
Have you ever had that conversation?
mike huckabee
No, because the prime minister would not be the proper person that would deal with an extradition.
It would go through their court system.
And so the prime minister is separate, very similar to what we have in the U.S., where there is a separation of powers.
So it would go through something other than the prime minister.
tucker carlson
Have you advocated to the courts, to judges, to anybody in the Israeli justice system?
mike huckabee
There has never been a request for me to engage in that.
I would be happy to do it.
If the White House sent a message to me, I do work for the president.
I serve it as pleasure.
If anyone at the White House were to say to me, would you please go and make a case for it?
But probably if that were to happen, it wouldn't come through the embassy as much as it would likely come from the Department of Justice at the U.S. in D.C.
They would make the request.
They might involve us, but they very likely would not.
tucker carlson
Does it seem strange to you that people accused of child molestation in the United States are allowed to have refuge within the borders of our closest ally?
That doesn't make sense to me.
Well, I would say that if you've molested an American child, shouldn't you be required to do it?
mike huckabee
It's an allegation.
Let's be clear.
One of the things about our system of jurisprudence, you're innocent until you're proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
So if the charges are there, should he be extradited?
I would say so.
tucker carlson
The charges are there.
mike huckabee
Yeah.
Okay.
So they should be.
But that's a Justice Department decision, and they're the ones who should be pursuing it.
To my knowledge, they haven't.
They certainly haven't engaged the U.S. Embassy over it.
tucker carlson
Why would the Israeli government harbor fugitives from justice in the United States?
mike huckabee
I'm not sure that.
tucker carlson
There are dozens and dozens and dozens of dozens.
In fact, there's an Israeli group that keeps track of them that is dedicated, Jewish-Israeli group dedicated to combating the molestation of children and keeps a long list.
And you can look it up and I would.
mike huckabee
Tucker, I hope you're not saying that you think the Israelis support the molestation of children.
tucker carlson
Obviously, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying that the Israeli government allows shields accused child molesters from justice in Africa.
mike huckabee
I'm not sure I could say that that's something that is provable.
I don't know.
But I am not aware that the Israeli government is shielding people.
Why Epstein Files Matter 00:11:10
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Well, they are, and I'll give you a, and I just want to make sure that I pronounce this man's name correctly.
It's Tom, I believe, Alexandrovich.
I think that's right.
And I've written it down, but of course, my handwriting is so terrible I can't read it.
But yes, he is an Israeli, I believe, cybersecurity official who was at a conference in Las Vegas last year and was caught up in a sting designed to catch people soliciting sex from children.
He was one of a number of people arrested for this.
He was arraigned and charged.
And then two days later, he fled to Israel and did his first hearing by Zoom.
He was allowed for some reason to leave for a foreign country, having already been charged for attempted molestation of a child.
And he remains here now.
And there have been many news stories about this.
And I just wonder if you would ask the Israeli government to send to put him on a plane and send him back to face justice for attempting to molest an American child.
It doesn't seem complicated.
mike huckabee
No, I wouldn't mind doing that.
But I want to find out if the Justice Department of the U.S. has already sought to extradite him.
Is there anything in process?
I don't know.
tucker carlson
Why wouldn't they seek to extradite him?
mike huckabee
I have no idea.
That's a question for the Justice Department.
tucker carlson
I've got many questions for the Justice Department, like why are millions of Epstein files still classified?
Why do you think that is?
mike huckabee
I have no idea.
I haven't kept up with that.
I've never met the man.
I don't know him.
tucker carlson
You haven't kept up with the Epstein disclosure?
mike huckabee
I mean, only from a distance.
I'm 6,000 miles away from D.C. these days.
I'm pretty sure that there's so much.
tucker carlson
The current president of Israel, current president, who I know you know, President Herzog apparently was at Peto Island.
That's what it says in the disclosures.
And of course, we know that the former prime minister, Ehud Barak, was living on an off at Epstein's house.
So still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein's life, if not his crime.
So I would think that you'd be following this.
mike huckabee
Only I was not aware that there was any connection with President Herzog.
I would be surprised to hear that.
And I knew there was about the former prime minister, who apparently had a lot of dealings with Epstein.
tucker carlson
Business dealings.
And by the way, I'm not alleging anything, but I mean, it's in, yes, in the Epstein files, and I don't know that I've heard the current president of Israel respond to it, but he is listed as a visitor to Peto Island.
So that's kind of a big deal.
I wonder, considering there are so many suggestions in the files, as I'm sure you know, of sexual abuse, and given that Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender, I wonder why the administration you work for would be holding millions of files, which I believe belong to the public, hidden for, quote, national security reasons.
What would those national security reasons be, do you think?
mike huckabee
Honestly, I think you've probably got more access to the White House sometimes than I do.
You should ask them.
tucker carlson
But you're the government official representing that White House.
mike huckabee
In Israel.
And I represent the U.S. in Israel to the Israeli government from the U.S. government.
But honestly, nobody has presented that to us.
Well, now that you know that there's no dynamic situation here, I don't know if you know that or not, but there's a lot going on in this part of the world.
And frankly, that has not been top line item.
tucker carlson
But you're surprised to hear that the current president of Israel, whom you know, is listed as a visitor to Peto Island.
mike huckabee
I had never heard that.
Never heard it even in the Israeli press.
tucker carlson
Are you going to ask him next time you see him?
mike huckabee
I'll be happy to.
Talk to him almost every week.
tucker carlson
I guess what I'm asking is not simply as a representative of my government or a high U.S. official, but just as like a man and a father and a Christian.
How could you resist saying, like, were you on Peto Island with Jeffrey Epstein?
mike huckabee
Well, if I'm not aware of it.
And secondly, there are a lot of things that go on in the world.
I don't question every single person about every single thing that may be alleged about the country.
I understand all that, but this is the first I've ever heard of this.
So why do you expect me to have knowledge of something like that?
tucker carlson
Well, because you attacked me personally for suggesting that Jeffrey Epstein had ties to Mossad, and you said that.
mike huckabee
You think he does?
tucker carlson
What's very clear he does from the city?
mike huckabee
You think he does?
Where do you get that?
tucker carlson
Well, the fact that he was in contact repeatedly with members of the Israeli government, including the current president and the former prime minister and all kinds of Israeli intel connected people.
I'm not saying he'd work for Mossad.
I don't think we know that.
But there's no question that he had extensive contact with CIA.
mike huckabee
I think you said at a turning point event, everybody knows Jeffrey Epstein.
tucker carlson
I said everyone thinks.
And it turns out everyone was right that he did have.
mike huckabee
not sure everyone was right or everyone thinks.
tucker carlson
Okay, but you said that I was lying and I don't want to make this about me.
mike huckabee
I don't think I said you were lying, Tucker.
I don't recall.
tucker carlson
I'm just saying, why don't we release all the files and then we don't need to guess?
mike huckabee
I got no problem with that.
Go ahead.
tucker carlson
Well, because you weighed in on it and said that this was not true.
mike huckabee
You said there was no evidence.
tucker carlson
Well, there's quite a bit of evidence, but you haven't apparently bothered to read any of the files.
Is that what you're saying?
mike huckabee
I have not read the Epstein files.
Apparently, you have.
tucker carlson
Well, they're on the internet.
mike huckabee
But when you say that everybody knows that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad.
tucker carlson
You said everyone believes that.
mike huckabee
I don't think everybody does.
I don't know.
tucker carlson
Well, everyone knows that he had contact with, and by the way, not just Israeli intelligence, American intelligence, which is much more distressing for me.
I'm not Israeli.
I'm American.
I don't want my government having any contact with someone like Jeffrey Epstein.
So the shame is on the United States, as far as I'm concerned, just to be totally clear about that.
Everyone's very sensitive about the Israel connection, not at all sensitive about the U.S. connection, which I find very revealing.
We should care about what our government does first, I think.
But since you weighed in on it and said there's no evidence, I'm surprised that since that evidence has been open to the public for a month, since you've already weighed in publicly on this question, that you've made no effort to evaluate that evidence.
Why is that?
mike huckabee
I've just told you, I was certainly not aware that there were some specific allegations.
I knew about the former prime minister, but I don't know him.
I'm not sure I ever met him in my many times.
I've been to Israel over 100 times since 1973.
The first time I came here was 1973, July.
And that's almost 53 years of coming and going to this country.
So I know the country well.
I know a lot of people here.
But I don't know everything, and I don't know everybody, but I do a lot of people.
tucker carlson
Of course.
No.
And I can see your love for it, and I think that's great.
But I'm talking about the U.S. government and its responsibility to ⁇ you know, there's a lot of complaint about conspiracy theories and everyone, you know, he's a hater.
Everyone's assigning motive.
But there's a way to end these conversations very quickly with facts, and I'm highly confused by...
mike huckabee
Have you brought this up to the president?
tucker carlson
I mean, no, I don't work for him.
I've said this many times.
mike huckabee
I know you don't work for him, but you go to the White House and you see people there.
You and JD Vance are very good friends.
So have you brought this up to them?
tucker carlson
Because I have brought this up in a public community.
mike huckabee
It's not on my portfolio, but apparently it's highly, very strongly on your mind.
tucker carlson
And I'm sure that you should deal with a significant concern for me.
mike huckabee
It should be for everybody.
tucker carlson
Well, there's an excuse.
There is a charged child molester.
mike huckabee
But I'm saying if you are very involved in the details of this, and you think it's the U.S. government that's hiding and shielding somebody, then bring it up to the people that you're not going to be able to do that.
tucker carlson
Oh, I don't personally.
I don't think that.
Know it because the Justice Department has said we have millions of documents we're not releasing.
mike huckabee
Why are they not releasing it?
tucker carlson
I'm asking you as a U.S. government official.
mike huckabee
I'm a government official at the embassy in Jerusalem that has not one thing to do with the Justice Department and what they're investigating on any given day.
Unless it involves the same thing.
tucker carlson
And I don't want to argue or talk in circles, but you were the one who brought it up and said it's absolutely not true.
mike huckabee
I was only responding to what I heard you say.
tucker carlson
Okay, but now that you know there's evidence and we can settle this debate, you haven't looked at the evidence and you're not pushing for the release of the total corpus of evidence.
And I'm confused because I want to believe that your goal is to get to the truth.
And the fastest way to do that is by releasing the evidence.
Don't you think?
mike huckabee
Do you suggest that I can release the evidence?
tucker carlson
I'm suggesting you could call for it right now.
mike huckabee
Well, fine, call for it.
Let's have it all open.
I thought it was being all opened up for everything I need.
tucker carlson
Once it's open, I hope you'll read it because it's really interesting.
And then it puts to rest a lot of the debate and it ends the name calling because we can say, here it is right there.
And we don't have to call people names.
We can just assess the documents.
Let me ask you.
mike huckabee
Would you bring it up?
I hope you will bring it up to people at the White House.
tucker carlson
Oh, I'm bringing it up right now.
I'm bringing it up now.
And I'm asking, and I just want to say this one last time.
As the U.S. ambassador to Israel, I hope that you will make a formal request to the Israeli government to send every accused sex offender in this country back to the United States to face justice.
And I don't understand why that hasn't been done.
I'm confused.
mike huckabee
Well, we'll try to clear up all the confusion that we have.
tucker carlson
Well, if someone's been accused of trying to molest a child, I think it's...
mike huckabee
Then certainly, and I'll check with the Justice Department because it is a DOJ issue and it would be handled through DOJ, the U.S., to the court systems in Israel.
Israel's Right to Exist 00:14:12
mike huckabee
That's how it would be handled.
tucker carlson
But the first step is the Israeli government saying, yes, we will allow you to extradite this person back.
The person is being shielded by the government.
That's why the person's here.
That's why he fled here so he wouldn't have to stand trial for trying to molest a child.
I want to get to the, as I said at the outset, I said something awful that I regret that my wife barked at me about.
I lashed out at Christian Zionists and evangelicals.
And I just want to say again that I'm sorry.
I've always liked them because they're pro-life and they're also really nice people.
So for the third time, I'm sorry that I said that.
I think part of my problem was I don't understand the theology.
And you are not a fake Baptist minister.
You're an actual minister.
You've had a church for many years.
You're an actual theologian.
So, and I mean this with sincerity.
I hear people say those who bless Israel will be blessed.
I know it's a reference to Genesis.
I don't understand the connection between that concept and modern Israel and the geopolitical world.
mike huckabee
And so I'm going to stand back and define, because, you know, for my days as a debater in high school and college, one of the things I knew, you didn't start the debate till you defined the terms.
tucker carlson
Amen.
mike huckabee
Let's define the terms.
Thank you.
unidentified
Thank you.
mike huckabee
What is a Christian Zionist?
tucker carlson
Okay.
mike huckabee
What does that mean to you?
What does it mean?
tucker carlson
I don't know.
It's the people who call me a Nazi for asking what Israel means.
I mean, that's kind of my, I don't even know.
mike huckabee
But here's the point.
If you say a Christian Zionist is a person who has a brain virus and is guilty of heresy, that's a pretty big charge.
tucker carlson
I know.
I shouldn't have made it.
I shouldn't have made it.
I made it out of anger and ignorance.
mike huckabee
Christian, I think we can agree, is somebody who follows Jesus Christ, has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, believes in his death, burial, resurrection, has repented of one's sins, and have accepted him as one's savior.
tucker carlson
Would that be fair?
unidentified
Christian.
mike huckabee
Define that.
Zionist.
A Zionist simply means a person who believes that the Jewish people have a right to have a homeland where they have security and safety.
Did you believe that the Jews have a right to live in Israel?
Do you believe the Jews have a right to live in Israel?
That would be a Zionist.
That's all a Zionist is.
tucker carlson
I have a million questions about what all of those terms mean.
But conceptually, I wish Israel no harm.
I don't want to see them very much.
mike huckabee
Do you want them to have a place where they can live with safety in the city?
tucker carlson
So I saw this recently in an extremely telling exchange between the lieutenant governor of Texas, who I know and I've always liked, and a woman I don't know, never met, who's on the Religious Liberty Commission or something.
And she said, I'm a Catholic, but I'm not a Zionist.
And they have this ferocious exchange.
And he kept saying, and everyone on the panel seemed to keep saying, you have to believe in Israel's right to exist, which I've never kind of questioned just for the record.
But it did raise two questions I think are really important.
And I hope you'll answer them.
One is, where does that right come from?
mike huckabee
I would say it comes from, essentially, you could say it comes from the Bible.
I would say that it does.
But it comes also from a long iteration of historical precedents going to the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
It comes from the League of Nations 1927.
It comes from the United Nations 1947, the Declaration of Independence of the Israel State in May of 1948.
They were immediately attacked.
They won the war.
They were attacked again in 1956.
They won the war.
They were attacked again in 1967 by five countries.
They won the war.
They were attacked again in 1973 in the Yom Kippur War.
They won the war.
The point is, does Israel have a right to exist?
They also had wars in 1982 in Lebanon.
They've had Dafadas, two of those.
tucker carlson
They've had 2014.
I was there.
No, I'm very familiar with the modern history of the state.
unidentified
Okay.
tucker carlson
Pretty familiar, I think.
mike huckabee
But a Zionist simply means somebody who believes that Israel has a right to exist.
Now, the question is, do you believe Israel has a right to exist?
tucker carlson
I guess.
I mean, I want it to exist.
Well, no, but I want to know what that means.
So, like, do other countries have a right to exist?
mike huckabee
Well, they do exist.
tucker carlson
Do they have a right to exist?
You keep saying Israel has a right to exist.
And I want to know what other countries have existed.
mike huckabee
They have a legal right because every international body in the last 100 years has said the Jewish people have a right to exist.
So that's a legal right.
Do they have a biblical right?
I would say that yes, but you may say they don't.
tucker carlson
I don't know.
