UNHINGED: Commentary on Trump from Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens slammed

But J.D. Vance was not working alone. He had several extraordinary influential fellow travellers who shared his populist, anti-war, anti-Israel, anti-Netanyahu instincts, fellow travellers by the name of Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens. Along with railing against the war, the three of them aggressively turned on Donald Trump, almost on cue, and disgracefully, in my opinion, allowed their antipathy towards Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu to spill over into what came a little too close to old-school anti-Semitism for my liking. For sure, it is legitimate to question the influence of Israeli politics on American politics and vice versa. Netanyahu himself had decided U.S. aid needed to stop going to Israel. But that is a world away from constantly inferring some kind of Protocols of the Elders of Zion-style conspiracy where the Jews and Jewish money controls Trump and controls America. Equally and possibly more significantly, There are many questions that need to be asked about the role of Qatar and Qatari or other Arab money in buying influence amongst American institutions, media personalities and politicians. In recent times, I would go so far as to say much of the commentary, especially from Carlson and Owens, is downright unhinged. Just my opinion. Here, for instance, is Carlson repeatedly telling his 23 million listeners that Donald Trump was threatening nuclear war. We're moving toward the use of weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction, possibly nuclear weapons. Everything hangs in the balance right now. This is not hysteria. This is 100% real. You have the president of the United States, whatever they tell you, openly threatening the use of nuclear weapons in a conflict that has no... immediate or obvious resolution. So where is that going? Well, toward a nuclear strike. The option has been floated of using what are called tactical nuclear weapons against, say, Karg Island or Pickaxe Mountain or various spots within Iran. And we're here to confirm that that is absolutely true. Trump has threatened nuclear war because the president of the United States just threatened a nuclear strike. Nonsense. And then there was this disgusting slur stated with zero evidence and in direct contradiction of all the evidence heard in the Charlie Kirk pretrial courtroom. He was not murdered for his opinions on transgenderism, obviously. He was, I believe, and most people who knew him well as I did and was friends with him as I was, believe he was most likely murdered for his evolving views on Israel. Simply disgusting, and yet J.D. Vance refuses to distance himself from Tucker Carlson, making this vague comment as recently as only two months ago. Everybody knows that Tucker Carlson and I are friends, and I think it's very obvious that Tucker has said some things that I disagree with. He said some things about the president of the United States that I think are just wrong. However, consider this, when Donald Trump won in 2024, he had been ably assisted by over nine months of solid support and constant campaigning day in, day out from those three podcasters who counted themselves as close friends of Donald Trump's. Both Carlson and Kelly proudly spoke at Trump's rallies and eagerly bathed in the glory of his victory. After the 2024 victory, many pundits and those podcasters themselves claimed credit. For the size of Trump's landslide win, especially among younger, so-called cool voters. Now, these same individuals wallowed gleefully in denigrating Donald Trump, and some have urged their audiences to vote against him. On top of which, back in 2024, Trump also had the campaigning skills and support of the brilliant Charlie Kirk, who was then tragically assassinated. So Charlie Kirk was completely absent at this election, although his organisation, Turning Point USA, still supports Trump. I've always said populism simply means popularity, and I would argue the world of podcasting is self-evidently susceptible to pandering to populism or popularity, especially when people's influence and, more importantly, the influence of their opinions is not only monetised but is clearly measurable in their ratings. Anyone can, of course, change their mind, and we should all be prepared to do so when there is overwhelming evidence. But the king and queens of US podcasting appear to do so with alarming frequency. Here's Megyn Kelly, for instance, on the topic of Russell Brand in 2023, calling him a scumbag, now calling him sweet and charming. If he doesn't deny that wholesale, I am done with this scumbag. He came here, I was totally charmed by him, I'm not gonna lie, as I was when he came on my show at NBC. Utterly charming guy, sweet, interesting, funny. And I had a very difficult time believing that he was capable of rape, as I do right now. I don't believe these charges. I'm going to be honest. I don't. Of course, as I said, anyone can change their mind. Got all that. But when your audience is as massive as some of these podcasters, you will also be changing many other minds, rightly or wrongly. So let's look at some numbers to put that sort of influence into perspective. These numbers are approximations, Let me stress that, but they serve to make my point. The combined reach of Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Candace Owen is around 44 million. Charlie Kirk's reach in 2024 was around a staggering 120 million. Now, there's obviously overlap and audience numbers go up and down, yada, yada, yada. But for argument's sake, especially when you throw in some of the others. Into the mix, let's say there were around 150 million non-woke, reasonably normal, everyday, vaguely conservative folk who were being urged to vote for Trump in 2024 by these influential influencers and then less than two years later being urged to vote against Trump or, in the case of Charlie Kirk, simply absent. That's a lot of negative influence. So how many people voted for the Democrats in these midterms? Roughly 125 million people, which is fewer than the Carlson, Kelly, Candace, Charlie audience combined. And what sort of people, you may ask? Well, here's one of them, although I can't help thinking this is a spoof. I woke up this morning and And these women certainly celebrated the victory. And then there are girls like this, who I imagine couldn't wait to get out and join the blue tsunami. The theory that Trump... Lives and then died by being a populist is absurd. Yes, populist influences helped bring him to power, but it was Trump defying populism, ignoring the siren populist voices of the podcasters that turned voters away from Trump. Iran was the number one issue among voters, coupled with the asinine idea of the relationship with Israel, according to exit polls, and it's not surprising that they were also the key obsessions of the so-called woke right. I say asinine because Netanyahu had already said he wanted to end USAID to Israel and Trump agreed, although too late for it to make any difference. The so-called woke right podcasters used their astonishing influence to turn people against Trump because he didn't do the populist thing. He did what he thought was right. Trump stood by his principles and he is still standing by them. I think it's largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term and probably that's probably it's true but at the same time if I had it to do again I'd have to do it again because long term it's the only answer you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And I, for one, applaud him for that. And it is incumbent upon those who disagree, rather than spreading lies about nuclear weapons or trying to formulate idiotic memoranda of understanding, to actually spell out what they would do about Iran. And if the answer is do nothing and cross your fingers or engage in factious peace talks, then I'm afraid that's simply not good enough. Fortunately, while J.D. Vance has shown his true colors and is turning away from Trump again, Marco Rubio, who I fervently hope will be the next U.S. president, is standing firmly behind Trump and the war against Iran because it is the right thing to do. It would have been very easy to do what multiple presidents before him have done, which is ignore the Iran thing, leave it for the next guy. We cannot live in a world in which the most radical, terroristic regime on the planet possesses a weapon of mass destruction. Well said, Marco, and congratulations to Donald Trump for not being a populist on Iran and Israel but being a president of principle. And unlike all the podcasters, I sincerely hope that over the next two years Donald Trump succeeds, the regime falls and freedom comes to the men, and especially the women, of Iran.