Pushback of the Week, June 29, 2025

Tucker Carlson Grills Senator Ted Cruz

One day prior to airing a two-hour interview with Senator Ted Cruz on June 18, Tucker Carlson posted a clip on X, “Ted Cruz on Iran,” that immediately went viral (approaching 40 million views as of this writing) and, according to NBC, embarrassed the senator into responding with over a dozen posts to defend himself.

Part of the exchange went like this:

Carlson: “How many people live in Iran, by the way?”
Cruz: “I don’t know the population.”
Carlson: “At all?”
Cruz: “No, I don’t know the population.”
Carlson: “You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?”
Cruz: [Redirecting the question to Carlson] “How many people live in Iran?”
Carlson: “Ninety-two million.”
Cruz: “Okay!”
Carlson: “How could you not know that?”
Cruz: “I don’t sit around memorizing population tables.”
Carlson: “Well, it’s kind of relevant because you’re calling for the overthrow of the government.”

A few moments later, after Cruz stated, “We’re carrying out military strikes today,” Carlson challenged the senator’s casual use of the pronoun “we”:

Carlson: “You said Israel was [carrying out military strikes].”
Cruz: “Right. With our help. I said ‘we’—Israel is leading them, but we’re supporting them.”
Carlson: “You’re breaking news here because the U.S. government last night denied … that we were acting on Israel’s behalf in any offensive capacity.”
Cruz: “No, we’re not bombing them, Israel’s bombing them.”
Carlson: “You just said ‘we’ were!”

Carlson and Cruz also had a lively back-and-forth about AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and its influence. Cruz proclaimed (and later reiterated on social media), “I came to the Senate committed to being the leading defender of Israel, and I’m proud to have the support of groups like AIPAC.” When Carlson pointed out that the law requires entities lobbying on behalf of a foreign government to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, Cruz denied that AIPAC lobbies for Israel.

Carlson might have sparked even more interesting fireworks had he raised the question of legislators with dual passports. Nevertheless, in light of current events in the Middle East, we all would benefit from more of Carlson’s brand of journalism and willingness to hold U.S. leaders’ feet to the fire.