‘What happened to Tucker?’: Newsmax takes Ben Shapiro’s side in the raging MAGA civil war

Newsmax, the right-wing network known for its over-the-top pro-Trump coverage, has seemingly taken a side in the brewing MAGA civil war that was sparked by Tucker Carlson’s chummy interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and has grown only more intense amid Candace Owens’ increasingly antisemitic conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s death.

“What happened to Tucker?!” Newsmax host John Huddy exclaimed Friday while interviewing a former Israel Defense Forces soldier, who would go on and accuse Carlson of peddling “Jew hatred” because he is suffering a “crisis of faith” after Fox News fired him.

Meanwhile, the conservative cable channel repeatedly praised Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro for blasting Carlson and Owens last week during Turning Point USA’s year-end AmericaFest conference, which saw the intraparty rift over Israel and accusations of antisemitism laid bare.

In fact, Newsmax brought on Rabbi Steven Burg multiple times to talk about his recent op-ed for The Jerusalem Post that lauded Shapiro for his “moral courage” in “calling out right-wing antisemitism at Turning Point USA.” Burg, for his part, took aim at Carlson for his “just asking questions” style – especially during his recent Fuentes interview.

“I think that specifically what Tucker Carlson is doing is horrific,” Berg said on Friday morning, adding that “evil is also standing by and saying nothing while you’re watching things happen.” Meanwhile, the network also noted throughout its coverage this week that a conservative Jewish civil rights group named Carlson its “Antisemite of the Year.”

The Independent has reached out to Newsmax for comment.

Over the past year, there have been flashpoints between different wings of the Republican Party over the direction of Donald Trump’s administration and the MAGA movement in general, whether it was the controversy over the Jeffrey Epstein files, the bombing of Iran or the issue over H1-visas.

However, with fractures growing wider between factions of the “America First” coalition over the Israel-Gaza War, Carlson’s friendly sitdown with Fuentes – a notorious Holocaust denier who leads a trollish group of racist followers known as “groypers” – was something of a seismic event for the GOP.

After the president of influential conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation initially defended Carlson against the “venomous coalition” and “globalist class” trying to “cancel” him, the organization soon found itself in “open rebellion” and suffered a wave of resignations.

Carlson himself would see sponsors begin to flee from his podcast, though he did not back down, telling his critics to “buzz off” while receiving support from former Fox News colleague Megyn Kelly.

Owens would throw more fuel on the fire with her wild theories about the assassination of Kirk, the conservative activist and founder of right-wing youth organization TPUSA. Owens, who was once close friends with Kirk and TPUSA’s communications director, has claimed that Israeli government agents could have killed him over his shifting views on Gaza, and that TPUSA staffers may have been involved in his murder.

After Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, called on Owens to “stop” peddling her conspiracies, Kelly – who has refused to denounce Owens – said she arranged a private meeting between the two women to discuss the situation. Since that sitdown, Owens has since doubled down on her claims and Kelly has praised her for asking questions about Kirk’s death.

During his speech at AmericaFest last week, Shapiro went scorched earth on Carlson, Owens (who once worked for Shapiro), Kelly and former Trump strategist turned MAGA podcaster Steve Bannon, calling them “grifters and frauds” while blasting their moral “cowardice.” Bannon, Carlson and Kelly would all return fire from the TPUSA stage later in the event.

With lines being drawn in the MAGA sand in recent days, and even the Trump administration weighing in and trying to get their most popular influencers to stop “canceling each other” over “self-defeating purity tests,” Newsmax weighed in this week and essentially declared it was on Shapiro’s side.

“Now, as far as we know, Tucker Carlson is not a member of the clergy. But he told the crowd that antisemites have a right to a platform for their hate speech because they, quote, have a soul,” morning anchor Krysia Lenzo said to Burg on Friday. “So, as a rabbi, how do you respond to Carlson, who seems to feel that giving antisemites a platform is a god-given right?”