I'm actually sincerely interested in finding out what you mean by a biblical right.
But first to the legal right, does any other country on the planet have the same right that Israel has to exist?
mike huckabee
Well, you could say, does Jordan have a right to exist when it was transjordan and the Brits came and divided up the Middle East and they gave some land to Jordanians and they gave some land to the Saudis and they gave some land to various Middle Eastern countries and it was all carved up and the French gave Lebanon its right to exist.
Do they have a right to exist?
tucker carlson
Do they?
mike huckabee
Well, why not?
tucker carlson
Okay.
So that's my country.
mike huckabee
Does the U.S. have a right to exist?
tucker carlson
I'm asking you.
mike huckabee
Okay, and I'm telling you, I think the U.S. has a right to exist.
tucker carlson
Okay.
mike huckabee
We came here.
We came there.
We're in Israel now talking.
But does the U.S. have a right to exist?
Does anyone question whether we have a right to exist?
tucker carlson
I don't, yeah, but I, of course, I'm for America.
Not for you.
So every current country on the map has the same right to exist that Israel has.
Is that what you're saying?
mike huckabee
I think what we're saying is that when a country has established itself and it is following international law, it has been deemed by numerous bodies that it is indigenous to its homeland as Israel is.
This is its homeland.
It goes back 3,800 years to the time of Abraham.
It's not that the Jewish people just showed up here in 1948 and said, we're going to have some land.
tucker carlson
So those are two different tracks, and I just want to make sure that we separate them so I understand each one separately.
So you're saying there's the modern legal framework, and so you said a country that abides by international law has a right to exist.
mike huckabee
I would say that that is a part.
tucker carlson
Would the inverse be true that a country that does not abide by international law forfeits its right to exist?
mike huckabee
Not necessarily if it has the capacity to stay and make its case known.
But there have been Jewish people in this land.
Okay, but that's in this very land for 3,800 years.
tucker carlson
Okay.
So but you're saying as the modern nation state with borders and a military and a knesset and just all the kind of trappings of a modern country, all of which I support, that country has every country on the planet has the same right as Israel to exist because it does exist.
Is that what you're saying?
I'm just trying to understand the concept here.
mike huckabee
Well, I think what we're trying to get to is Christian Zionism, and you've taken this way off the road here.
tucker carlson
No that I have.
I don't need to.
Christian Zionism is a separate thing, but I just keep hearing people say Zionism is the belief.
mike huckabee
That's the fundamental argument that's going on.
Does Israel have a right to live in their indigenous ancient historical land, a land that has been affirmed throughout international organizations, a land that has direct ties to the Jewish people?
tucker carlson
I just want to know if this is a universal principle.
I guess that's what I'm getting at, because if it's not, then it's meaningless to me, because as a Christian, I believe in universal principles.
Something is right for everyone or it's wrong for everyone.
We don't believe in special cases.
mike huckabee
If the Jews didn't have this land, would the Jews have a right to any land?
tucker carlson
I don't know.
I'm not attacking the Jews.
I'm asking if this applies to every people and every nation.
Does every nation have the same right to its own homeland, to its own physical land, that you say Israel does?
mike huckabee
I feel like we're in a rabbit hole here.
tucker carlson
No, I think it's a very straightforward question.
But does that right extend to other countries other than Israel?
mike huckabee
But the most important thing that is going on in our culture right now is whether or not the people that are yelling in the streets from the river to the sea, whether that that's a legitimate point of view to say that there should not be a Jewish homeland.
There should not be a Jewish period.
tucker carlson
I just want to.
mike huckabee
I know you haven't said it, but that's the argument.
tucker carlson
One of the arguments going on globally, and the United States, excuse me, has a pretty narrow view, I would say, in our media culture, what's happening around the world.
There are plenty of countries having this debate.
Stonehenge is a lot older than the first temple in Israel.
And it was built by the same people who live there now.
It's the same people.
And they are being pushed off their island and outnumbered by people from other places.
And so in Great Britain, in Ireland, which is also a country with a nation of people, a race, if you will, that is being displaced, replaced.
mike huckabee
Who are they being replaced by?
tucker carlson
Immigrants.
mike huckabee
Okay.
tucker carlson
from other places.
mike huckabee
I just wanted to clarify because I was one of the...
tucker carlson
Well, just as a demographic matter, it's just like you can look at the numbers.
It's not controversial.
Just look at the numbers.
There'll be a minority in their country.
And their people have been there longer than Jews have been in Israel.
And so they're having this debate, too.
That's all I'm saying.
And lots of places are having this debate.
mike huckabee
Sure.
tucker carlson
So does that principle apply to everyone, or is it specific just to Israel?
mike huckabee
I think it applies specifically to Israel.
applies to anyone who can prove that they have some connection to the land and connection to the history and connection to international law but israel i think does have an extraordinary international law so if again no but let me finish this yes sir because here's the here's the point We're talking about Christian Zionism.
The idea that as a Christian, I believe in both the Old and the New Testament.
Why wouldn't I?
I'm a person of the book.
There are 80 million evangelical Christians in the United States.
What makes us who we are is our adherence to the scripture, our belief that the Bible, all of it, not part of it, but all of it, is the word of the living God.
So if I believe in the Old and the New Testament, I do believe that there is a very specific call to the Jewish people that started with Abraham, and he called them out of what is now modern-day Iraq, said, come where I send you.
He came.
This is the land.
Genesis 12, 3, he says, I will bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you.
In Genesis 17, he looks out of the world.
He says, look, and this is where I'm giving you the land.
I think since that time there have been people living in this land connected to that moment of history.
So there is a historical connection that's not even broken.
tucker carlson
You've said that, and I want to ask you what that means a little more specifically, if that's okay.
But first, let me just say that you could say the same thing of Britons who've been in their land longer.
mike huckabee
Is anybody trying to tell the Britons, the Brits, they can't live there anymore?
tucker carlson
No, what's happening is...
mike huckabee
But they are saying that to the Jews.
tucker carlson
Oh, okay.
Okay, but I'm just wondering if you would extend the same sympathy or the same principle.
You seem like this is, you think I'm trying to trap you?
I'm not at all trying to trap you.
It'd be as simple as saying native Britons have been.
mike huckabee
That's no problem with the native Brits having their land.
But my point is, I don't know that there is a biblical connection for the Brits.
tucker carlson
But I would say that's what it comes.
mike huckabee
I'm going to take that off the table.
And I think there's still a basis for the Jews having this little bitty strip of real estate.
tucker carlson
I'm not even arguing with you.
I'm just trying to, at all.
I'm just trying to understand what it is that you're saying because it's not obvious to me.
And maybe it's an IQ problem, but I'm having trouble understanding this.
But let me just go back to just clarify one thing.
You've brought up international law at least twice, maybe three times, as a basis for Israel's legitimacy.
If Israel was out of compliance with international law, whatever that is, would it be less legitimate?
mike huckabee
Depends on if the law and the way it's applied is legitimate.
There are some applications of so-called international law that are not legitimate.
Look at the ICC or the ICJ.
tucker carlson
I agree.
mike huckabee
Utterly ridiculous.
One of the reasons I'm so grateful President Trump and Secretary Rubio are pushing hard trying to get rid of the ICC and the ICJ is because they have become rogue organizations that are no longer really about an equal application of law and justice.
tucker carlson
I don't know enough about it to say if that's true or not.
But I just am interested that you yourself appealed to international law as a basis of Israel's.
mike huckabee
Well, what I'm looking at is the whole of the last 100 years.
tucker carlson
The Balfour Declaration is not exactly international law, by the way.
It was a letter, I think.
mike huckabee
It was maybe not law, but it was a declaration.
It was an assumption and a declaration that was done by Lord Balfour in Great Britain.
At that time, this land was under the British mandate, and he said the Jews should have the land that was theirs from 3,800 years ago.
It was simple as that.
unidentified
Right.
tucker carlson
And I'm not debating that.
I'm just not international law.
It was a colonial power saying, okay, but then later it was international law under the League of Nations, under the United Nations.
mike huckabee
And then because of the victories that Israel had against those who tried to annihilate them, and it wasn't just that they were trying to take a little piece of their land, they tried to annihilate them.
And there is still to this day the shouts of from the river to the sea.
And Tucker, that means only one thing, not the shrinking of Israel, but the annihilation of Israel.
tucker carlson
I don't think I don't think you can say that you know what it means, actually, because you don't know what's in people's hearts.
So why don't we just deal with the facts?
mike huckabee
Maybe some people mean that it's in their minds.
tucker carlson
But I'm not, look, you'll never hear me say that.
What you will hear me say is I'm confused by what the definitions are.
So let's go through this.
God's Contract with Israel 00:15:41
tucker carlson
You've appealed to Genesis.
Genesis 15 says it's Abram, it's pre-Abraham, it's Abram, receives from God the news that his descendants will inherit the land.
And you tell me as the theologian, if I'm getting this wrong, but from the Euphrates to the Nile.
I think that's right.
And that would include basically the entire Middle East.
That would be the Levant.
So that would be Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon.
It would also be big parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
mike huckabee
I'm not sure it would go that far.
I mean, it would be a big piece of land.
But here's the point.
tucker carlson
It would be a lot of places that are now countries.
mike huckabee
That this particular area that we're talking about now, Israel, is a land that God gave through Abraham to a people that he chose.
It was a people, a place, and a purpose.
We can look at it that way.
Christian Zionism, I want to go back because that's where we started.
tucker carlson
I'm not going to let you off on this because you have said it three times that God gave this land to this people.
And so it is entirely fair for me with respect to ask, what land are you talking about?
Because I just read Genesis 15, as I have many times.
And that land, I think it says, from the Nile to the Euphrates, which is, once again, basically the entire Middle East.
So God gave that land to his people, the Jews, or he didn't.
You're saying he did.
What does that mean?
Does Israel have the right to that land?
Because you're appealing to Genesis.
You're saying that's the original deed.
mike huckabee
It would be fine if they took it all, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here today.
tucker carlson
What would be fine?
Well, it's exactly what we're talking about today.
mike huckabee
But here's what I don't think you're talking about.
You think it would be fine if the state of Israel took over all that they're not asking to take it over.
tucker carlson
But you're saying that the reason that Israel is legitimate and has this inherent right to exist is in part because God gave it to his people.
And I am going to the same Bible that you're referring to and noticing that that is a huge piece of land.
So if God gave them that land, then they have a right to take it now by your definition, unless I'm missing something coming.
mike huckabee
I think you're missing something because they're not asking to go back to take all of that, but they are asking to at least take the land that they now occupy, they now live in, they now own legitimately, and it is a safe haven for them.
tucker carlson
But may I ask, though, because you're appealing, you're explaining what Christian Zionism is and your theological beliefs.
And I think you just said it would be fine with you if the state of Israel took all of Jordan, all of Syria, all of Lebanon.
mike huckabee
That's really not exactly what I'm trying to say.
tucker carlson
I'm asking, is that what you said?
I thought that's what you just said.
mike huckabee
It was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement in that, you know, if that's what you feel like that we're talking about, but it isn't.
We're talking about this land that Israel, the state of Israel, now lives in and wants to have peace in.
They're not trying to take over Jordan.
They're not trying to take over Syria.
They're not trying to take over Iraq or anywhere else.
But they do want to protect their people.
No, they're not trying to take over Lebanon.
tucker carlson
You're saying that as a religious man, as a Christian, a Christian Zionist, you agree with a lot of religious communities here in Israel that the justification for this country is theological.
It's a contract between God and his people.
And I'm telling you that that contract includes a tract of land that is much larger than the current nation state.
mike huckabee
So you may be a bigger Zionist than even the Jews are that live in Israel.
tucker carlson
I'm trying to understand the implications of your theology for geopolitics because you're saying that the present government of Israel has a moral right to take over what are now other people's countries.
mike huckabee
No, I didn't say that.
tucker carlson
Then what are you saying?
mike huckabee
I'm simply saying that the people who live in Israel, I think, have a right to have security, have safety.
They have a right to be able to live in this land that they have a connection to for 30 years.
tucker carlson
I told myself when I said a prayer that I would not get annoyed, but as someone who is, you know, the father of daughters, when I see child molesters hiding in Israel and escaping American justice, I think I have a right to safety in my country too.
So you can understand that I think most people feel they have a right to safety.
I do think Israel has a right to safety, and I hope that for them.
And I'm sincere, but I'm an American, and I have a right to safety in my country too.
mike huckabee
Don't you do?
tucker carlson
I agree.
And I think, so, but I just want to get to this point.
If Israel were to say, God gave us in Genesis 15 all of Lebanon, all of Syria, all the way up to Iraq, would that be legitimate in your view?
mike huckabee
I don't think in this particular day and time they're asking for it.
tucker carlson
Would it be legitimate?
mike huckabee
I'm not sure that it would be.
tucker carlson
Why?
Because you just said that.
mike huckabee
I think that there is an understanding that the people of Israel today.
Now, if they end up getting attacked by all these places and they win that war and they take that land, then okay, that's a whole nother, whole nother discussion.
But you and I started out when we started talking about something simple, Christian Zionism.
tucker carlson
But it turns out it's not simple because I don't, the core of Christian Zionism, you said, and I'm quoting you, is the understanding, the belief, the theological understanding that Jews have a moral and legal, we went through the legal, moral deriving from the biblical.
the promises in our Bible, which we share with the Jewish people, the first part of the Old Testament, that it derives from God's promise to the Jews.
And so I have two questions.
What are the borders of that?
And who are those people in 2026?
And you're not the first person I've asked, but you're the most reasonable, most gentle, most theologically informed person.
So I'm really hoping for an answer.
The first question was the borders.
I can't get an answer.
Those borders are.
So I'm going to give up.
But the second question is every bit as pressing, which is who are the people?
Who are the modern, yes, who are the descendants?
So we know, and I believe, and I agree with you as a Christian, that God promised this land from modern-day Iraq to modern-day Egypt to this people, the Jews, to Abram's, actually not to Abram's descendants, as it says in Genesis 15.
Who are his descendants now, and how do we know who they are?
mike huckabee
I think they're the Jews, and we know who they are because they've always been a Jewish people.
There has been an unbroken line of Jewish people, and they've lived in this land for 3,800 years.
Sometimes not very many of them, because they were chased out all over the world.
They were hunted down.
They were almost annihilated during the Holocaust.
They came back.
To this day, Tucker, they represent, you know how many Jews there are in the whole world?
tucker carlson
Please.
But I understand.
First of all, the greatest genocide of Jews no one ever mentions was by the Romans, where they were literally banned from Jerusalem for 500 years.
Yeah, of course.
And it's all awful.
And I'm opposed to all of that.
I'm opposed to mass killing of anybody, period.
I'm opposed to you.
mike huckabee
I'm trying to hear you say that.
tucker carlson
I mean it.
mike huckabee
Yeah.
tucker carlson
And I hope you enjoyed that.
mike huckabee
I believe that.
tucker carlson
My question is, and it's not a bumper sticker answer.
It's a sincere answer.
How do we know?
Because what you're saying is that certain people have a title to a highly contested region.
They own it in some deep sense.
So I think it's fair to ask, who are they and how do we know?
So the current prime minister's ancestors weren't from here within recorded history.
He has no deed.
Bibi Netanyahu, on one side, his family's from Poland.
They're from Eastern Europe.
So how do we know that he has a connection to the people who God promised the land to Abram's descendants?
How do we know that?
mike huckabee
Well, if you take the genealogies that come not only from the Old, but the New Testament, you see that there is a historical connection through the entirety of the Old and the New Testament that details the Jewish connection to this land.
tucker carlson
Does that include Bibi's family?
How do we know that if his family were scattered, but how do we know it's the same people?
Why is that crazy?
