{"id":15391,"date":"2025-11-07T18:46:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T18:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ted-cruz-accuses-gop-senators-of-being-frightened-to-call-out-tucker-carlson\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T18:46:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T18:46:57","slug":"ted-cruz-accuses-gop-senators-of-being-frightened-to-call-out-tucker-carlson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ted-cruz-accuses-gop-senators-of-being-frightened-to-call-out-tucker-carlson\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Cruz accuses GOP senators of being \u2018frightened\u2019 to call out Tucker Carlson"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sen. Ted Cruz blasted fellow Republicans for failing to criticize Tucker Carlson, saying the conservative pundit has \u201cspread a poison that is profoundly dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrible, but a great many of them are frightened because he has one hell of a big megaphone,\u201d Cruz (R-Texas) said Friday during a speech at the Federalist Society\u2019s National Lawyers Convention in Washington.<\/p>\n

Carlson upended the conservative movement after he hosted avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his podcast last week. The incident \u2014 and the subsequent backlash \u2014 overshadowed last weekend\u2019s Republican Jewish Coalition annual summit<\/a> and sparked internal turmoil at The Heritage Foundation<\/a>, leading to the resignation of multiple staff members<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cruz, a self-described \u201cChristian Zionist,\u201d was among the earliest and most forceful critics of Carlson and Fuentes\u2019 podcast episode. At the RJC last week<\/a>, he said he has \u201cseen more antisemitism on the right\u201d in the past six months \u201cthan I have in my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are [a] coward and you are complicit in that evil,\u201d Cruz said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Cruz was more forceful Friday in criticizing fellow conservatives for not forcefully condemning Carlson.<\/p>\n

\u201cFuentes and Tucker and the rest of that ilk have a right to say what they are saying,\u201d Cruz said at the Federalist Society convention. \u201cEvery one of us has an obligation to stand up and say it is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy right now to denounce Fuentes,\u201d Cruz added. \u201cAre you willing to say Tucker\u2019s name?”<\/p>\n

Carlson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Cruz, who sparred with Carlson in a feisty podcast episode<\/a> in June, clarified that his complaint was not that Carlson platformed Fuentes, but that he didn\u2019t push back on any of his antisemitic or bigoted claims. Among other things, Fuentes on the podcast claimed the \u201cbig challenge\u201d to unifying America was \u201corganized Jewry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last I checked, Tucker actually knows how to cross-examine,\u201d Cruz said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Ted Cruz blasted fellow Republicans for failing to criticize Tucker Carlson, saying the conservative pundit has \u201cspread a poison that is profoundly dangerous.\u201d \u201cMy colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrible, but a great many of them are frightened because he has one hell of a big megaphone,\u201d Cruz (R-Texas) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}