Calling it “the most absurd thing in the world,” Burg went on to note that Adlof Hitler and Josef Stalin “had a soul” but then “killed many millions of people” before accusing Carlson of poisoning the minds of America’s youth.

“He’s just giving a platform to people that traffic in conspiracy theories that are totally absurd,” Burg declared. “And it’s going to destroy the country because you have young people who are listening to these things and treating it as fact.”

Guest host TW Shannon, meanwhile, said to “follow the dollar” because “we know that there are extreme Muslim terrorist groups that actually promote this type of hate from both the left and the right.” That appeared to be a nod towards allegations made by self-appointed Trump “loyalty enforcer” Laura Loomer and Fox News host Mark Levin that Carlson is on Qatar’s payroll.

During his late morning interview with former IDF soldier Benjamin Anthony, Huddy – who was once Carlson’s colleague at Fox News – tore into the one-time primetime star, as well as Owens, Fuentes and Kelly.

“It’s a dangerous trend that we’re seeing with Candace Owens, who everything that comes out of her mouth – I’m sorry, I’m going to take off my journalist hat – but it’s just rubbish. It’s terrible! It’s antisemitic! Same with Nick Fuentes.”

Adding that Carlson is “not backing down on this,” he claimed Carlson said “antisemites have a right to a platform for their hate speech” because they have souls, expressing indignation over the right-wing pundit’s supposed position.

“No, they do not! Not when they’re spewing lies, fabrications and hate, I don’t think they do and I think they should be called out,” Huddy fumed.

“My question is, a lot of people have asked, ‘What happened to Tucker?’ What’s behind this because he wasn’t always like that. We didn’t hear this kind of antisemitic and this anti-Israel theme coming from him, coming from Megyn Kelly,” he continued before invoking Qatar’s alleged influence.

“I have my suspicions and it kind of goes back to Qatar and some of the influence that Qatar is having in the western world, in the United States, in Europe with social media,” Huddy wondered. “But what do you think? Why do you think this has happened with guys like him and Megyn Kelly?”

Anthony, who now leads the pro-Israel MirYam Institute, openly speculated that Carlson has “finally got license to say what’s on his heart” because he’s now a “YouTuber” and in the “wild West of media,” adding that a “crisis of faith” was created by Carlson’s sudden termination from Fox News in 2023.

“I think that Tucker Carlson is reacting to a disruptive event in his life – him being dismissed from Fox News,” Anthony asserted. “And I think, quite frankly, he – as is often the case among weak-minded individuals – looks around for someone to blame other than himself and what does he say? Rupert Murdoch carries the water for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I’m now going to attack Benjamin Netanyahu, the Jewish state and, yes, the Jewish people.”

This isn’t the first time that Newsmax has attempted to marginalize Carlson amid right-wing criticism of the ex-Fox News host.

Earlier this summer, Newsmax personalities and guests began telling its audience – and one viewer in particular – that Carlson had “jumped the shark” and was no longer relevant after leading a MAGA insurgency against the White House over America joining Israel’s short-lived war against Iran.

At the time, Trump labeled Carlson – a longtime ally who helped convince him to choose JD Vance as his running mate – “kooky Tucker” while mockingly referencing the commentator’s unceremonious exit from Fox News.

Newsmax’s condemnation of Carlson, however, is more than a little ironic considering that it was just two years ago that the network made a play for Fox News’ much larger conservative audience by shamelessly courting Carlson after the Murdoch-owned outlet fired the host.

In the days after Carlson’s termination, Newsmax mentioned Carlson’s name on the air hundreds of times and devoted dozens of segments to the situation, which generally featured conservative guests railing against Fox News for letting him go. With Newsmax suddenly seeing a spike in ratings, the network even ran an “urgent poll” asking viewers if “it was right for Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson” and whether they “want Tucker back on cable TV.”

Additionally, it was reported that the network’s CEO Chris Ruddy wasn’t just offering Carlson his own primetime Newsmax show, but he also floated the idea of having him program the entire channel in order to sweeten the deal. Network executives also made it clear at the time that “they would basically give him a big say in rebranding their channel.”