If you say to me...
mike huckabee
If they speak the same language, if they worship the same God, if they follow the same Bible, if they follow the same cultures and traditions, and they always pray next year in Jerusalem, and they pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and they pray facing toward Jerusalem...
does that not give you a little bit of a clue as to who they are?
tucker carlson
Let's go through those things because I would like to have a rational conversation.
This is the conversation I've wanted.
Bless you.
Thank you for doing this.
Let's just go through those things.
unidentified
Okay.
tucker carlson
So one of the things I admire most about Israel is they resurrected a dead language in 1948.
Good for that.
mike huckabee
Well, they really didn't resurrect it.
It was existent.
unidentified
Okay.
tucker carlson
I'm not, that's not a concept.
That's a compliment.
I'm not flighting it.
mike huckabee
No, no, no.
But it is the first time in all of human history that a language has survived through this length of time.
I would call it, you might not, but I would call it a miracle.
One of many.
tucker carlson
Okay.
I think it's wonderful as someone who loves language.
Netanyahu's parents did not speak Hebrew.
They didn't live in this region.
Netanyahu, the founders of this country were mostly secular.
Some of them were avowed atheists.
They were not praying for the peace of Jerusalem.
They weren't praying at all because they didn't believe in God.
There's no genealogy linking their families to the people of this land 3,000 years ago.
They're none.
So how do we know, since they didn't share a language, they didn't share a religion, they had no religion whatsoever, how do we know that they had a right to come here from Eastern Europe?
mike huckabee
But they were taken.
They were scattered to Eastern Europe.
They were scattered all over the world.
There were many in Ethiopia.
They were in Russia.
They were in Poland.
They were throughout Asia.
Jews were all over the place, but they were still Jews.
They were still Jews.
tucker carlson
Okay, so then let me get to the nub of the question, since, again, a lot is at stake.
A lot of money is at stake.
Land is very valuable.
Israel has a lot of resources.
By the way, if you're accused of a crime, you can hide here.
That's a pretty good passport to have.
It's a good thing, right?
So who's entitled to it?
I don't understand.
And you're very discouraged in the United States from asking this question for some reason.
It's a totally rational conversation.
mike huckabee
I'm not discouraged.
tucker carlson
You're not discouraging that.
Others do.
You're like the only person I have this conversation with.
Governor will be like, shut up, Nazi.
It's a foundational question.
Are you speaking of an ethnic group or a religious group?
mike huckabee
Well, I think you're looking at, for many people, it is religious.
There are people who may not have a deep religious connection to Judaism, but they're still Jews.
tucker carlson
So it's an ethnic category.
mike huckabee
It is ethnic, but it is also religious.
It is rooted in religion.
You can't take it out of it.
Now, that means that.
tucker carlson
And how can an atheist?
mike huckabee
Well, I will tell you this.
There are some people who say, I'm Christian.
They never go to church.
They never pray.
They never read their Bible.
They don't tithe.
tucker carlson
But they're not entitled to citizenship on the basis of that.
Well, they're not entitled to it.
mike huckabee
They still call themselves Christians, even though they identify.
tucker carlson
Okay, but wait, here's the difference.
You're saying that people who have this identification have a deed to a huge chunk of land on the Mediterranean.
Okay.
So there's, you know, it's a right.
You keep telling me it's a right.
And so it's totally fair to say if you come to my house and say, I've got the title to your house, I get to ask, may I see it?
Where'd you get it?
And that's exactly what happened here.
People from Europe, Eastern Europe, came here, in a lot of cases, atheists, and kicked out a lot of the people who lived here.
mike huckabee
They bought land.
And they did not just throw people.
tucker carlson
They bought a lot of land.
There's no question about it.
mike huckabee
They bought a lot of land.
tucker carlson
But they also in 1948 kicked out a lot of people.
And the war.
It was a war.
I agree.
I'm not, look, I'm not wanting to relitigate the history.
I'm just saying it's a fact.
mike huckabee
Okay.
tucker carlson
Including a lot of Christians, a lot of Christians, wound up fleeing and they lost their homes and they've never been allowed back.
And all of this was justified on the basis of this identity that forms, that is the ticket to the right that you keep referring to.
So my question is very simple.
I'm going to wait patiently for an answer.
Does this right derive from religious affiliation or from genetics?
mike huckabee
And I would say it's both.
But I would also say that when you said the Christians were kicked out, Tucker, Christianity is growing in Israel.
And there is a big lie that goes out there.
But no, let me finish this because I keep hearing that Christians are really not treated well in Israel.
That's just simply, that's a lie.
There were 34,000 Christians in Israel in 1948.
There are 184,000 Christians here today.
tucker carlson
And by Israel, what are you counting?
mike huckabee
You're talking about the land?
tucker carlson
What territory?
Are you counting Israel proper?
Are you counting the West Bank as well in Gaza?
I mean, when you say Israel, those numbers apply to what landmass?
mike huckabee
It would be in Israel proper.
There are 184,000.
Now, I'll tell you where Christians are not doing very well.
They're not doing very well in the Muslim-controlled countries.
There's almost no Christians in Qatar, for example, except those who live in the Christian ghetto, who are the service workers.
tucker carlson
I'm sorry.
I don't want to argue with you.
There are many more Christians in Qatar than there are in Israel.
mike huckabee
That's not true.
tucker carlson
It actually is true.
And I refer you to Wikipedia, Mr. Ambassador.
Wikipedia, I refer you to the government of Qatar, the government of Israel.
These are noble facts.
mike huckabee
In Jordan, the numbers are down.
In Syria, the numbers are down.
In Lebanon, the numbers are down.
tucker carlson
are about twice as many christians but they live in the enclave they are not native qataris okay we're we're mixing so many different categories here i mean I'm just saying I get things wrong all the time.
You've just gotten something wrong.
And I think it's important to acknowledge it.
There are many more Christians in Qatar than there are in Israel.
mike huckabee
Fact.
How many?
tucker carlson
Now you caught me.
unidentified
I don't know.
tucker carlson
I can look up my phone, but I was just there and there are many more, like, whatever.
But I just want to get to the point that forms the basis of this whole conversation, which is who has a right to the land?
unidentified
Yeah.
tucker carlson
And you said it's a mixture of religion and ethnicity, because as I noted, and you agree, many of the founders, maybe the majority of the founders of modern Israel, did not believe in God at all.
So they were not religious Jews.
They weren't religious at all.
They were atheists.
They said they were atheists.
I believe them.
So that suggests it's ethnic.
But it's also true, as you well know, because there's a famous court case about this, that ethnic Jews who convert to Christianity do not have the right of return.
That was settled by the Israeli Supreme Court.
I'm very confused.
So that would suggest it's not ethnicity because you invalidate your Jewishness by converting to Christianity.
mike huckabee
There are a number of Messianic Jews who live in Israel.
You are here.
tucker carlson
I'm aware of this.
mike huckabee
I'm aware of that number.
tucker carlson
But you're not contesting what I'm saying because it's a very famous court case.
mike huckabee
The right of return has to do with your mother, your grandmother.
It has to do with family ties.
There is a lot of, sure, ethnicity is a big part of the right of return.
unidentified
Great.
mike huckabee
To make Aliyah, then to come to Israel, then live here.
tucker carlson
Then if both of your parents are Jewish and you have an ethnic right to the land, you are one of Abram's descendants.
Right of Return Confusion 00:15:29
tucker carlson
But you convert to Christianity.
How is it you don't have the right to return?
I'm totally confused.
mike huckabee
And I know a number of people who have returned as Christians, but have Jewish history.
tucker carlson
Are you saying that Jews who convert to Christianity have a right, a legal right to return?
mike huckabee
I know that they do.
When you say, do they have a right to return, do they prove?
tucker carlson
It's a legal category as in any government.
mike huckabee
Which is by their family history, their grandmother, their mother.
And there are many aspects of that.
tucker carlson
I've read it.
mike huckabee
I think that I know that these were people who were Christian, and they came here, made Aliyah.
They had Jewish blood, Jewish history.
They were Christian, Messianic, but they came here and they were welcomed here.
tucker carlson
And they were given full legal rights.
mike huckabee
Absolutely.
tucker carlson
And a passport.
So clearly, it's not true that you invalidate your right of return by converting to Christianity.
That's just false.
mike huckabee
I'm not aware of that.
I know that there are a number of Christians here.
I go to church with Christians every week.
Of course.
tucker carlson
Do you have a right to come and say, I am an ethnic Jew, even though I practice Christianity, therefore I have every bit as much right to move into a settlement in the West Bank or into East Jerusalem or anywhere I want, Galilee, anywhere, because I am returning to the land of my forefathers.
I have a legal right in the state of Israel, even though I've converted to Christianity.
You're saying that's true?
mike huckabee
I'm saying I know people who've done it.
Now, can I tell you what the law specifically is?
I'm not sure.
tucker carlson
Well, it's really specific.
mike huckabee
I'm a Christian faith.
I don't have any Jewish roots, so therefore I cannot quote you the law.
If you want me to do that, I'll look at it.
tucker carlson
Well, it really matters because you're saying, in fact, people in the United States are being called anti-Semites, a lot of them, including me, because they somehow don't believe that Israel has a right to this land.
mike huckabee
Do you think Israel has a right to this land?
tucker carlson
No, you haven't defined what the land is, and you haven't defined who Israel is about.
So I really don't know.
mike huckabee
It is the land they're living in now, the borders that they have.
tucker carlson
The borders are moving.
The borders have moved in the last year.
mike huckabee
What do you mean the borders have moved in the last?
tucker carlson
Well, they are the 1967 borders.
I'm including, you know, the West Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
What are the borders of Judea and Samaria?
mike huckabee
Well, you basically take the Jordan River, and it's west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to the Lebanon border.
And Israel did have control of the Sinai.
They gave that to Egypt.
They had control of it.
tucker carlson
Right.
No, no.
mike huckabee
They gave it away in 1979 in the peace agreement.
tucker carlson
But so whatever you call it, the land that was taken from Jordan in 1967, you call it Judean Samaria.
There's a significance to that that I don't fully understand.
I'm not against it.
I don't know.
It's biblical.
It's the biblical.
mike huckabee
80% of the Bible happened in Judea and Samaria.
tucker carlson
But we've also established that the Bible gives Jews the right to occupy the land from the Nile to the Euphrates.
So I'm very confused by why we've shrunk the land and why we're discussing.
mike huckabee
Israel has shrunk the land.
They have made that decision.
That's why they gave away the significance.
unidentified
Now's the point.
mike huckabee
They've given away a lot of things.
tucker carlson
Abram's descendants are the ones who have the right to have this land, correct?
mike huckabee
Yes.
tucker carlson
Okay.
Why don't we do genetic testing on everybody in the land and find out who Abram's descendants are?
It's really simple.
We've cracked the human genome.
We can do that.
Why don't we do that?
Would you be against doing that?
mike huckabee
I have no idea what that would prove.
I mean, maybe it would be.
tucker carlson
What do you mean?
It would prove who Abram's descendants are and who has a right to live here and who doesn't, according to the theology that you yourself just explained.
And so I'm very confused as to why we don't do that.
If you believe the theology that you've just explained to me.
mike huckabee
Would we do that all over the world?
tucker carlson
This is the only country in the world that you've said has this covenant with God, that this people have a moral and legal right to the land.
mike huckabee
What about people who convert to Judaism?
Would they have a right?
tucker carlson
Well, you've just said that they're not.
You just told me.
mike huckabee
They can make aliyah.
They may not have.
tucker carlson
You've just told me that it doesn't matter.
You told me moments ago, trying to keep track, that it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in God or whether or not you practice Torah Judaism or Rabbinic Judaism, which is something else that I don't even know if we should, I don't even know what that means.
But it doesn't matter whether you're, quote, a religious Jew or not.
What matters is that you are part of the Jewish people to whom God gave this land that extends from the Nile to the Euphrates.
And so if you believe that, wouldn't you want to know with a burning passion who those people are?
And because of science, we can now know who those people are.
So why aren't we finding out?
mike huckabee
I guess you could propose a DNA test for everybody who comes here, everybody who lives here.
tucker carlson
I'm comfortable with secular nation states where none of this is done on the basis of blood.
I'm uncomfortable with that.
I'll just say that.
mike huckabee
But there are people who may not have bloodlines, but who have converted to Judaism.
Are they going to be able to live here?
Are you going to kick them out?
tucker carlson
By your standards, they can't live here because you've just told that they have a right to live here because God gave them the land because they're the descendants of Abram.
mike huckabee
They're the descendants of Abraham.
But if they're the spiritual descendants of Abraham and they've now decided that they're converting to Judaism, then do they have a right to live in Israel?
tucker carlson
Well, there's a whole legal literature in Israel on that question.
And my understanding is that certain types of modern Judaism qualify a person and other types don't.
Is that your understanding?
I don't believe that people converted, and I could have this wrong, but I know people who've faced this personally people.
I don't believe people who've converted in a reform synagogue have the right of return.
I don't think that is, because I know people who've married into Jewish families and they find out they don't have the right of return.
So that is perplexing to me.
mike huckabee
Yeah, I know, you know, my experience is a little different than yours.
I know people who have definite Jewish connections, family relations, but now they're Christian.
Some are not necessarily practicing Jews.
They're more secular Jews, as you've discussed.
But they come back here.
tucker carlson
Okay, I'm not against that.
I'm just wondering, since you began this conversation by asking me, did I think they had a right to come here?
mike huckabee
Yeah, that's right.
tucker carlson
My question was, on what basis do they have the right?
And you said, because God granted it to me.
mike huckabee
Yeah, and I also said because that there should be a land where Jews can live in peace and safety.
tucker carlson
And I asked you what a Jew was, and you couldn't answer it.
You said, it partly is religious, but doesn't have to be.
mike huckabee
it's partly genetic but it doesn't have to be and so that you can see why i think i was very clear that being jewish is an identification either through blood or through faith that you're jewish it may be that you're a blood jew but you don't necessarily practice judaism just like there are people who say they're christian but they don't do a thing to demonstrate what christian
tucker carlson
There are a lot of bad Christians, including me some of the time, a lot of the time, but I don't have a right to real estate on the basis of my claim of Christianity.
mike huckabee
You don't have a right to real estate if you're talking about a specific parcel.
But if you're talking about a land, I think what we're talking about is all I'm saying.
And there was a designation to the family of nations of the world that there would be a Jewish homeland.
Let's get to that point because I think you've taken us on several trails here, and I'm not sure we can follow them all.
But is there a reason that the Jewish people that represent, and I want to get back to this because you didn't let me finish a while ago, they represent 0.2% of the world's population.
In the entirety of the world, there are about 16 million Jews total, and 8 million of them live here.
The rest live mostly in New York or South Florida and a few other places.
tucker carlson
Okay.
mike huckabee
So this is a small population of people.
They have connection to this land historically, biblically.
tucker carlson
Do they?
mike huckabee
Yes, they do.
tucker carlson
If Bibi's family, we know they lived in Eastern Europe.
There's no evidence they ever lived here.
He's not religious.
mike huckabee
But in what centrally?
tucker carlson
Do you have his family tree?
No, we don't.
mike huckabee
Do you?
tucker carlson
He doesn't.
So no one does.
That's the point.
So how do we know that he has any connections at all?
mike huckabee
And if there has been a practice of Judaism and a connection to the language, the Bible, the land.
tucker carlson
His ancestors didn't.
He doesn't practice Judaism in any rigorous way.
His ancestors didn't live here.
They didn't speak the language, and there's no evidence they ever lived here.
So on what basis does he have a right to?
mike huckabee
He very much speaks the language.
He has fought for the land.
His family has fought for the land.
tucker carlson
No, I'm asking you to ask.
Where does this right come from?
And the reason it's meaningful is because there are a lot of people in the territory that Israel controls today, particularly in the West Bank, who, through genetic testing, we can know their families have been here for thousands of years.
