Tucker Carlson vs. Mike Huckabee
by Charles Carreon
2/26/26
Corrections: 1. "Spy" = Jonathan Pollard; 2. met Pollard in U.S. embassy, not Israeli; 3. "Israel," not "Egypt" gets all the land.
Transcript
Hi folks, it's February 26, 2026. I'm
Charles Carreon and I am here to deliver
the verdict. Today we're going to be
talking about the encounter between
Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee in the
diplomatic center in the Tel Aviv
airport. And Tucker's presentation of it
starts out with his loud complaints
about the thuggery of the intelligence
agents there at the airport who made him
and his staff miserable and basically
threatened them with not being able to
leave the country and uh interrogated
them at length about the very interview
that they had conducted. Like there really
isn't a free press there, that's for sure.
And Tucker put Mike Huckabee on hotspot
several times. I think the first
question that he landed him with was,
"Will you ask Israel to stop sheltering
pedophiles, indicted fugitives and sex
criminals who flee the United States and
take refuge in the state of Israel from
which they apparently have no fear of
being extradited?" And so he just point
blank said, you know, are you willing to
go and talk to your friends here in the
Israeli government and ask them to
return some of these sex criminals? And
his response was, and he looks
very patriarchal now, he grew a nice
little gray rug on his face, and so he looks like he's
kind of thinking of himself as a
patriarch here. And then when you hear
him, there's no question about it. And
so he was completely unhelpful. He
basically said, "No, I wouldn't do
that. I don't have any objection to it.
Sure, fine. Just flip send them all
back. But adopting no
personal interest, showing no compassion
for the fact that these are people who
have victims in the United States who
are waiting for justice. And h
he's really good. Huckabee is really
good at claiming not to know stuff. He
just does it with this manner that's
like I can't know everything and you
know, I just don't happen to know that.
But you know, Tucker's all prepared with
the facts and feeds them to him and
tells him the one about the Israeli
diplomatic core guy,, or at any rate
important guy in Vegas. He goes and
commits some kind of sex crime. At least
he's indicted for it. And then he flees
to Israel. I'm not giving all the
details. It was all in the news. I mean,
many of us read it. You probably did.
But not Huckabee. And you just can't get
Huckabee to rise to debate. Nope. Nope.
Don't know anything about that. Can't
can't express an opinion about something
if I can't verify the facts myself. He
very loyally dodged. He deploys again
and again. And basically then he says,
"Yeah, it's up to the Department of
Justice." You know, like apparently
he hasn't heard that Pam Bondi is
protecting dozens, maybe hundreds of
identified sex criminals who were known
to her and Kash Patel through the
Epstein files. And he's completely naive about what
this Department of Justice is doing.
He's like ambassador leave it to the
DOJ. Then Tucker asked him about the 200
dead journalists that have
been killed by the Israel Defense
Forces, the IDF, the I think of them as
the Einsatzen group because the Einsatzen
groupin were the particular Nazis who
were charged with exterminating Jews in
Eastern Europe and you know they seem to
have adopted the same policies, seem to
adopt the exact same tactics. IDF
clearly is an army seeking to
exterminate. Many of us expect that they
will resume that effort and pursue it
in alternative forms. But in any
event when asked about the 200 dead
journalists his response response that
they weren't really all journalists that
lots of them were terrorists and
that was shown and proven and I just
really have a hard time just intuitively
I mean if you were a terrorist, right, they
might even know your face, would
you go out there on the front lines and
wear a press pass or would you rather do
what they usually do which is hide in
the shadows, and shoot from secrecy, and
retreat back into the tunnels. I thought
that was the methodology for terrorism.
I didn't think hanging a press pass
around yourself and standing right out
there where the snipers are plugging
away, that just doesn't seem like a
terrorist tactic to me. I mean, what's
the point? But he took that line
and of course we know that's just a
talking point that is put out by the
Netanyahu government and is
just a lie. Real journalists are
being killed. Totally dodged the
question, didn't even answer it
effectively. Then he asked him why he
sought clemency for, and I
don't even remember this guy's name, the
most famous spy for Israel [Jonathan Pollard] who gave away
precious military secrets and was
indicted and was serving I believe a
life sentence certainly longer than he
did serve because his pals including
Mike Huckabee went to bat for him and
asked that he be given clemency. But
when asked about this, it's like, you
know, hey, God been in prison a long
time. I figured things were better for
him. And then Huckabe
met with him in the Israeli [U.S.] embassy. Met
with him twice and met with him and he's
like, "Oh yeah, cuz I you know, his wife
died, says Huckabe, his wife died." And
you know, I said I I I expressed my
condolences. And then he asked if he
could meet me personally to express his
thanks. So we just had an official visit
at the embassy. Nothing secret about
that because you know the embassy is a
public place. There's marines
everywhere. You know it's just porous.
You know what happens in the embassy is
known to all. I Carlson didn't confront
him on the absurdity of that and and the
fact that secret meetings are held at
the embassy all the time and that the
CIA often operates out of the embassy
and has its own office there you know
and certainly what they are doing is not
known to the public. asked him if he'd
uh
what what his opinion was about the the
IDF killing children, you know, and he
was very specific, you know, 14year-old
boy. And uh and um you know, Hakabe's
approach was simply, well, you know, if
they're out there endangering the lives
of IDF soldiers, then um you know, well,
let God sort them out. Well, he didn't
say let God sort them out, but that's
basically what he said. He he just put
it on God. literally said, "Well, you
know, if if they that's the situation,
then, you know, God help him, you know."
