Tucker Carlson is pushing Nazi apologias and Holocaust denial. He addressed the RNC just weeks ago.
His latest guest details why Churchill is the “chief villain” of WWII
Published
Tucker Carlson no longer shapes national media narratives the way that he did at Fox News, but he may be more powerful than ever within the Republican Party. Behind the scenes, Carlson reportedly lobbied former President Donald Trump to pick Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate and midwifed Robert F. Kennedy’s endorsement of the GOP presidential nominee. He addressed the Republican National Convention in July and has a series of public events lined up featuring guests including Vance and Donald Trump Jr.
Carlson’s increased GOP prominence has coincided with his descent to new levels of unhinged crackpottery: The latest edition of his eponymous program dabbles in Holocaust denial and presents “Zionist” financiers as a motive force behind World War II.
On Monday, Carlson published a two-hour interview with Darryl Cooper, the right-wing host of the history podcast Martyr Made. Previewing their discussion on X, Carlson wrote: “Darryl Cooper may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States. His latest project is the most forbidden of all: trying to understand World War Two.”
Carlson praised his guest at the top of their discussion, comparing him favorably to popular historians like Jon Meacham and Anne Applebaum, whom he described as “the dumbest people in the country” who are also “dishonest political actors.”
“For those people who aren’t familiar with who you are, I want people to know who you are, and I want you to be widely recognized as the most important historian in the United States, because I think that you are,” he added. (On his Fox show in 2021, Carlson praised Cooper for a “really smart” thread validating Trump supporters who claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen.)
Cooper explained to Carlson and his audience his view that legitimate German grievances are treated too unsympathetically by historians and that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was “the chief villain” of World War II because he continued the conflict rather than admitting the Germans had triumphed in Western Europe in 1940. His argument effectively excises the Nazi ideology and the resulting genocidal slaughter of European Jews.
Cooper has repeatedly demonstrated “a strange fondness for Adolf Hitler,” as Mediaite documented, including posting side-by-side a photo of Adolf Hitler and other Nazis marching in front of the Eiffel Tower and a photo of a drag performance during the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony with the comment, “This may be putting it too crudely for some, but the picture on the left was infinitely preferable in virtually every way than the one on the right” (he later deleted the post).
For his part, Carlson has long been a favorite of neo-Nazis due to his extensive history of bigoted and extremist rhetoric.