We don't know whether they practiced Judaism, whether they were Samaritans, pre-Islam.
We don't know that.
A lot of them we know have been Christians for 2,000 years.
They have less of a right to the land than someone whose ancestors, the only thing we know about them is they lived in Latvia or Poland.
They're Eastern European.
How does that work?
mike huckabee
They're Jewish.
tucker carlson
By what definition?
They're Jewish by their connection.
mike huckabee
They're Jewish by their faith.
They're Jewish by the connection to the language.
Jewish by the connection to the Torah.
tucker carlson
But how do we know that Bibi, specifically Bibi's ancestors, ever lived here?
How do we know that?
mike huckabee
I'm not sure if I understand your question.
tucker carlson
How do we know if the prime minister of Israel's ancestors ever lived?
mike huckabee
Maybe I could ask you, how do we know they didn't?
tucker carlson
Well, it's on the basis of the claim that they did that all kinds of things happen.
People are displaced.
There's a money flow.
I mean, it's a big question.
A lot hangs on this.
It's not some theoretical thing like, oh, you know, did my grandparents do this or do that?
It's like, no, no, no, no, we have a right to be here because my ancestors were here.
Okay, how do we know they were here?
mike huckabee
I'm totally unable to process what you're trying to get at.
It goes back, do Jewish people have any land on this planet that should be theirs?
tucker carlson
I feel that way about all peoples.
I feel that way about Jewish peoples.
I feel that way about...
mike huckabee
Okay, then you don't mind them having this little...
tucker carlson
Is there any country?
Let me ask you this bluntly.
Is there any country that European peoples have a right to exclusively?
mike huckabee
I think they have attained their land through conquest.
I mean, let's ask ourselves.
tucker carlson
Does the Britons attain their land through conquest?
No, they've always been there.
mike huckabee
The Romans, the Greeks, had all these people.
tucker carlson
No, no, let's speak.
Well, you could certainly say that here.
The Romans controlled this, as you know, and they expelled all of them.
mike huckabee
They don't anymore.
tucker carlson
Amen.
I want them to control it.
mike huckabee
Hope.
tucker carlson
I'm anti-Roman.
Okay, we're on the same page.
Okay.
But my question is very simple.
Is there any European peoples that possesses the same right to their land that the Jews, including people whose ancestors lived in Eastern Europe, possess here?
The Britons, we know, the British people, the Scandinavian people, the Irish people, their ancestors have been there for thousands of years.
That's provable through genetic testing.
Do they have a right to their land exclusively?
mike huckabee
Is anyone saying they don't?
tucker carlson
Yes.
Of course.
Yes.
No one will say they will.
And I'm asking you, do they have that right?
mike huckabee
And I'm not sure what that question involves because no one is trying to force them out of their land, of their homes.
But here- Hold on.
tucker carlson
You have people- Why won't you answer that question?
Because I just did.
So the Irish people have the same right to their land that the Jews are.
mike huckabee
I'm sure that they have a biblical connection.
But I'm a Bible believer.
tucker carlson
But it's also a principle.
And that is, and you've said it 15 times.
mike huckabee
Sometimes people have land because they were able to attain it through war.
They were able to obtain it when it was challenged.
tucker carlson
I understand that.
There's all kinds of concepts.
But we can't say that about the Irish people.
mike huckabee
The moral borders change all the time.
tucker carlson
Actually, the borders of the island of England have not changed.
North Ireland.
Those are just two examples.
So you've got the indigenous people there.
Do they have a moral right to that as their homeland?
mike huckabee
And I think they would probably say, yes, we do, because we have ancient history to.
I've never thought about whether.
tucker carlson
Now that I'm raising the question, and you've spent a lot of time thinking about the right of the Jewish people to their homeland, do the Irish have the same right to a homeland?
mike huckabee
As long as they can defend it and as long as they, you know.
tucker carlson
As long as they can defend it.
mike huckabee
But Tucker, here's the point.
I'm telling you.
tucker carlson
Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Now you just flipped out.
You're the minister here.
mike huckabee
Yeah, and I'm telling you.
tucker carlson
As long as they can defend it.
mike huckabee
And if they can't defend it, allowing me to tell you that I think that what is very, very special here is that there is a biblical as well as an ethnic and a historical.
So you can take any one, but if you add them all together, biblical, historical, and ethnic, you have a very strong case that the Jewish people are living in a land that is indigenous to them, that has been their historic homeland for 3,800 years.
tucker carlson
You can repeat it as well.
mike huckabee
And you can also look in the archaeology.
The stones cry out.
Have you been to the city of David for a decade?
tucker carlson
I have.
mike huckabee
So you know then that it's an amazing place.
It may be the greatest archaeological discovery in all of history because it's stunning.
And they still continue to find things that date the Jewish people to this land archaeologically for 3,800 years.
tucker carlson
We can date the Britain, the British people, to their land much longer, much thousands of years longer.
Stonehenge is 3,000 years older than any building built by the descendants of Abram in this country.
And so I just, it's fine.
I'm not trying to invalidate anyone's right.
I'm just wanting you to affirm that right, but it makes you uncomfortable and you won't.
And I don't know why.
mike huckabee
Because I've never honestly sat down and asked myself, are the lines around the so we know what the lines are?
But I'm saying, but are those lines, are those rooted in something other than the historical connection?
Well, great.
Then they should have it.
tucker carlson
They have a right to have it.
But then you said if they can defend it, and if they can't defend it, they lose the right.
mike huckabee
But I didn't say it was exclusive one or the other.
I think you're really going off the charge.
tucker carlson
I just want to know if these principles apply universally or if they only apply to the people of Israel.
My answer appears to be just the people of Israel.
They're the only ones with these rights.
Israel's Urban Warfare Controversy 00:14:59
tucker carlson
And I just reject that.
mike huckabee
I didn't say that, but I'm saying we are talking about Israel.
We're in Israel.
We're talking about Christian Zionism because you've made some disparaging statements about Christian Zionists.
You've apologized for them, for which I appreciate.
And now we're trying to define Christian and Zionist.
And it seems like we've gone way, way off.
tucker carlson
I'm trying to get, as you suggested, as a former debater at the outset, I'm trying to get to terms and a common understanding of what the words mean.
mike huckabee
And the terms.
tucker carlson
And I'm no closer to that than I was when I began.
mike huckabee
You're not closer to the term Christian, what that means?
tucker carlson
I think it's someone who follows Jesus.
And that's my next question.
There are a lot of Christians in the West Bank, and there were a fair amount of Christians in Gaza, and some of them have been killed.
mike huckabee
There were 5,000 in Gaza.
tucker carlson
Yeah.
mike huckabee
Yeah.
tucker carlson
And two different churches were hit by the IDF.
Christian Hospital was hit seven times by the IDF, and I don't understand.
mike huckabee
They were not hit seven times.
They were different.
I know.
And one of the times it was a rocket that was shot by Hamas, and all the news agencies reported that the IDF shot the rocket.
tucker carlson
Did the IDF ever hit the hospital or the churches?
mike huckabee
They did accidentally, and they apologized for it.
And it was very unfortunate.
But I also, you've got to remember, there were times Hamas often hid caches of arms under hospitals.
tucker carlson
Were you bothered by the fact that the IDF hit Christians?
mike huckabee
I'm bothered that anyone got killed in Gaza.
But you know why I'm bothered?
tucker carlson
You're a Christian?
Because you can't say that the Christians are Islamic extremists.
No, but I can say that you're going to side with the Christians over the secular government of Israel.
mike huckabee
But I would look at it even more broadly.
I would ask you this.
Why was there so much suffering and continues to be suffering in Gaza?
It's because Hamas, which could have built a Singapore, built a Haiti.
They had a landmass the size of Las Vegas.
They built tunnels underneath that are larger than the London Underground, over 500 miles of tunnels.
They didn't build it to move people from one hospital to the other, one marketplace to the other, but to hide terrorists, to hide weaponry.
And on October the 7th, they went over there and they massacred 1,200 civilians, massacred, mutilated, humiliated them.
tucker carlson
You're never going to get me to defend Hamas.
Sorry.
mike huckabee
Please don't.
tucker carlson
I'm not going to.
mike huckabee
But I'm telling you.
tucker carlson
I'm appalled by it.
How many civilians have been killed by the IDF in Gaza?
mike huckabee
We don't know.
We know why we don't know.
tucker carlson
What's your guess?
mike huckabee
Well, the only numbers we have come from this dubious entity called the Gaza Health Ministry.
You know who that is?
tucker carlson
Well, what Hamas?
Israel have some kind of count on it.
mike huckabee
We also know that a lot of the people who were killed were, in fact, warriors.
Sadly.
tucker carlson
How many kids were killed?
mike huckabee
We don't know.
tucker carlson
What's your guess?
mike huckabee
I don't know.
I'm sure it was thousands.
And it's thousands.
Some of the kids who were killed had been recruited to be in the military.
Kids as young as 14.
They were 14 years old.
tucker carlson
Terrible kids.
Do you hear yourself?
I wonder.
mike huckabee
I just said that there were kids as young as 14 that were recruited to be Hamas soldiers who were given arms.
tucker carlson
How do you feel about their kids being killed?
mike huckabee
I think it's horrible.
You know what I also think is horrible?
I think it's horrible that 1,200 people were slaughtered by people across the border, and 252 people were taken hostage.
48 of the 1,200 were Americans.
tucker carlson
Three more.
mike huckabee
And then when Hamas could have ended this on October the 8th and given all the hostages up, they didn't, leaving no choice.
tucker carlson
You're never going to get me to defend Hamas.
I'm not pro-Hamas.
mike huckabee
I hope.
tucker carlson
Totally opposed to slaughtering innocents, whether Hamas does it or whether the government of Israel does it in much larger numbers.
And the reason I'm opposed to it is because I'm a Christian and I believe that all souls are created by God.
mike huckabee
I do not disagree with that wholeheartedly.
tucker carlson
But I said how many children have been killed?
mike huckabee
War is a horrible thing, period.
And we don't know.
We know that a lot of the numbers were reported by the people.
tucker carlson
But you said you think thousands of children have been killed.
mike huckabee
Yeah, and a lot of times, you know why they got killed?
Because Hamas would gather up the children and put them in the targets.
Do you know what Israel does?
They send page messages and they send texts to every cell phone in Gaza and they say, we're going to hit this particular target.
They drop leaflets and they announce where they're going to hit.
Nobody does that.
The U.S. doesn't do that.
Israel does that in order to prevent.
Let me finish this.
They do this in order to prevent civilian casualties.
What Hamas does, they say, oh, this is the target.
And by gunpoint, they push people into those various places.
And then when people get killed, they say, look, Israel just slaughtered these people, even though it was Hamas who moved them into harm's way, knowing that it was going to put them in a place of danger and death and destruction.
And they do that because they don't care.
You say you care about life.
I care about life.
It's interesting that they don't care about life.
tucker carlson
I'm not saying that Hamas does.
You're never going to get me to defend Hamas.
unidentified
I'm good.
tucker carlson
I'm anti-Hamas.
mike huckabee
You've said that three times, and I believe.
tucker carlson
Your dig at the United States is very revealing.
mike huckabee
Why is it revealing?
tucker carlson
Because your priorities are very clear.
mike huckabee
No, no, no, no.
unidentified
Yes, they are.
tucker carlson
Yes, they are.
And as an American, permit me a moment of outrage.
Because I said many civilians have been killed.
And you said, right in the middle of your elaborate defense of the IDF's killing of civilians, including children, you said they do a better job than the United States does.
That's my country and my government.
It's my country.
mike huckabee
What flag am I wearing here?
tucker carlson
Well, I'm asking why is it.
mike huckabee
What flag am I wearing?
tucker carlson
Well, that's, of course, my flag as well.
mike huckabee
And it's my flag.
It's who I serve.
tucker carlson
So why the dig at the United States in the military?
mike huckabee
It's not a dig at them.
No, no, no, no.
You have totally misrepresented.
tucker carlson
What did you mean by that?
mike huckabee
I did not take a dig at the U.S. What I'm saying is...
tucker carlson
So the IDF is more humane than the U.S. I'm saying...
unidentified
Military.
mike huckabee
Do you believe that?
unidentified
No, I'm not.
mike huckabee
I'm just saying that Israel takes steps that we don't take and no other country that I'm aware of takes to try to prevent.
Because no matter what Israel does, they're going to get accused of genocide.
tucker carlson
may be right and i'm um i'm just telling you that they but then let me ask you on that question i've you know i i That's such a politically loaded question.
mike huckabee
But I resent the idea that you think that I'm not loyal to the U.S. Look, I'm not saying you're not loyal.
tucker carlson
I'm merely noting what you just said, which was that the IDF takes greater pains than the U.S., our military does, to spare civilian lives.
And I guess my question is, when was the last time the U.S. military killed this many civilians?
Do you know?
mike huckabee
Well, it could have been Nagasaki, Hiroshima, could have been Iraq, Afghanistan.
We don't know the full number.
tucker carlson
And I think most Christians would say all of those things were atrocities because innocents were killed in large numbers, and we don't believe in that.
And so that's not really a defense, is it?
mike huckabee
War is a horrible thing, Tucker, and there are people who end up, unfortunately, being killed that shouldn't have been.
I would tell you that I wish that none of those people in Gaza had been killed after October 8th.
Well, I say not none of them.
I'm glad Mohamed Sinwar was killed.
I'm glad that some of those warriors, the people who masterminded and carried out the atrocities occurred.
tucker carlson
Unfortunately, several old Hamas operatives.
How do you feel about their deaths?
mike huckabee
If they participated in that, then God help them.
I'm telling you.
Because I don't know that they have 14 years old.
No, but I'm telling you that when someone commits the acts of atrocity and then they hold hostages, if these were your children being held hostage in Gaza, what would you do to get them out?
tucker carlson
I wouldn't want to kill 14-year-olds.
I'll tell you that.
mike huckabee
Let me ask you something.
Would you do whatever it took to get your kids back if they were being tortured, raped, starved?
tucker carlson
Do you not kill children, period?
mike huckabee
Well, I'm just telling you.
tucker carlson
And I would never make excuses for killing children either.
mike huckabee
And I'm not talking about targeting children.
I'm talking about...
tucker carlson
You told me that 14-year-olds deserve to die because they're working for Haman.
mike huckabee
I'm telling you.
tucker carlson
My question is, can you hear yourself?
mike huckabee
I do hear myself.
tucker carlson
So do you think a 14-year-old child has agency?
Do you think that he deserves to die because he's being used by adults?
Isn't his death a crushing tragedy?
mike huckabee
If he's holding a gun and he's pointing it at someone who's trying to save a hostage, and the only way to save that hostage, I'm telling you, war is a horrible thing.
It's a horrible thing.
And a lot of innocent people die.
tucker carlson
I think I'm the one who thinks war is a horrible thing.
mike huckabee
No, no, no, no.
I think what you don't.
tucker carlson
I'm trying to explain how horrible it is, and you're saying that the 14-year-old deserved to die.
We don't execute 14-year-olds.
mike huckabee
I'm putting words in my mouth that I don't know.
tucker carlson
I don't know what you're saying.
mike huckabee
You never said deserve to die.
I say there are people who die that it's unfortunate.
But I'm saying that you are not giving Israel credit for having done everything they possibly could to a level that, quite frankly, in urban warfare, there has never been a warning.
tucker carlson
I criticize Israel, but it's a foreign country, and I would much rather criticize a foreign country than my own.
mike huckabee
Feel free to do that.
They can't.
tucker carlson
But you pivoted against our country.
