Tucker Carlson defends Zohran Mamdani

Tuck­er Carl­son Defends NYC May­or-Elect Zohran Mam­dani, Call­ing Anti­semitism Claims ‘Pro­pa­gan­da’

Con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Tuck­er Carl­son has come to the defense of New York City May­or-elect Zohran Mam­dani, dis­miss­ing accu­sa­tions that the new­ly elect­ed offi­cial is anti­se­mit­ic as “pro­pa­gan­da.”

Newsweek has reached out to both Carl­son and Mam­dani for com­ment.

Why It Matters

Carl­son, a promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive voice and for­mer Fox News host, has recent­ly come under fire from with­in his own par­ty for inter­view­ing white nation­al­ist Nick Fuentes, who is wide­ly known for mak­ing anti­se­mit­ic remarks. The inter­view drew back­lash from Repub­li­cans, calls to “can­cel” Carl­son, and even divi­sion with­in the Her­itage Foun­da­tion — the influ­en­tial con­ser­v­a­tive think tank behind Project 2025.

Kevin Roberts, pres­i­dent of the Her­itage Foun­da­tion, defend­ed Carl­son against what he called a “ven­omous coali­tion” attempt­ing to silence him. His defense, how­ev­er, prompt­ed sev­er­al res­ig­na­tions, includ­ing those of his chief of staff and mem­bers of the think tank’s anti­semitism board.

What to Know

In his Thurs­day newslet­ter, Carl­son acknowl­edged that Mam­dani iden­ti­fies as a social­ist — “maybe even a com­mu­nist,” he added — but took issue with cam­paign attacks brand­ing him as anti­se­mit­ic.

“Is the incom­ing may­or a fan of Israel? Does he want Amer­i­ca to fight its wars? Not par­tic­u­lar­ly. But a Jew hater? That’s a dif­fer­ent con­ver­sa­tion. We’ve nev­er seen any­thing to sug­gest he falls into that ugly camp. Because he doesn’t,” Carl­son wrote.

Carl­son not­ed that Mam­dani had repeat­ed­ly denied being anti­se­mit­ic dur­ing his cam­paign but said that “didn’t stop peo­ple from slan­der­ing him as some sort of dark force plot­ting to install the Fourth Reich in America’s largest city.”

Jonathan Green­blatt, CEO of the Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL), called Mam­dani a “clear and present dan­ger” to the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty. Ahead of the elec­tion, hun­dreds of rab­bis and can­tors signed a let­ter con­demn­ing the “nor­mal­iza­tion” of Mamdani’s anti-Zion­ist rhetoric.

(Pho­to by Gior­gio Viera/AFP via Get­ty Images)
Con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor Tuck­er Carl­son speaks at the Turn­ing Point Action USA con­fer­ence in West Palm Beach, Flori­da, on July 15, 2023.

Jewish Voters Divided

Not all Jew­ish groups opposed Mam­dani. Sat­mar Hasidic leader Rab­bi Moishe Indig pub­licly endorsed him, and a CNN exit poll found that rough­ly one-third of Jew­ish New York­ers vot­ed for Mam­dani on Tues­day.

In his newslet­ter, Carl­son ques­tioned how thou­sands of Jew­ish vot­ers could sup­port Mam­dani, dis­miss­ing notions that they “hate them­selves,” were “con­tent get­ting erad­i­cat­ed,” or were unaware of “Mamdani’s Hit­ler­ian aspi­ra­tions.”

Instead, Carl­son con­clud­ed:

“We now arrive at the fourth pos­si­bil­i­ty, the one that’s true. The Jew­ish vot­ers who backed Mam­dani did so because they knew the anti­semite attacks were lies. They had the brains to see through the bull­shit.”

Carl­son fur­ther argued that pro-Israel advo­cates rely on alle­ga­tions of anti­semitism to jus­ti­fy con­tin­ued U.S. fund­ing for Israel.

Mamdani’s Record and Response

Mam­dani has drawn crit­i­cism for not denounc­ing the slo­gan “glob­al­ize the intifa­da,” which has been used both as a call for Pales­tin­ian sol­i­dar­i­ty and as a ral­ly­ing cry for vio­lence against Israelis. He has accused Israel’s gov­ern­ment of com­mit­ting geno­cide and has reject­ed the con­cept of Israel as a “Jew­ish state,” instead advo­cat­ing for it to exist “as a state with equal rights.”

Respond­ing to Greenblatt’s remarks on Wednes­day, Mam­dani reit­er­at­ed that he takes anti­semitism “incred­i­bly seri­ous­ly” and vowed that his admin­is­tra­tion would “stand stead­fast with Jew­ish New York­ers.”

What People Are Saying

In his vic­to­ry speech, Mam­dani said:

“And we will build a City Hall that stands stead­fast along­side Jew­ish New York­ers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of anti­semitism.”

Rab­bi Moishe Indig post­ed on X:

“Hearti­est con­grat­u­la­tions and Mazel Tov to New York City May­or-elect Zohran Mam­dani. We are proud to endorse you and look for­ward to your lead­er­ship, vision, and col­lab­o­ra­tion for the bet­ter­ment of our com­mu­ni­ty and all New York­ers.”

Alana Zeitchik, an Israeli Amer­i­can liv­ing in Brook­lyn whose fam­i­ly mem­bers were kid­napped by Hamas, told CNN:

“I don’t think he is some evil dan­ger to our com­mu­ni­ty, but I do think it’s unfair for some peo­ple in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty to dimin­ish very real con­cerns that we have over the per­mis­sion struc­ture that his activism and his own words and world­view allows around anti-Zion­ism, and how that con­tributes to anti­semitism.”

What Happens Next

Mam­dani will be sworn in this Jan­u­ary, becom­ing New York City’s first Mus­lim may­or. His stance on Israel is expect­ed to remain a major point of con­tention. Mean­while, the ADL has estab­lished a “Mam­dani Mon­i­tor” to track his admin­is­tra­tion for anti­se­mit­ic rhetoric or actions.