NewsNation host Leland Vittert recently raked far-right pundit Tucker Carlson over the coals for a statement he made during an interview with a controversial Christian pastor in Bethlehem, which is in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
During a segment on Thursday morning tweeted by Republicans Against Trump, Vittert criticized Carlson for his remarks about Israel's military offensive in retaliation for Hamas' October 7 terror attack that killed 1,200 Israelis. In his interview with Rev. Munther Isaac, Carlson specifically accused the Netanyahu regime of indiscriminately killing Arab Christians in Palestinian territory.
"If you wake up in the morning and decide that your Christian faith requires you to support a foreign government blowing up churches and killing Christians, I think you've lost the thread," Carlson said.
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"Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief, would be proud," Vittert said after showing Carlson's remarks. "Again, Tucker's a smart guy, yet he's taking the side of terrorists. There's no other explanation than his unabashed hatred of Jews."
"It's hard to have peace with people who think that's OK," Vittert added.
According to Jewish Insider, Isaac has previously justified the October 7 attack, saying it was the result of "the injustice that has befallen us as Palestinians from the Nakba until now," using the Arab word for the establishment of the state of Israel that displaced 750,000 Palestinians. Isaac is also a member of the organization Kairos Palestine, whose founding document calls the Torah – the primary religious text of Judaism — a "dead letter ... used as a weapon in our present history in order to deprive us of our rights in our own land."
"Those of us who track these things know that Munther Isaac has long been the high priest of antisemitic Christianity; sadly, he spreads his hate from the city of Jesus’ birth," said the Rev. Johnnie Moore, who is the president of the Congress of Christian Leaders. "Since October 7, Isaac seems to have graduated from being an anti-Zionist Lutheran preacher to a terror sympathizer. There’s really just no other way to describe him.”
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Vittert's critique of Carlson is particularly noteworthy, given that both men are former Fox News hosts. While Vittert joined the NewsNation team in 2021, he had previously been an anchor and correspondent at Fox News since 2010. While covering the protests of George Floyd's murder in 2020, Vittert and his crew were reportedly attacked by protesters once they learned the crew was with Fox News.
Carlson, whose Fox News program was once the most-watched show on the network, was abruptly let go in 2023. CNN journalist Brian Stelter reported that network executives were wary about Carlson getting "too big for his boots" and alienating "large swaths" of his coworkers.
After being fired from Fox News, Carlson launched his own program on Elon Musk's X platform (formerly Twitter). He garnered significant criticism over his hours-long interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was seen by many observers — including Putin himself — as being too soft and deferential.
Watch the video of Vittert's critique below, or by clicking this link.