No, Israel has done a better job than our military.
mike huckabee
No, I simply gave you the illustration, and I helped you understand that Israel goes to links that no other country, including ours, goes to, in the middle of an urban war, and yet Israel ended up with fewer civilian deaths in an urban war than any urban war of record.
tucker carlson
But you said you didn't know how many civilian deaths there were, so how can you say that?
mike huckabee
If you took Gaza's numbers, Hamas's numbers.
tucker carlson
You said you didn't know what the numbers are.
mike huckabee
We don't.
tucker carlson
You just told me that.
Then how can you say it's a lower number?
But if you took the numbers that they reported, which is like 50,000, 24,000 or 25,000 of those were actual warriors, how many civilians, if you take those numbers, range from 120 to 78, those ones I just read, I don't know if that's real.
I don't know either.
I'm asking you.
mike huckabee
Yeah, and I'm telling you, those numbers I've not heard, have not read.
The numbers that I think are more reportable are somewhere in the 60,000 range.
Where do those numbers?
From the Gaza Health Ministry.
tucker carlson
But you just are valid numbers.
mike huckabee
I think they are.
I don't think that they're accurate, but I'm saying they're inaccurate, but they prove that Israel's done.
I'm doing great.
Let's assume that the most widespread numbers, the largest numbers that have been reported out of Gaza by Hamas.
tucker carlson
Yes.
mike huckabee
Let's assume they're true.
That's what I'm saying.
I'm not saying they are true, but assume they're true.
Let's just take them at their word.
Then you still have a lower number of civilians killed than in any urban warfare environment in modern history.
unidentified
Fact.
tucker carlson
Is that a fact?
mike huckabee
Yes.
tucker carlson
What are you comparing it to?
mike huckabee
To any urban warfare.
Iraq?
tucker carlson
Where?
mike huckabee
Afghanistan?
tucker carlson
Where in Iraq?
Where in Afghanistan?
There aren't many urban areas in Afghanistan.
I don't think there was any fighting in urban areas in Afghanistan.
mike huckabee
Kabul?
tucker carlson
I don't know.
Were there pitched battles in Kabul over long periods of time?
I don't know.
mike huckabee
20 years.
tucker carlson
In Kabul?
I don't think.
mike huckabee
Throughout all of Afghanistan.
tucker carlson
So what were those rates?
mike huckabee
You're talking about what are the rates there?
The number of people who were killed into the tens of thousands, I'm asking you to...
tucker carlson
I don't know the answer.
I never heard of any of this.
You brought it up.
You said the IDF has killed a lower proportion of civilians in urban warfare than in any urban conflict in modern history.
I'd never heard that before.
I don't know what you're, what are the controls for that?
And you said, well, if the U.S. military killed more civilians.
mike huckabee
Do you agree that the real tragedy was that Hamas continued to force this war?
tucker carlson
Hold on.
You just once again said that the IDF is more humane than the United States military.
You just said that.
You said in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military killed more civilians than the IDF did in Gaza.
You just told me that.
I never heard that before.
And my question is, how do you know that?
What are those numbers?
mike huckabee
And I'm trying to explain to you that there were extraordinary efforts to keep the numbers.
I think they were tens of thousands.
I'll get them for you.
tucker carlson
Well, you brought it up.
That's the only reason I'm pushing it.
mike huckabee
But you, I'm wearing a flag.
I've worked for a country and you pretended or alleged that somehow I'm not loyal to this and that I'm criticizing my own country.
tucker carlson
You've got to do a better job than the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And I said, what are the numbers?
And you said, I don't know.
So on what basis are you making the claim that the IDF in Gaza spared more civilians than the U.S. Army and Marine Corps did in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Why are you saying that?
Like, on what basis are you saying that?
mike huckabee
From the conversations that I've had with the people who fought there.
And I don't have the exact numbers for you.
But what I'm trying to help you to understand, and I don't think you're willing to go there, is that there was no desire to kill people indiscriminately in Gaza.
I don't think there was any desire to kill people indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan.
tucker carlson
Let me just say, I think, and I know a bunch of people who serve in the IDF, and I don't believe your average IDF soldier wants to kill innocents.
I just want to be really clear about that.
I don't think most soldiers want to do that.
I think a lot of them in our country, in Israel, wind up doing that because that's what war is about, and it really hurts them.
I know people who've done it personally really well, and it like wrecks their lives.
But I don't think your average soldier wants that in this country or any other.
The leadership is a different question.
And I want to refer you very specifically to a number of speeches the prime minister, your friend Benjamin Netanyahu gave in the aftermath of October 7th, including one in November of that year, when he referred to Amalek.
Now, Amalek is a reference, a biblical reference.
So, of course, you'll be very familiar with that.
The Amalekites were a tribe described throughout the Bible, particularly in 1 Samuel, that obstructed the Jews as they fled Egypt.
And God tells Samuel to give the instructions to Saul to kill the Amalekites.
And he says, and I'm sure you remember this, this is in 1 Samuel 15.
Of course, I'm sure, I know you know it.
He says, kill the men, kill the women, kill the children, kill the infants, kill the donkeys, kill the camels, kill everything.
And Saul spares the king and he spares the animals.
And for that, he is punished by God.
That is genocide.
God is calling for genocide of the Amalekites, of Amalek.
And the prime minister of Israel, at least once, I believe on other occasions, described the Palestinians in Gaza as Amalek.
That's calling for genocide.
And you know that.
mike huckabee
I totally disagree.
Tell me then what it means.
Abortion and Aid Sites 00:15:31
mike huckabee
Because to say that Israel was attempting to commit genocide, first of all, that's simply not true.
tucker carlson
I'm saying, what is the prime minister talking about?
Why would he refer to the Palestinians as Amalek?
What is Amalek?
mike huckabee
You would have to ask him.
I don't know.
I know what Amalek is.
I do understand 1 Samuel 16.
I get all that.
tucker carlson
1 Samuel 15.
mike huckabee
But I do understand.
tucker carlson
And it's widely known.
So if you say our enemy is Amalek and we are proceeding on the basis of God's commands to us, you are calling for genocide.
Tell me how I'm missing something.
mike huckabee
Because if Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could have done it in two and a half hours.
tucker carlson
debate what's happened in gaza i'm asking you why the leader of this country ask him Well, what do you think?
mike huckabee
I don't know.
tucker carlson
Does that bother you at all?
mike huckabee
People, I don't know what he meant.
I don't know if it was an illustrative metaphor.
I think what he was saying was that we're not going to let anything keep us from getting our hostages back, their sons and their daughters who are being brutalized, raped, tortured, starved, beaten.
tucker carlson
Come on, Mr. Mess.
No, there are many examples of justice in the Bible.
But there are very many.
mike huckabee
Everybody gets accused of genocide regularly.
tucker carlson
I'm not accusing Israel of anything.
I'm saying that the prime minister of Israel described the Palestinians.
mike huckabee
Do you think he wanted to do genocide?
tucker carlson
I'm asking why, of all the references in the Bible, and there are many to justice and there are many to reconciliation, that is a reference to genocide, as you know, killing every man, woman, child, and infant, I'm quoting, and their animals, wiping them from the earth.
And when they don't do that, they're punished.
When you say that at the outset of a war and then you wind up with massive civilian casualties, maybe not as big as they were in Iraq, 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's okay to kill people's children?
mike huckabee
No, we don't.
And neither do the Israelis because they didn't go after their children.
If they'd have wanted to kill all their children, Tucker, they've got the military capacity.
They could have done it in less than a day.
tucker carlson
I've heard you say that.
unidentified
I know.
tucker carlson
I mean, I guess they could have done it.
mike huckabee
Why didn't they?
Why didn't they?
tucker carlson
I think there are a lot of decent people in Israel who don't want that.
mike huckabee
Do you think that the prime minister wanted to wipe out every single person in Gaza?
unidentified
Do you really think?
tucker carlson
I'm not saying you, what you think is the U.S. representative of our government.
mike huckabee
I don't think that that's what he wanted to do.
tucker carlson
Ask him why you refer.
mike huckabee
I never had to ask him that.
tucker carlson
Why?
mike huckabee
Because I never saw any evidence, any evidence that Israel tried to wipe out every single person.
I just gave you examples that they tried to save civilian lives.
tucker carlson
But I'm not.
And they didn't wait.
I'm not, as I've said, and I mean this, I think most soldiers in most armies, including the Israel Defense Force, don't want to kill civilians.
I just don't believe that.
I think there are some lunatics here.
mike huckabee
Can I ask you something?
unidentified
Yes.
mike huckabee
You platformed a guy.
You had him on your show, Tony Aguilar.
tucker carlson
Don't platform anyone.
mike huckabee
Well, you interviewed.
tucker carlson
Not a liberal, so I don't platform anybody.
mike huckabee
Okay.
You interviewed Tony Aguilar, who claimed that IDF soldiers killed a little boy in his presence.
That didn't happen.
It did not happen.
tucker carlson
I don't know if you can.
I don't even know if you know whether it happened or not.
mike huckabee
Well, I can tell you why I know it didn't happen, because we found that little boy less than a week later.
I was involved, heavily involved, in helping to extricate him from Gaza.
Four different countries were involved in getting he and his mother to safety, get them out of there.
Tony Aguilar is a liar.
Tony Aguilar claimed that he saw an IDF soldier shoot the little boy.
He was fired from the GHF for cause, and he begged for his job back, and they wouldn't give it back because they didn't want him.
And he told them that if they didn't give his job back, that he would burn them down.
tucker carlson
Okay.
mike huckabee
So he goes out.
No, let me finish this because it's important for you to understand.
unidentified
Right.
mike huckabee
So this guy then goes out and makes up this story that he witnessed IDF soldiers shooting a little boy.
tucker carlson
I don't know that he made it up.
He seemed to believe it to me.
It's possible he's wrong.
I've been wrong many times.
mike huckabee
Well, this is a little bit more than just missing a fact.
He claimed to be an eyewitness to the murder of a little boy, a little boy that a week later we found.
tucker carlson
And you're sure it's the same little boy?
mike huckabee
We are absolutely sure.
tucker carlson
How do you know that?
mike huckabee
Because we have pictures of him.
We had descriptions of him.
We know his name.
We know his mother.
He was extricated out of Gaza.
It was a very delicate situation to get him out because if Hamas had found out that he was still alive, they would have killed him in order to validate Aguilar's story.
tucker carlson
How do you know that?
mike huckabee
So he gets out.
tucker carlson
How do you know Hamas would have killed him?
mike huckabee
Why would they?
Wouldn't they have wanted to kill him?
Because that way they could have said that this story was true.
I'm just telling you this.
tucker carlson
What you're saying is true, and I have no basis of knowing.
I'm really glad because I don't want little kids to get killed, even 14-year-olds.
mike huckabee
You shouldn't want anyone to get killed.
tucker carlson
But let me ask you, is it true?
He also made the claim, and he had audio of it and video, too, that U.S. contractors were using live ammunition to disperse crowds.
And he had video of that.
Do you know if, did he make up that video?
mike huckabee
There were times, here's what happened.
Crowds would come toward the sites.
They were given verbal warnings, and then they were given additional verbal warnings, and shots were fired either in the air, sometimes in the ground.
And if they continued to come and threaten, there were times when there were people who were engaged in firefights.
That happened.
tucker carlson
Oh, they were armed?
mike huckabee
Sometimes they were.
tucker carlson
They were.
Do you know of specific instances where they were armed?
mike huckabee
I can probably get you some specific information about that.
tucker carlson
I think I know the answer to that.
I don't think there's any evidence at all that they were armed.
mike huckabee
But I also know that.
tucker carlson
Are you okay with using live ammunition at aid distribution sites for families, women, and children?
mike huckabee
Very rarely did this happen here.
tucker carlson
How about at all?
Are you okay with that?
mike huckabee
No.
I'll tell you what, I'm not okay.
No, no, no.
I think you are so trying to put words in my mouth.
tucker carlson
You said that they were firing back, but then no evidence that they weren't.
mike huckabee
On a Sunday afternoon, I can remember when there was widespread reports on BBC, CNN, and the New York Times, and they said that 27 people were killed at a feeding site.
We had video extensively over that site.
Not one single person, not only were they not shot, nobody was shot at.
There was not one bit of violence that happened at that feeding site.
tucker carlson
You're trying to get me to defend BBC?
Not going to do that.
It's like defending Hamas.
I agree with you.
I don't believe anything I see in the media.
It's just that it's really simple.
If people are using, and these were American contractors, by the way, these are not Israelis that I'm aware of.
American contractors run by some crypto minister or something was running the group.
If they're using live ammunition at an aid distribution site, that strikes me as totally unacceptable.
mike huckabee
They were not firing.
tucker carlson
Does it seem acceptable to you?
mike huckabee
They were not firing with people.
got killed there's a way some of those people got killed because Hamas were trying to keep them from getting to the aid distribution sites because Hamas was controlling the food Hamas made $500 million selling the food that was supposed to be given away for free.
tucker carlson
Defend Hamas.
mike huckabee
And what they were trying to do is to keep people from going to the sites where they were getting food for free.
When we set GHF up, Hamas was a fighter.
The first thing that happened, I know, but I'm telling you, the first thing that people said was, wow, this is the first time we've had food that we got for free.
tucker carlson
Is it okay to buy it?
Is it unarmed people?
mike huckabee
I just told you it wasn't.
tucker carlson
That's awful.
mike huckabee
Yeah.
tucker carlson
It's awful.
Of course it's awful.
Are all lives equal, do you think?
mike huckabee
Of course they are.
tucker carlson
So the death of a Palestinian is every bit as important and significant as the death of his recovery.
mike huckabee
Why wouldn't it be?
Of course it is.
tucker carlson
I don't know.
Of course it is.
mike huckabee
There's no such thing as a human soul that God made that is less valuable than another.
I'm pro-life.
tucker carlson
Me too.
mike huckabee
So I believe that every life has intrinsic worth and value.
There's no such thing as a worthless or a completely disposable life.
That's what makes me pro-life, Tucker.
tucker carlson
I totally agree.
mike huckabee
And I believe that from the conception until the end of natural life.
tucker carlson
Why I would never say when confronted with the death of children, war is terrible, because it minimizes the deaths of those children.
It's awful.
mike huckabee
I don't think it minimizes.
I think it is outrageous.
It's a terrible thing.
I wish we never had war.
Why do we have war?
tucker carlson
We're about to have one with Iran, it looks like.
How many Americans do you think will die in that war?
mike huckabee
I hope none.
None died last year when we participated in the 12-day war.
Not one.
You said 20,000 would die, and they didn't.
tucker carlson
I said could.
And they could have.
But they could die now, and that's a real risk.
mike huckabee
How many boots on the ground do you think the U.S. has supplied for Israel over the course of its life?
How many times have we put soldiers on the ground for Israel?
tucker carlson
Well, we had the Iraq war, which was for Israel.
mike huckabee
I think it wasn't for Israel.
tucker carlson
How was it for us?
mike huckabee
Well, because it was a retribution against 9-11.
Now, was it the best idea?
tucker carlson
Was Iraq involved in 9-11?
mike huckabee
Our government thought so.
tucker carlson
Why are 9-11 documents still classified?
mike huckabee
I have no idea.
tucker carlson
Should they be unclassified?
mike huckabee
I think so.
tucker carlson
All of them, right?
mike huckabee
I have no problem with that.
tucker carlson
Me too.
mike huckabee
I like transparency.
I like sunlight.
I do.
tucker carlson
I hope you'll call for that.
mike huckabee
I like free press.
I like free speech.
tucker carlson
I totally agree.
mike huckabee
I really, I like all of that.
tucker carlson
But if there was no connect, I've never seen, I'm open to anything, but I've never seen any connection between the government of Saddam Hussein, the secular Baathist government of Saddam Hussein and the terror attacks of 9-11.
mike huckabee
I don't know that there were.
I don't know.
So I'm not sure, but I don't know how to do it.