So, it doesn't sound like Hakabe was
going to help him at any rate. And God,
you know, kind of thinly represented
there in the Middle East. We just don't
see his hand in operation. You know, if
it that's the hand of mercy doesn't seem
to be there. And I thought his
compassion was repellent. He often tried
to pretend like he really cared about
everybody. And I mean very preacherly
and lawyerly to the point of like wa say
all the right words and espouse all the
uncompassionate positions. He parroths
Bible wisdom uh in support of Israel's
right to be there um and own this land.
And it's at this point that Tucker gets
really interesting and focuses on
something that I think, you know, we
should should all think about, which is
why, first of all, why is the United
States, just to put it very simply,
damned financially and militarily
generous with
the state of Israel when the United
States is in a tough financial
condition? Oh well, that's the perfect
opportunity for Huckabe to booster
support
the chief and Trump has made it all
better. Our economy is so great now we
have nothing to worry about. And oh, and
he raises Tucker raises the issue. Well,
well, you know, basically if we initiate
a war with Iran, which only 20% of
Americans want, basically because
Netanyahu is demanding it, what's it
going to do to our economy when Iran
closes the straight of Hormuz? Well,
that won't affect us at all, says Hak,
because Trump has made everything better
because we have energy independence.
Tucker's like, "You think America's sets
oil prices worldwide is you think Saudi
oil production being taken out of, you
know, Emirates production? You know, he
names off these Gulf States, you know,
is you you you think that we can just
bounce over that up, you know, it's all
good with him. You know, he just get out
that MAGA flag and and he's comfortable
there. Nothing to fear. War? No, no
problem. No problem. Just have that war,
you know." He's like, and Net, you know,
doesn't want the war. And then he plays
all these cute little games that it's
like, you know, we don't want war. Why
would I want war? He says, you know,
I'll be right here on the front lines.
You know, it's like, yeah, under the
Iron Dome, dude. You know, we know. It's
like, you have everything lined up in
your head in a way that uh is just
perfect for Mr. Netanyahu. I'm sure that
he is watching this interview with total
approval. And
so it's great to be Israeli.
I mean, from the perspective of your
free health care, you know, and all of
the other social benefits, the excellent
infrastructure that is all being paid
for by American tax dollars. It's a
really good deal to be an Israeli. So
Hucker says, "What's it take to be one?"
Well, let me cut to the chase. Hakabe
never is clear at all. This is if you're
talking about immigration like keeping
in and letting in the right people and
keeping out the people who were not
supposed to be Israelis. His his
definitions do no good. He said it could
be either due to your ethnic origin or
due to your language or due to your
religious belief. But if you have the
right ethnic origin, which somehow
strangely enough in Netanyahu's case is
Eastern European
ability to speak Hebrew until he learned
it as a part of the Israeli regimen,
which was to recreate, rebreathe life
into a dead language called Hebrew,
which had been completely supplanted in
European fury by something called
Yiddish, which has now been
extinguished. So the linguistic
connection is non-existent. It's like
really just been created after the fact
as part of dressing up the state of
Israel as historically entitled to the
land that it is actively stealing. And
of course we know that uh you know in
the in the latter part of the interview
I mean everybody's heard it. The big
headline is that Huckabe would be just
fine with Egypt taking over all the land
that is designated in the Bible as
having been theirs. You know, a rank
absurdity and and he just goes along
with it. So, we know that being Israeli
and being the nation of Israel from his
point of view is the most advantaged
citizenship and nation that you could
have. And there's no definition for how
you get to be an Israeli that really
makes any sense at all. And there's
nothing that legitimizes Israel as a
nation except for the fact that the
United Nations in Declaration 42, I
believe it was, forgive me if I'm wrong,
but in any event, in a declaration made
by what? The major powers who won the
war against Germany and Japan. They were
the ones who made that happen. And why
did they create the state of Israel? So
it could take the place of the exiting
British and French forces that until
that time had kept a colonial grip on
the area and in order to deal with what
happened in the Middle East, which is
that these nations remanifested their
authority and they had to be countered
on the part of Western American and
European forces. The Arab states, the
new Gulf states who are emerging in
their power had to be countered with a
powerful military force, a government
force and that is the state of Israel.
And whether that was the intention from
the very beginning or just evolved into
the strategy, I could not tell you. But
clearly at this point that is what has
occurred is that Israel is not only the
counterweight but now during the Trump
administration has become the launching
pad for expansionist American military
activity which the next stage of god
forbid maybe the attack on Irma and
about that as I said hucks no problem uh
it'll it'll cause us no economic hiccups
and um it'll it just what has to happen.
You know, just what has to happen. And
Israel's special status with respect to
the United States is, I think, the thing
that Tucker harps on the most. shows us
that the American ambassador to Israel
is completely on the side of Israel's
expansionist tendencies and will have
nothing to the contrary to say in fact
will be an agent for convincing people
in the United States that we should
continue to coddle Israel and its
citizens even as it has turned into a
clearly racist state on some bizarre
basis of who is entitled to live there.
Engaging in an ethnic cleansing campaign
against the native peoples who
definitely lived there for at least
hundreds of years before and taking that
ethnic cleansing to the level of
attempted genocide. If we think of
genocide as the completed act of
actually exterminating a peoples and not
just the act of intending to do so. And
so I see Huckabee as a
corrupt, foolish man, impressed with his
own sense of holiness and gentility. And
it is a very sad thing really to see a
man's mind turned into an agent of evil
and yet appearing grandfatherly, gentle,
kind, presenting an attitude and words
of compassion. So I would just say not
that my you'll ever hear it from me
but you ought be thinking about what you
going to tell your maker about this
you're pulling down here dude because if
you seriously believe you're going to
meet him
if I were you I would not be too
comfortable about things. All
right. And that's the verdict.