Tucker Carlson has lashed out at evangelical pastors and Christian leaders whom he accuses of giving “theological cover” to Israel’s war in Gaza, days after Dr. Mike Evans told The Jerusalem Post that Carlson was “saying worse things presently than the Nazi Party said at their platform in 1920” in a JPost interview about Israel and the MAGA movement.
In a lengthy appearance on comedian Theo Von’s podcast This Past Weekend, released on Wednesday, Carlson said his primary anger is not directed at Israel or Jews but at Protestant and evangelical leaders who, in his view, preach that Christian faith obligates support for Israel’s military campaign.
“From my perspective as an American Christian, Protestant American Christian, it is like, yeah, of course I think what Israel is doing is disgusting. It is indefensible,” he said.
“But my real rage, what I am actually upset about, I never rage about the Israelis or the Jews at my house. My rage is directed toward my people, Protestant Christian, evangelical pastors who have made deals with the Israeli government, or have theology so deranged that they think their Christian faith requires them to support the murder of children, including Christian children.”
Carlson’s comments came in direct response to Evans, the founder of the Friends of Zion (FOZ) Heritage Center and Museum in Jerusalem, who told the Post that a “very serious” anti-Israel current had emerged inside the MAGA movement and that “it is led by Tucker Carlson,” comparing his rhetoric to early Nazi discourse.
‘The betrayers’ and a ‘great deception’
Carlson said he personally knows some of the pastors he is criticizing and accused them of abandoning core Christian teachings in the name of politics and prophecy.
“Those people, I really feel hostility toward,” he said. “Because they are the betrayers. Israel, in the end, is acting in its own interest, or what it thinks is its own interest. Those people, what is their excuse?”
He described parts of the evangelical establishment as caught up in a “great deception,” arguing that Scripture is being used to justify unconditional political support for Israel’s government and military.
“Their leadership in general has not only refused to condemn it, they have defended it,” he said. “If this is not the great deception you read about in the New Testament, then what is?
“Jesus’s message is not to kill children, okay? If you are telling me that it is, I do not need a theology degree to say you are a false prophet, and you are going to have to pay for that.”
While stressing that “tons of great evangelicals” exist, Carlson said he believes their leadership is misrepresenting Christianity, even devoting sermons to attacking conservative commentator Candace Owens instead of confronting the war’s human cost.
“If you are giving sermons against Candace Owens, then you are betraying your people, because you are misrepresenting your faith, Christianity,” he said.
Answering Mike Evans and the ‘Nazi’ line
Carlson also addressed Evans’s remarks to the Post, including the claim that he is “saying worse things” than the Nazi Party’s 1920 platform.
“I am saying worse things than the Nazi Party said? I am totally anti Nazi,” Carlson said. “I am totally anti-hate, and above all, I am anti-blood guilt and collective punishment, which is what was bad about the Nazis, let us remember. And this guy is a Christian minister, or supposedly, or something.”
He said that raising theological questions about modern Israel’s relationship to biblical Israel does not make him a Nazi, and complained that some pastors respond to basic questions with insults.
“You are telling me we have a duty to support ‘Israel’ because a verse in Genesis tells you that, okay, fine,” Carlson said. “What does that mean? What is the Israel you are talking about?
“I ask a simple question and the answer is, ‘Shut up, Nazi,’ including from Christian ministers calling me a Nazi because I asked.”
Carlson added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also called him a Nazi, but said hearing that label from Christian pastors bothers him more because he sees it as “such a distortion” of his faith.
Gaza’s Christians and the cost of war
Carlson framed much of his critique around the fate of Gaza’s small Christian community and strikes on church compounds during the fighting.
“Many Christians have been killed in this. Israel has murdered [them],” he claimed. “What do Christians have to do with it? You are telling me they are Islamists too now? They have blown up two churches in Gaza and killed people in the churches. What do the churches have to do with this?”
On October 19, 2023, an Israeli airstrike hit a building in the compound of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, killing at least 16–18 civilians who were sheltering there, according to church officials and human rights organizations; the IDF said it was targeting a nearby Hamas command center and that the church complex was damaged in the strike.
In December 2023, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said two Christian women were shot and killed in the grounds of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza, blaming an Israeli sniper, a charge the IDF denied.
Carlson said he believes he is “probably the only person in American media” consistently emphasizing Christian casualties in Gaza and argued that this has made him a particular target for some pro-Israel evangelicals.
Despite the anger in his tone, Carlson presented his decision to speak out as a religious duty after years of keeping quiet on such issues.
“It is our obligation to try,” he said. “I was quiet for 30 years. I did not want to fight, but I should not have been.”
Evans, meanwhile, was in Jerusalem leading what FOZ describes as the largest-ever US evangelical delegation to Israel, with roughly 1,000 pastors and Christian influencers being commissioned as “Friends of Zion Ambassadors” to advocate for Israel worldwide.
'Antisemitic obsession'
In a written response sent to The Jerusalem Post following the podcast, Evans escalated his criticism, accusing Carlson of an “antisemitic obsession” and challenging him to a public debate.
“Tucker Carlson, you recently mentioned me on your podcast because of my criticism of your repeated antisemitic statements about Israel. On that podcast, you accused Israel of murdering Christians in Gaza, which is yet another example of your antisemitic obsession,” Evans wrote.
“Under no circumstances would Israel ever murder Christians. Christians in Israel have more freedom to practice their faith than in any Muslim country in the Middle East, starting with the country you have been praising recently: Qatar.”
Evans accused Carlson of “appeasing the enemies of America,” pointing to his rhetoric on Russia and Qatar. He noted that Qatar hosts Hamas’s leaders and has sent large sums of cash into Gaza, and that Al Jazeera, funded by Qatar, “has fueled and spread antisemitism beyond anything imaginable.”
“We pastors believe in moral clarity. Our heroes are people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom. Who are your heroes? Putin?” Evans wrote. “What you have said about Israel is pure antisemitic hatred. For you to call yourself a Protestant evangelical is an embarrassment.”