So why did we find that Israel's fault?
tucker carlson
Well, Benjamin Netanyahu, now prime minister, of course, exerted lots of pressure openly on the U.S. government to take out to regime change the Saddam government.
I was there.
It was in Washington.
And they complied.
I don't think there's any way to read it.
mike huckabee
Do you think Israel leads the U.S. and pushes them and tells them what to do?
tucker carlson
Not on everything, of course.
I think, let me be specific.
I think the Israeli government strongly pushed the United States to take out Saddam Hussein.
There's no question about that.
I think the Israeli government right now, on Bibi Netanyahu, has been in the White House seven times in one year pushing for regime change in Iran.
I think they're on the verge of convincing this administration to affect regime.
mike huckabee
Do you think the president is weak and is being pushed?
tucker carlson
You're not saying that.
I know.
I know the president's being pushed.
Why do you think a foreign leader was in the White House seven times in one year?
Are you okay with that?
That's a lot.
mike huckabee
You know, Israel is not just a friend or an ally.
It is a real partner.
We have an incredible relationship with Israel in intelligence and in military, in culture, in values.
You know, to be shocked that the Israeli prime minister would have that many meetings, it's a lot.
But I want to ask you the question.
Do you think President Trump is weak enough to let Bibi Netanyahu push him into something that he doesn't want to do?
tucker carlson
I don't.
Look, I think, and I don't know, of course, the answer to every question, including this one, but I think the President Trump really doesn't like nuclear proliferation, and I don't think he wants Iran to have a bomb.
I think he really sincerely wants to.
mike huckabee
I hope you don't want them to have a bomb.
tucker carlson
Want them to have a bomb?
I don't want anyone to have a bomb, including Israel.
I don't know why we're okay with Israel having nuclear weapons.
I'm not.
I'm not okay with Pakistan having them.
I'm not okay with Saudi having them.
Israel's nuclear weapons were created, of course, with nuclear materials stolen from the United States, from a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, as I know you know.
I'm opposed to all of it.
I don't like nuclear weapons.
It's mass murder, as far as I'm concerned.
So, no, I don't want Iran to have a bomb, obviously.
The question is, what are the potential costs?
And you have to factor that into any decision.
mike huckabee
And what are the costs if they were to get a nuclear bomb?
They've said for 47 years, death to America.
Well, I don't think they'd target us.
I don't think they've targeted President Trump specifically.
Yeah, they've hired a person to assassinate.
tucker carlson
Iran, BBC, and Hamas not defending them.
Good.
We're in agreement on that.
Our country is not thriving, and we're spending tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars over time defending Israel and helping it prosecute all the time.
mike huckabee
Do you know where that money goes?
tucker carlson
It goes to a lot of places.
mike huckabee
But let's talk about that a minute.
$3.8 billion a year.
That money goes right back to the U.S. to purchase weapon systems.
For example, every round of ammo that the IDF shoots is manufactured just outside where I live in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The components, a lot of them for the Iron Dome and the Aero III missile defense systems, are manufactured near Camden, Arkansas.
tucker carlson
Which needs it, by the way.
Camden's economically depressed.
mike huckabee
You know the area.
tucker carlson
I do.
mike huckabee
And there are thousands and thousands of American jobs, and there are billions and billions of dollars of expenditures that Israel makes in the U.S. and buys the things that we do.
tucker carlson
I know how defense contracting works.
I'm from Washington.
No, I know this.
I guess what I'm saying is America's not thriving at all.
mike huckabee
Do you think it's Israel's fault?
tucker carlson
I don't think it's Israel's fault.
mike huckabee
Okay, well, good.
tucker carlson
I just think that what we're doing isn't working at all.
And America is not attracting the business.
mike huckabee
The president is doing some amazing things to get us back on Trump.
tucker carlson
I'm not attacking Trump.
I'm merely saying that over, say, the last 20 years, America's not gotten richer or freer at all.
And I come to Israel and the infrastructure we're flying in, and I said to my buddy, I was like, man, first of all, it looks great.
I love the agriculture in Israel because it's beautiful.
I love green.
I love plants.
mike huckabee
I remember when it didn't look like that.
tucker carlson
Yeah, yeah.
mike huckabee
First time I came in 53 years ago.
tucker carlson
It's great.
mike huckabee
It did not look like that.
unidentified
Great.
tucker carlson
It looks a lot nicer than our country.
And it has higher standard of living.
It has nicer roads than the United States.
And so it's like, okay, why are we sending all this money to a country that has a higher standard of living than ours?
mike huckabee
I don't know that they have a higher standard of living.
tucker carlson
They do, actually.
They have free health care.
They also have free abortion.
Are you okay with that?
mike huckabee
I personally don't like that.
tucker carlson
Why would we be subsidizing?
Why would we send any more money?
Why would we send any money to a country that provides free abortion?
mike huckabee
Because the money that we send does not pay for health care.
It does not pay for abortion.
It pays for military goals.
tucker carlson
It's like if they don't spend it on this, I'll spend it on that.
mike huckabee
You spend it on that.
And then we get many more times back on the return on the investment.
tucker carlson
Why don't we say we're not sending you any more money as long as you have free abortion?
mike huckabee
Well, that would be a policy decision.
tucker carlson
Are you for that?
mike huckabee
I would be okay with it because I hate abortion.
I think it's horrible.
tucker carlson
How much do you hate it?
mike huckabee
I hate it.
tucker carlson
Why are we sending them money if they're paying for free?
mike huckabee
Because they're not paying for abortions with the money.
And because we, in turn, get billions of dollars.
The return on investment is estimated somewhere between $400 and $1,200.
tucker carlson
I just lived there and I know.
And I'm, by the way, I'm for American manufacturing.
The defense industry is totally corrupt and seedy, as you know.
However, I like to see American companies thrive.
Like, it's complicated.
I'm not an extremist or an absolutist on really anything other than abortion.
Americans And The Energy Border 00:15:14
tucker carlson
However, net net, as we say, our country's not really thriving.
And we're also totally before.
mike huckabee
Why is that the case?
Is it because we've done a lousy job controlling our borders, a lousy job of controlling economies?
It's a lot of things.
But we own that.
I think President Trump is doing remarkable things to turn it around.
I cannot imagine any president.
I know.
But if you're saying the country is in trouble, let's say.
tucker carlson
Say we're out of money, actually.
This is what I'm saying.
mike huckabee
Credit to what the president is doing to get us out of debt, because I think that what he's doing economically.
tucker carlson
I'm not supporting Hamas and I'm not attacking Trump.
Okay.
Just with those baseline agreements.
It's also true that our debt is not sustainable.
And so given that, what do you think it will cost?
What did it cost to move all these, to move the fleet off Iran into the Persian Gulf?
mike huckabee
A lot less than it would to bury a lot of Americans if they ever got a long-range ballistic missile.
A lot less.
Bucker, I want you to understand that when Iran has told us for 47 years they're going to kill us, do you think they would do it if they had the capacity militarily?
tucker carlson
What would happen if Iran took out any of the energy facilities in the Gulf, or took out a bunch of them?
What would happen to the United States economy, do you think?
mike huckabee
Well, our economy probably would survive because we have energy independence thanks to President Trump.
tucker carlson
It would survive.
mike huckabee
Our economy is a lot of people.
tucker carlson
What do you think?
mike huckabee
It would be a terrible thing to happen globally.
It's why Iran is a global threat.
It's why Iran threw its proxies, Tucker.
This is another thing.
tucker carlson
They're not blowing up energy infrastructure right now, but if we try to regime change them, they have said that they will.
I don't know if they will or not.
mike huckabee
I don't either.
tucker carlson
Is that a risk that?
mike huckabee
But they have their own problems to defend if they try to do that and they lose their own energy capacity.
tucker carlson
So if they took out, and again, I don't know what's going to happen.
And I guess we're not supposed to think about worst case because that makes us pro-Islamic or something.
But I'm an American and I don't want a depression in our country.
It's too fractured and unstable right now.
I don't think we want that at all.
mike huckabee
None of us want that.
None of us want.
tucker carlson
Not right now.
We don't.
Not at all.
mike huckabee
I don't want it next year, next week, 10 years.
tucker carlson
Especially now, all these states are basically in a state of insurrection against the federal government.
They're not enforcing the most basic law of the land, which is immigration.
And thank goodness President Trump is pushing back and he's speaking to force if all of a sudden compliance markets just tanked and gas tripled or whatever and you had a severe recession or something worse.
That's a massive cost.
And I don't see anybody factoring in that possibility.
Iran has said it will do it.
You've said 10 times they're evil.
Okay, I believe you.
Then why wouldn't they take out the Qatari gas fields they share with Qatar or refining petrochemicals extraction in any of the Gulf countries?
mike huckabee
That would cripple us.
Well, energy-wise, again, we have independence because President Trump put measures in place that gave us the capacity.
tucker carlson
Do we set international energy prices in the United States?
mike huckabee
In some ways, we do because our own market and our own production has a whole lot to do with what those world costs are going to be.
tucker carlson
If you took Saudi energy production or Qatari energy production or Emirati energy production all the time.
mike huckabee
That is making an assumption that if there were regime change, that they would be more effective at attacking than we would be defending.
And that's a pretty.
tucker carlson
Can we defend the Straits for Moose?
Can we defend all of that energy infrastructure?
Is anyone even asking these questions or it's all like a Markle Event episode where they're bad?
mike huckabee
They are certainly asking the questions.
That's part of the whole process.
tucker carlson
What are you saying?
I've raised this before and it's like, shut up, Qatarlson.
You're taking money from the jihadis.
I've never taken a dime from anybody, obviously.
I just care about the United States and it freaks me out.
And no one else seems worried about this.
mike huckabee
In caring about the U.S., you should care about the fact that the proxies of Iran have moved globally.
Twelve Central and South American countries have Hezbollah deeply embedded.
Venezuela, one of the worst.
They're in the Western Hemisphere already.
Do we know how many...
tucker carlson
Where would you rank that on the list of concerns for the average American, Hezbollah in South Africa?
mike huckabee
I doubt if most Americans think about it.
I think about it because I know what they do.
I know that if it weren't for Iran, there wouldn't be Hamas.
There wouldn't be the Houdis.
There wouldn't be Hezbollah.
We wouldn't have the problem on the border with Lebanon.
We wouldn't have the problem with Yemen.
We wouldn't have the problem on the border with left.
tucker carlson
I'm as I'm an American.
I'm not having any problems on the border with Lebanon right now.
I live in Maine.
We don't have problems on the border of Lebanon.
Like, what are you even talking about?
No offense.
mike huckabee
There's 700,000 Americans who live in Israel, for one thing.
Does that matter to you?
tucker carlson
Well, of course, every American matters to you.
mike huckabee
Every life you say matters the same, so that should matter.
My country, like shelling civilians and civilians get killed in this place, that should matter to all of us.
tucker carlson
I mean, there's a genocide going on in all kinds of different countries.
There's a lot that's sad and broken about the world.
We know that as Christians, Satan rules the world.
But our job as members of a nation state is to look after our community, our families, right?
So I don't think any of the concerns that you've just raised, which I think are all real, I'm not disputing them at all, are even in like the top 100 for Americans.
Why would the US government be spending this much time and money worrying about things that are not on the list of Americans' concerns?
Do we have self-government?
Does it matter what Americans actually think or it doesn't matter?
mike huckabee
Of course it does, but it also matters what the threat is to Americans.
Do you think there's a threat to Americans because of the proliferation of the proxies in Iran?
tucker carlson
Conceivably there is.
I'm not pro-Iran.
mike huckabee
But beyond conceivably, do you think that they mean it when they say 47%?
tucker carlson
I think that's the only thing that cartels like in my town, and no one's doing anything about it at all.
mike huckabee
I'm hearing a lot about doing anything about that.
tucker carlson
No one's doing anything about it at all.
Okay.
That's a fact.
We have a huge country.
This is a country the size of New Jersey with no resources.
You know, it's just a tiny little country.
We're from a huge continental-sized country that's totally diverse, very, very hard to manage and police, and we have a lot of problems.
And I just think if you ask Americans, what do they want to spend their time and money worrying about fixing, improving?
No one's going to mention the border with Lebanon that I know.
Do you think?
mike huckabee
I doubt they will.
tucker carlson
But I think that's the thing that I think is don't.
mike huckabee
But I think there are people that the U.S. government has monitoring what the threats are to Americans long term.
tucker carlson
Sure.
mike huckabee
Do you think there's a threat?
The question is, when people think that they're not going to be able to do that, 47 years, well, but I don't know that Saddam ever said he was going to take down America.
But the Iranian regime has said for 47 years they are.
If they had the capacity of a long-range ballistic missile and nuclear capability, do you think they'd light that puppy up and send it to us?
tucker carlson
I don't know.
But I know.
mike huckabee
Well, I know this from sitting here last year, four wars that I went through in less than a year.
The Iranians rained down ballistic missiles.
tucker carlson
Can I ask you a question?
How much does it matter what Americans think?
mike huckabee
Well, it matters every bit what Americans think.
That's why Americans vote.
It's why Americans have the opportunity to have free speech.
We want them to have that.
tucker carlson
Okay, so what percentage of Americans support a war with Iran?
mike huckabee
I don't know.
Do you know?
tucker carlson
I do.
I think it's around, I saw the numbers yesterday.
I think it was like 21%.
Is that enough to have a war with Iran?
mike huckabee
We don't live in a world where you have a poll taken to find out whether our policy should be a particular direction.
tucker carlson
I thought you just said that.
mike huckabee
That's direct votes.
No, we care deeply about it.
But on the other hand, do we make the decisions of foreign policy and even domestic policy based on what sense?
tucker carlson
If we're ignoring it, then in what sense do we, quote, care deeply about it?
mike huckabee
Well, I think we care deeply when we see there's a threat.
tucker carlson
No, but about Americans' opinions.
So you've got 350 million Americans.
They vote.
They voted in this last election on the basis, in part, of the promise no more wars.
So now we're about to have a war looks like 80% of people are against it.
In that range, let's say 70%, but nowhere near majority support for this war.
And it's not direct democracy, but it is a form of democracy.
It's representative democracy.
mike huckabee
The ultimate form of democracy in our system in a republic, because we're not a true democracy, we're a republic.
tucker carlson
Exactly, right?
It's a mediated democracy.
mike huckabee
It'll be an opportunity for Americans to vote if they think that we've made the wrong policy decisions.
I personally think the president is making the right policy decisions.
tucker carlson
But I guess, but you just said it matters deeply what Americans think.
And if the overall majority are against it, in what sense does it matter?
Because what I hear is it matters what they think, but it really doesn't matter what they think because you take it in, you certainly ingest that.
And then when you ultimately, once you ingest it, then you make sure that you have it.
It goes out the other end, obviously.
mike huckabee
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't, Tucker.
But you also have information that the average American may not have.
They may not know what the threat is.
How many Americans know that Hezbollah is in 12 Western Hemisphere countries?
tucker carlson
How many Americans care?
mike huckabee
Well, I would hope they would all care.
How many Americans know how many people from Iran, from terrorist cells, have come across Joe Biden's open border?
How many Americans care about?
tucker carlson
They definitely care about that.
mike huckabee
Okay, you care.
tucker carlson
Why haven't they been rounded up?
mike huckabee
But they're trying.
But you got all these blue state mayors and governors making it very difficult.
tucker carlson
I get it.
mike huckabee
But thank God President Trump is trying to get it done.
tucker carlson
Look, I'm totally all for that completely.
Okay, I guess what I'm saying is that most Americans, I've never met an American who thinks, other than like the people who have ideological reasons to pretend they think it, that the imminent threat to America is anything having to do with Iran.
The imminent threats to America include like bankruptcy from too much debt, your son ODing on fentanyl, your neighborhood completely changing because unlike Israel, Americans don't have a right to their country.
It can just be completely changed by their legislature.
New people can show up from foreign countries and not speak your language, and there's nothing you can do about it because you don't have a right because you're not BB.
Can you feel the resentment?
Because it's real.
I'm not against Israel.
I'm against the total destruction.
mike huckabee
I'm going to hide that very well.
tucker carlson
I'm mad at my lawmakers for not protecting my country with the care they've protected Israel.
mike huckabee
I don't think that your country, my country, our country, has spent that much time protecting Israel.
I asked you a little bit ago.
tucker carlson
They have no time protecting my country.
mike huckabee
No, I ask you, well, actually, they do.
unidentified
How?
mike huckabee
They are the tip of the spear.
Every enemy they have is our enemy.
tucker carlson
Our country?
mike huckabee
Things that are targeted toward us often go through them.
tucker carlson
How do we have 60 million illegal aliens if they protected my country?
mike huckabee
Well, we didn't protect our country because we had a president that opened up the borders and didn't give a rip.
What's been going on since Reagan was coming in?
tucker carlson
Since Reagan, 1986.
Yeah, but that's 40 years later.
mike huckabee
President Trump the credit for having closed the border.
tucker carlson
I'm giving, I love the fact I campaigned for Trump because he said he would close the border.
He did.
Amen.
Thank you, Trump.
But we had Reagan.
Then we had Bush.
Then we had Clinton.
Then we had Bush again.
Then we had that guy, Obama.
And then you know the presidents.
mike huckabee
Yeah.
tucker carlson
And they all presided over my country's total transformation from a nice, clean, affluent, orderly society into like pretty kind of third world, actually.
That's not protecting us.
That's behaving with total contempt for my country.
mike huckabee
You said a moment ago that we do more, or you inferred, that we do more for Israel than we do for ourselves.
Do you believe that?
tucker carlson
No, I don't.
I didn't say we do more for Israel.
It's like, but where's the care?
Where's the concern?
Where's the, holy smokes, there are drug cartels in your neighborhood?
You're telling me about the border with Lebanon and like Hezbollah or Hezbollah, whatever you call it, in some Latin American country?
I don't care.
There are drug cartels in my neighborhood.
I know people who've died of fentanyl ODs.
mike huckabee
Where did the fentanyl come from?
Probably from China.
tucker carlson
It's from Mexico.
mike huckabee
From China through.
tucker carlson
Yeah, the precursor chemicals, they say, come from China.
I get it.
mike huckabee
And who's in that axis with China?
Iran.
tucker carlson
Larry Fink is in that access.
No, actually.
Actually, the heads of our biggest corporations are in that axis with China.
I don't care about Iran at all.
I care about America.
And if blowing up Iran makes my country richer and safer, I'm for it.
And if it doesn't, I'm totally opposed.
It's that simple.
I think most Americans feel that way, no?
mike huckabee
I asked you a question a little bit ago you never got back to because I think it's an important one.
Because one of the things that I sense attention with you, you feel like that we do too much for Israel.
We're getting nothing from it.
And I ask you how many boots on the ground has the U.S. placed on behalf of Israel.
tucker carlson
However many went to Iraq, we did that for Israel.
mike huckabee
No, I don't think we did.
tucker carlson
You said we did it because of 9-11?
mike huckabee
That was the U.S. justification for it.
tucker carlson
But it wasn't.
what was the actual reason?
mike huckabee
Well, that's the U.S. government told us it was for 9-11.
They told us that they were part of it, that they had weapons of mass destruction.
tucker carlson
They knew they had to be with 9-11, obviously.
There's no evidence.
mike huckabee
But Israel was not in that component.
tucker carlson
Israel had no influence on our decision to invade Iraq.
That's not what the people who made the decision say.
They say Israel gave us that information about the fake weapons of mass destruction.
mike huckabee
What do you think the question was?
How many Americans put their boots on the ground for Israel?
The answer is zero.
tucker carlson
Everybody who served in Iraq put their boots on the ground for Israel.
mike huckabee
Did not.
tucker carlson
Where did we get the information about the weapons of mass destruction that wasn't real?
mike huckabee
We didn't get that from.
You're saying we got that from Israel?
That Israel was one pushed us into that?
tucker carlson
Well, absolutely.
mike huckabee
You really believe that?
tucker carlson
I know that for a fact.
And so does every.
Yes, this has been widely written about and discussed.
And I'm not attacking Israel.
They thought it was in their interest to take out a government that was paying the families of suicide bombers.
I get it.
I'm not mad at Israel about that.
I never have been.
I'm mad at the Bush administration and all the people who went along with this to the detriment of my country.
That's who I'm mad at.
Not Israel.
Bibi's doing what he can for his country, whether you agree with him or not.
I want my leaders to do the same for my country.
That's it.
mike huckabee
I think the present leadership is doing just that.
I truly do.
And I don't think that it's at all accurate to even intimate that tiny little Israel is pushing the U.S. into something it does not want to do.
I totally.
tucker carlson
Our leaders appear to want to do it.
Our public does not want to do it at all.
The public does not want war with Iran.
Bibi does.
He's gotten seven, seven trips to the White House.
The average American.
mike huckabee
The question would be.
tucker carlson
Hold on.
The average American doesn't have that level of access.
And a foreign leader does.
Seven in one year.
President Demands War? 00:04:07
tucker carlson
And now we're moving toward war with Iran.
The average American doesn't want that war.
The average American is outraged.
Don't you understand?
mike huckabee
I'm not saying that we're not the strongest president I've ever seen in my lifetime going back to Eisenhower for God's second.
No, no, listen to me, Tucker, for God's sake.
tucker carlson
I'm not attacking Trump.
I'm like Trump.
mike huckabee
I know, but you're making it sound like that he is being pulled into something that he really doesn't want to do or pulled into something because he's persuaded.
I was in the meeting last week.
I was in the meetings last summer.
I can assure you, President Trump is not being led into something at all by Prime Minister Netanyahu.
tucker carlson
To be clear, I'm neither saying that nor implying it.
What I am stating out loud is true, and that's that Prime Minister Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyahu, has way more influence over Americans' foreign policy than Americans do.
And we know this because he wants a war with Iran.
The overwhelming majority of Americans don't want a war with Iran, and we're very likely to get a war with Iran.
So who has more influence?
Benjamin Netanyahu or 80% of Americans?
I'm saying that's outrageous.
That's all I'm saying.
mike huckabee
I would counter that.
Bibi Netanyahu does not want a war with Iran.
To say that he wants a war, you know who's going to be at the very front of that?
His people.
And I don't agree with that.
I'm with him enough to know he does not want a war.
tucker carlson
He doesn't.
mike huckabee
Does he think that there may be a necessity of taking a war in order to prevent an attack on not just Israel?
tucker carlson
I don't want to be in an argument, but I think I know too much.
I mean, let's be real.
Okay, so there was, you know, Steve Witkoff, in my opinion, is just a sterling guy, just a good guy.
Excellent.
Just a good guy.
That's my view.
And kind of pro-American and just couldn't be nicer and wants the right thing.
And he's probably Trump's best friend.
He and maybe Jared too are involved in a negotiation with Hamas with Iran.
mike huckabee
Yeah.
tucker carlson
I'm so sorry.
Okay.
And the Israeli government short-circuits it by hitting Iran.
mike huckabee
So, like, they— What do you mean they short-circuit it by hitting Iran?
tucker carlson
They did everything they could to shut down the negotiations between the United States, the Trump administration, and Iran.
And look, I wouldn't, they're acting, again, in their own interest, but our country should also act in its own interest.
That's all I'm saying.
So don't tell me that BBC doesn't want a war with Iran.
mike huckabee
He doesn't.
If Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff could be successful in getting the president's demands, and keep in mind, these are the president's demands.
tucker carlson
What are those demands?
mike huckabee
No enrichment, no nuclear weapon, quit killing your own people in the streets, but the tens of thousands.
You and I both agree that it's a horrible thing to kill your own citizens, which Iran is doing.
tucker carlson
It's a horrible thing to kill anybody's citizens.
mike huckabee
Anybody's citizens.
We agree on that.
tucker carlson
Except that they're 14-year-olds working for Hamas.
mike huckabee
But it's still a tragedy.
tucker carlson
No, it is.
Sorry, I'm being a jerk.
mike huckabee
You really are being a jerk.
unidentified
I am.
I know.
mike huckabee
I know.
tucker carlson
I am such a jerk.
mike huckabee
I'm going to write down.
tucker carlson
You're right.
mike huckabee
You're right.
tucker carlson
I admit it.
I know.
mike huckabee
He's a jerk.
tucker carlson
Oh, I am a jerk.
Everyone knows that.
I mean, I'm trying to, really trying.
unidentified
Okay.
Okay.
tucker carlson
No, but I agree with you 100%.
Of course, it's a jerk.
mike huckabee
That could be done.
And I pray it can.
tucker carlson
Yes.
mike huckabee
And you know why?
Number one, because it would be wonderful for everybody.
Number two, if there is a war, you're going to be 6,000 miles from it.
You know where I'm going to be?
In the bullseye.
Do I want there to be a war?
No.
Do Israelis want there to be a war?
No.
tucker carlson
How many?
I keep hearing Israel's fighting a seven-front war right now.
What are those seven fronts?
mike huckabee
Well, you've got Lebanon.
You have Egypt.
Now, Egypt is not an active war, but you have the Muslim Brotherhood within Egypt.
You've got the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.
You've got Syria.
tucker carlson
Wait, they're fighting a war with Jordan?
mike huckabee
With the Muslim Brotherhood that is in Jordan, not directly with Jordan, not the government of Jordan.
Bethlehem Christians' Freedom 00:15:39
tucker carlson
But are they?
mike huckabee
You've got Hezbollah.
tucker carlson
You've got Houdis in Yemen.
mike huckabee
You have Hamas in Gaza.
You have the threats that come from Iran.
And how many is that?
tucker carlson
That's seven.
mike huckabee
That's seven.
tucker carlson
Okay.
mike huckabee
I'd give you an eighth one.
You know the eighth one?
The media.
No, I would tell you, there's an eighth front war.
tucker carlson
How many journalists has Israel killed in Gaza?
mike huckabee
I don't know.
tucker carlson
Over 200.
It seems like.
mike huckabee
Now, are they real journalists?
Because a lot of those people that were supposedly journalists were actually Hamas fighters that are documented Hamas fighters.
So that's why I ask you how many are actual journalists.
tucker carlson
You know, I don't know, but a lot of them were.
I mean, they worked for big news organizations and they had press written on their chest.
mike huckabee
Yeah, some of them had UNRWA cars and they were also working for Hamas.
tucker carlson
So Hamas is concerned.
Do you think that over 200 journalists killed in Gaza are all fake journalists who deserve to be killed?
mike huckabee
I have no idea how many the total number is.
I don't have their credentials, but I know that there were quite a few that were actually Hamas fighters that protected Hamas.
Ask the hostages.
The hostages came back and they started telling about the number of people that were doctors in hospitals that held him hostage in their homes or the number of people who were pretending to be journalists who were actually holding them hostage.
I'm just telling you that there's a lot more to what.
tucker carlson
As someone whose tax dollars helped pay for killing all those civilians in Gaza, I feel like I have a right to know how many were killed.
And Israel won't let outside observers in to figure it out.
And I'm frustrated.
I just want to say that.
My last question is about Christians, both Christians who visit and Christians who live here, particularly in the West Bank.
I spoke to someone recently, a Christian minister who grew up in a town right outside Bethlehem.
We would know it as Shepherd's Field in the New Testament, where the shepherds were tending their flocks in Matthew.
And of course, the angels come and announce the arrival of Jesus in nearby Bethlehem.
His family's been Christian, he says, for 2,000 years.
He says where he grew up is now surrounded by settlements of people who are not from Israel at all.
A lot of them are from the United States, Jewish settlements.
They have different roads that the native Christians are not allowed to use.
I don't quite know how that works.
And he described a story where his mother was shot outside their house by an IDF soldier for reasons no one ever explained.
She survived, but no one was ever punished for it or even explained why they did it.
And he basically described being terrorized by settlers.
And I wonder if that's a concern for you, for the native population, the indigenous population.
mike huckabee
Did you say this happened in Bethlehem?
tucker carlson
It happened in Shepherd's Field.
So it's a Christian village, Beth Sahur, I think is its name, right outside Bethlehem.
mike huckabee
If it's in Bethlehem.
tucker carlson
It's not in Bethlehem.
Again, I think it's Bet Sahur, I believe, is the name of the village.
mike huckabee
Because there are no Israelis in Bethlehem.
None.
There are no Jews in Bethlehem.
tucker carlson
Are there new settlements outside Bethlehem where he is from?
mike huckabee
Over in Area C, but not in Area A. There are none.
tucker carlson
He describes the town he grew up in, and I guess I wonder why a Christian whose family's been there for 2,000 years throughout the day in Samaria.
mike huckabee
That's true.
I've been over to visit them.
I've been in the country.
tucker carlson
I know regularly.
I know you have.
But why can't they just drive into Jerusalem to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher?
Why do they need a permit to do that if they're from there?
mike huckabee
Because of the acts of terrorism that has made it impossible to do it.
You know how many suicide bombs are Christians?
Then you ask this question.
So what do we do?
Just say you're a Christian?
Oh, yeah, I'm a Christian, but you're wearing a suicide bomb?
tucker carlson
Do Christians do suicide bombs?
mike huckabee
They could.
If all they have to do is just say, announce I'm a Christian.
There were over a thousand suicide.
tucker carlson
Why don't I just get an identity card?
It says I'm Christian.
mike huckabee
Let me just finish this.
Before Israel put the green line up, and before they took great care to put checkpoints in place, there were over a thousand suicide bombers in one year.
It was awful.
tucker carlson
I remember it, but I don't think any of them were Christians.
mike huckabee
They might not have been.
tucker carlson
Okay, but my point is we could find out if they were.
mike huckabee
So you're saying we just trust somebody if they come up and say, I'm a Christian, I just want to go to the Holy Sepulchre, let me in.
tucker carlson
What I'm saying is that Christians have a right to go to the Holy Sepulchre.
Israel does not own it.
They've had possession of it since 1967.
It doesn't belong to Bibi.
It belongs to me and you and every other Christian.
mike huckabee
Bibi was probably a young person.
I'm not even sure he was.
tucker carlson
No Christian should ever be barred from the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
mike huckabee
Should Christians be barred from Joseph's tomb in Nabilis?
tucker carlson
I don't know.
Let's just start with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
And I don't understand on what grounds they can.
mike huckabee
They can go to the Spirit.
tucker carlson
Well, they can't if they're Christians at Beth Sahur.
So I don't understand why they're a threat.
They're not a threat.
And why won't you, as the Christian minister, U.S. ambassador to the state of Israel, say to the prime minister, you can't allow this.
Your country exists in part because American Christians support you, so you have to treat us well.
mike huckabee
Part of the problem, Tucker, is that in the Palestinian Authority, and that's what we're talking about, there are Christians.
Look, I know some Christians who live in Bethlehem, and that is Area A. Bethlehem was 80 plus percent Christian before Oslo.
80% Christian, less than 20% Muslim.
Today it's flipped.
It's now 80 plus percent Muslim.
It's very few Christian.
And some of the Christians that I personally know and know well are Zionist.
Let that surprise you.
They're Zionists.
tucker carlson
And hardware Zionists.
Some areas.
mike huckabee
Let me finish my train of thought here.
So in the Palestinian Authority, They still teach children from the time they're five years old that the greatest thing in the world is to kill Jews.
And that if they end up being a martyr, and if they kill Jews, they will get a pension for life if they die.
And if they don't, they'll get a paycheck for life and their families will.
And it's called the Prisoners and Martyrs Fund.
We call it pay for slay in the U.S.
It is against our law.
tucker carlson
Are a lot of Christians collecting on that?
mike huckabee
I don't know.
tucker carlson
Zero.
So my question remains, and I'm a little bit frustrated at this point because I'm not defending Hamas.
I hate suicide bombing.
I hate suicide.
I hate violence.
I hate the killing of children, period.
Why can't a Christian who was born there, whose family's been there for 2,000 years, following Jesus for 2,000 years, drive, because it's really close to the church of the Holy Sepulchre?
He poses no threat.
And why can't the United States government advocate for him to do that?
mike huckabee
We do advocate for Americans because that's our job.
And it doesn't matter whether they're Palestinian or Israeli.
We do that.
But as far as when they.
tucker carlson
How many Americans are being held in Israeli prisons right now?
mike huckabee
Um.
Total?
I don't have an exact number on that.
I don't know.
tucker carlson
How can you advocate for them if you don't know how many there are?
mike huckabee
Well, everyone that we know, we go visit.
Our consular goes there almost every week and visits the Americans.
It's not a large number as far as Americans.
But when we have them, we go.
We go to their trials when they're on trial.
So, yeah, we do a lot more than you've given us credit for.
tucker carlson
Oh, I'm giving you credit.
No, no, you're getting a lot of people.
Okay, please give you credit.
mike huckabee
We're doing that because we don't get much.
We don't get much.
tucker carlson
By the way, not every embassy does that.
I happen to know for a fact.
They don't advocate for Americans in jail.
mike huckabee
We take our consular services across into the Palestinian Authority and help people over there.
Some of those are Christians.
Some are not.
Some are Muslim.
But if they're Americans and they have American citizenship and American passport, we help them.
tucker carlson
That makes me so happy to hear.
mike huckabee
I go to Ramallah.
I sit down with the vice president and the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.
We try to work ways to make things better.
But the reason that sometimes it's not just an absolute free passage, I'll tell you why, because there are too many incidences of terrorist acts, and Israel is not going to allow themselves to be able to do that.
tucker carlson
But the Christians didn't do it, and they're not going to do it.
And Christians pay for all of this.
They pay for a lot of this.
mike huckabee
It's very, you can say it's unfair, but here's...
tucker carlson
You can't punish the innocent.
How's that?
mike huckabee
But you've got to somehow make sure that you screen people.
And that's why the checkpoints.
Let me tell you what happened not too very long ago.
We had a humanitarian aid truck that came across from Jordan.
The driver was supposedly vetted.
He was a former Jordanian military person.
He came across the checkpoint.
Everything should be fine, right?
He gets out of his truck.
He takes a gun and he shoots two of the people who are the Israelis at the checkpoint, one of whom was a young person less than a year in the job.
His mother teaches in the American school where our embassy people go in Herzalia.
I get to make the phone call to the mother.
I'm going to tell you something.
It was not the most pleasant day of my life.
tucker carlson
It sounds awful.
mike huckabee
It is awful.
And so those kind of incidences are the reason that it is difficult to go from Judea, Samaria, or the West Bank, call it whatever you want.
But if you're in Area A, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and your education has been that killing Jews is a wonderful thing.
tucker carlson
I'm talking about the Christians.
mike huckabee
And the Christians, if they go to those schools, they're still going to get that education.
tucker carlson
When was the last time there was a suicide bomb detonated by Christians?
mike huckabee
I don't know.
tucker carlson
Never.
Let me ask you this.
mike huckabee
Look, I'm not trying to defend, but I'm saying to you that if the curriculum doesn't get changed, if the pay for slay doesn't get changed, you have a culture.
Well, you say it doesn't apply.
Maybe it never has happened.
I don't know whether it has ever happened.
tucker carlson
When will Palestinians in the West Bank have the same rights as Israelis in the West Bank?
mike huckabee
Are you talking about the ones that live in the Palestinian Authority?
tucker carlson
I'm talking about people who live in the villages they grew up in.
They changed hands, went from one government to the United States.
mike huckabee
It makes no difference whether they live under the Palestinian Authority government or whether they live under Israeli.
If they live under Area A. Do you know the difference?
tucker carlson
I do.
mike huckabee
If they live under Area A, they live under the Palestinian Authority government.
They don't live under Israeli government.
tucker carlson
But it's controlled by the Israeli government completely.
There's no airport.
They control the utilities.
I mean, this is, it's silly.
I understand there's a form of self-government, but the big decisions are made by the Israeli government, obviously.
I've been there.
I know this.
And you know it too.
So how long does this go on?
You say that God gave the nation of Israel the right to this land.
Why not just take it, declare it Israel, and make everyone a citizen?
I don't understand why that's not happening.
mike huckabee
Well, you know what?
There are people who think that that would be a much better.
I think it very well could be.
And if you ask certain people living in the PA under their very corrupt government, where 91% of the people think the government is hopelessly corrupt, that's what the numbers are, they would tell you that they would be better off than the Israelis were the governing authority.
tucker carlson
Everyone gets voting rights.
Would that be the case?
mike huckabee
If they were all under Israeli authority.
You know, there are, do you realize there are lots of Arab Israelis?
tucker carlson
I know.
mike huckabee
And they vote.
Do you know they serve in the Knesset?
tucker carlson
I'm very aware of that.
And I'm just wondering.
mike huckabee
And they serve on the Supreme Court.
And did you know that it was an Arab who sentenced a former president and prime minister to prison?
tucker carlson
I know all this.
I just want to know what's going to happen.
mike huckabee
Do you know how many Jews get to help govern Saudi Arabia or Qatar or Syria?
tucker carlson
I'm not.
I'm not attacking Jews.
mike huckabee
There's a much more open government in society.
And you make it sound like that the Israelis.
tucker carlson
I don't sound that way.
I'm just asking.
No, I am not attacking the nation of Israel.
I'm just wondering what the plan is.
So I've been hearing my whole life how bad the PA is.
Okay, great.
But what's the plan here?
So they're moving all these Americans, people from around the world, into settlements subsidized by Americans in the West Bank.
mike huckabee
They're not moving them from around the world to the settlements.
They're people who make aliyah.
They come.
I'm just saying.
These are Israelis who live in Israel.
tucker carlson
Well, there are a lot of people.
mike huckabee
And Area C is Israel.
Okay.
Okay.
tucker carlson
But does it remain a territory under military control forever?
Does it just become part of the state?
mike huckabee
The Palestinian Authority?
tucker carlson
Correct.
mike huckabee
That's the big question.
Do you believe in the two-state solution?
And if you do, I would show you a map, and I would ask you, because this is, I don't know.
tucker carlson
I don't know what I think.
I just think you need to treat people like human beings, and that's not happening, obviously.
mike huckabee
And that would be you don't glorify their killing.
tucker carlson
Yeah, let them go to their church if they want.
mike huckabee
See the yellow parts?
tucker carlson
Yeah.
mike huckabee
That's Palestinian authority.
The tan parts, that's Area B. That's the area that is mixed.
Israel has military authority, but the Palestinians can live anywhere they want to in there.
And the blue area, that's Area C. Area C is Israel.
And Israelis can live in Israel.
That's what it is.
Now, when people say they want a two-state solution, I love to show them a map like this.
And I ask them, where does that state line up?
There is no continuous work.
tucker carlson
You know, we've got a lot of states in the United States that need help, so I'm not going to weigh in on other people's states, to be totally honest.
I just don't want to pay for it anymore and just want to fix our own country.
But let me ask you one last question, which is how Christians are treated in Jerusalem.
I've talked to so many who've been spit on.
mike huckabee
So many?
How many?
tucker carlson
Well, two yesterday.
mike huckabee
Two.
tucker carlson
Okay.
Both Catholic clergy and both told me the same thing.
Anglican clergy I interviewed.
mike huckabee
I just had dinner recently with a Greek patriarch.
tucker carlson
Well, there's been a million stories about this.
mike huckabee
Yeah, I know.
There are instances where Christians get heckled.
Usually it's people who are wearing clerical robes and they're wearing crosses and it shouldn't happen.
It's horrible.
It's as bad for that to happen as it is to spit on somebody wearing a kippah in New York City.
tucker carlson
I agree.
mike huckabee
Terrible.
It's horrible.
tucker carlson
And actually, I should, to be fair, there is, and I just learned this, a Jewish Israeli group that keeps track of Christians being spit on in Jerusalem because they're offended by it.
And God bless them for keeping track and for being offended by it.
But there are an awful lot of examples of that.
And my question to you, you're against it, of course.
You're Christian clergy.
mike huckabee
I'm horribly against it.
tucker carlson
What is it?
mike huckabee
So is the prime minister, the president, the foreign minister.
So is I think every decent thinking person.
tucker carlson
But what is it?
Why are they spitting on it?
mike huckabee
It's very limited.
It's very, very isolated.
tucker carlson
Where does it come from?
mike huckabee
But for the most part, you know what?
As Christians, we have freedom of movement here.
Tucker, I go to church every Sunday.
I play bass guitar in my church band.
tucker carlson
I get it.
mike huckabee
I don't get hassled being a Christian.
Everyone here knows I'm the first evangelical to be ambassador to Israel.
Do you think they hate me here?
No.
tucker carlson
Are evangelicals recognized by the state of Israel?
mike huckabee
Yeah.
They are?
Yeah.
tucker carlson
Okay.
mike huckabee
And welcomed and appreciated.
tucker carlson
No, but like as a religious, like, are there evangelical churches in Israel?
mike huckabee
My gosh, yes.
There's 184,000 Christians in Israel.
tucker carlson
I know, I know.
mike huckabee
Much larger than that.
tucker carlson
But there are churches that are non-denominational evangelical here.
mike huckabee
Of course.
There are.
And it ranges from when you say non-denominational, some of them are affiliated Baptist Assembly of God.
Some of them are truly non-denominational, Pentecostal.
Some are messianic churches where most of the people are ethnically Jewish, but they are messianic.
They believe in Jesus.
There are a lot of those churches, and they're spread out all over Israel.
Why Christians Face Hatred 00:05:29
tucker carlson
But there's freedom.
You don't.
Oh, I know a lot of Christians in Israel, by the way.
unidentified
Yes.
tucker carlson
And as I said, I really hope I can come back and talk to more.
mike huckabee
And come to church with me.
tucker carlson
Oh, I definitely would like to.
unidentified
Why?
tucker carlson
And I mean that too.
mike huckabee
Yeah.
tucker carlson
Why would people spit on like, where does that come from?
mike huckabee
I think it's from an evil heart.
tucker carlson
Yeah.
mike huckabee
What else would it be?
tucker carlson
I agree.
mike huckabee
I mean, I don't think anybody would ever spit on another person, even if it was, you know, I don't care what a person's religion is or what a person's nationality is.
I don't hate anybody.
I wouldn't spit on anybody.
I wouldn't heckle anyone.
And I find it repulsive.
Nothing about it is defensible.
tucker carlson
I will say that the one, this was off camera, but I interviewed this Christian leader here, and I said, oh, that's so awful.
And he goes, you know, I feel blessed because Jesus was spit on.
And it's an opportunity for humility for me.
And I thought, wow, that's a Christian.
mike huckabee
Let me tell you this.
I've been coming in and out of Jerusalem and Israel for 50, well, soon to be 53 years.
Before I came as ambassador, I made over 100 trips here.
I've never been spat on.
I've never had someone yell at me.
I've never had an experience where I felt uncomfortable or that I was unwelcome.
tucker carlson
If you spit on someone wearing a yarmulk in New York City, you go right to jail.
They would not put up with that for one second.
And they do put up with it here because it still happens.
mike huckabee
I'm not sure they do go to jail in New York City.
They should.
And they should go to jail here.
tucker carlson
I'm against it.
mike huckabee
They should go to jail here.
tucker carlson
Amen.
So there are all these Christian ministers who were brought over here, evangelicals, in December.
And I think mostly to attack me, but also probably they had other people.
mike huckabee
Oh, they really weren't here to attack you.
tucker carlson
I'm just joking.
They were attacking me.
But whatever.
Yeah.
But they were flown over by the state.
The state paid for it, and they had a conference here.
I got one of the guides that they received when they arrived, and I think it's real, and it says, don't preach about Jesus when you're in Israel.
We don't allow that.
Don't do that.
Really?
Yeah.
Why would a Christian minister agree not to preach about Jesus?
mike huckabee
I'm not sure because I've never heard someone tell another Christian minister not to do that.
tucker carlson
Interesting.
Good.
mike huckabee
Well, I was totally baffled.
What would be the purpose of going to church as a Christian if you didn't talk about Jesus?
tucker carlson
Jesus here.
Agree more.
Thank you.
mike huckabee
I can assure you that the church I attend, we talk about Jesus.
I mean, we pray in the name of Jesus.
tucker carlson
No, no, no.
mike huckabee
I don't give a.
tucker carlson
To anyone else outside the church.
Are you allowed, like, could I stand on the corner and just tell people about Jesus here?
mike huckabee
You could.
I'm not saying you'd get applause or that people would.
Right, that's fine.
But I'm saying there are people that are- There's no law against that, though.
Not that I'm aware of.
The only laws that I know of, you can't proselytize someone under the age of 18, and you cannot offer people things of value in order to cause them to listen to your presentation.
For example, I can't say, hey, for $10, would you let me give you this gospel track and scream at you?
Can't do that.
I don't know if it's enforced.
I'm not sure.
I don't ever hear anyone arrested for it.
tucker carlson
But there's no law against just like preaching to people.
mike huckabee
Walk down to the old city.
You'll hear people out there preaching on the street.
Now, are they effective?
I don't know.
I'm not sure that people are stopping and falling on their knees and saying, this is what I've been waiting for.
I don't know.
But what I'm telling you is that the idea that you can't say it, I know that there are places in the rest of this region where you can't do that.
tucker carlson
For sure.
mike huckabee
Yeah.
Qatar, you can't wear a cross in public.
tucker carlson
For sure.
mike huckabee
You can't pray in public.
Christian prayer.
tucker carlson
There are a lot of people wearing crosses in Qatar.
mike huckabee
In Qatar?
tucker carlson
I don't know.
I have.
I don't know what the laws are.
mike huckabee
In Saudi Arabia?
Don't think so.
tucker carlson
I doubt it.
mike huckabee
The one place that's an exception is the Emiratis, and I love those folks because they are so progressive and they're doing so many things to change the template of things.
They have an Abraham house that is a combination synagogue, church, and mosque.
That's pretty amazing, isn't it?
That they have the same building and they use it for all three of the major religions of the world.
And I think that's incredible.
But they're really trying to do things that are beyond what anyone else in the region.
They change their textbooks.
They teach that Israel is not a nation they should hate or seek to annihilate.
They've done some remarkable things.
tucker carlson
Have you been following all this stuff in the, I agree with that.
They have a Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi.
You've been following all this like hate the Muslim stuff going on in the United States on the right.
mike huckabee
I hear some of it, and it's unpleasant.
We shouldn't hate anybody.
tucker carlson
Amen.
mike huckabee
Yeah, it's not a good thing.
Hate is an evil thing.
Sometimes you say, I don't support child killing.
Okay, I don't either.
But I don't support hate in any form.
I think it's a horrible thing.
tucker carlson
That is such a great standard, and I want to hold myself to that.
And thank you for saying that out loud.
mike huckabee
I don't hate you.
I hope not.
tucker carlson
Governor, Ambassador, thank you very much for spending all this time.
I appreciate it.
mike huckabee
I'm glad you came.
Please come back.
tucker carlson
I will come back.
mike huckabee
Go with me to some places and to church.
I want you to see that as Christians, we're pretty free here.
tucker carlson
Amen.
mike huckabee
Appreciated.
tucker carlson
Thank you.
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