Some of President Donald Trump’s onetime supporters on the right are increasingly angry over his decision to launch military strikes on Iran — perhaps none more so than influential pundit Tucker Carlson.
But Carlson, who has a recent history of spreading anti-Israel and antisemitic conspiracy theories on his web show, has found a different target for his wrath: the Chabad-Lubavitch movement of Orthodox Judaism.
“You may know people who give money to Chabad or run Chabad — super nice people, engaged in all kinds of charitable activities,” Carlson told his followers about the global Hasidic sect in a video he posted Thursday. “But what is Chabad exactly?”
Carlson went on to claim, “Chabad has been pushing in a pretty subtle way, unless you look carefully, for the reconstruction of the Third Temple” — the fabled structure that, according to ancient Jewish teachings, heralds the arrival of the messiah. Building the temple, he says later in the video, “is considered so esoteric and weird and crypto-historical and religious and kind of culty. What’s Chabad? No one ever mentions it.”
He accused Chabad of sitting at the center of what he said was an effort to wage a holy war in the Middle East aimed at destroying the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, Muslim holy sites built on the remnants of the ancient Jewish temple, known as the Temple Mount, in order to clear the way for its reconstruction. As evidence, he cited a video posted by an Israeli soldier who showed off both a patch showing a crown and the Hebrew word for messiah and a Third Temple patch that he had affixed to his uniform.
The Israeli Defense Forces have cracked down in the past on the patches, which have fueled allegations that the army is waging a religious war rather than working to preserve national security. The Third Temple patches are produced by an organization launched in 2022 by an American Jew that seeks to promote Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, where it is forbidden.
“Did the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, a military that U.S. taxpayers pay for, that lots of wealthy Americans send money to … how did all these guys wind up wearing patches, suggesting the point of this war was the destruction of one of the holiest places in Islam and the rebuilding of a temple that is totally anathema to Christianity?” Carlson asked.
It was at least the second time in recent weeks that Carlson had gestured at a familiar antisemitic conspiracy theory, following his promotion of the discredited idea that Ashkenazi Jews have no ancient connection to the Middle East.
It was also not the first time an influential far-right pundit had sought to paint Chabad, a decentralized movement with hundreds of outposts around the world, as a hierarchical society with a sinister agenda. Candace Owens, the commentator with a long history of antisemitism, praised Carlson for going after Chabad; she herself has shared numerous conspiracy theories about the movement.
Now, with tensions in the MAGA movement running high over Iran, and with lingering questions over whether Israel had pressured Trump into the strikes, Jewish groups and leaders across the spectrum — and even Trump himself — condemned Carlson on Thursday.
“Tucker has lost his way,” Trump told ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl in an interview. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”
Trump’s comments did not address Chabad and come amid reports that Carlson sought to stop him from waging war with Israel against Iran. Others denounced the Chabad comments specifically.
“Tucker Carlson’s opprobrious comments against Chabad are disgusting,” the Republican Jewish Committee posted on the social network X. “President Trump and his administration reject this nonsense.”
While not officially speaking on Trump’s behalf, the RJC attached a photo of the president visiting and praying at the gravesite of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Chabad’s spiritual leader. The visit took place on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. Visits to the Rebbe’s grave, known as the Ohel, are commonplace for politicians on both sides of the aisle; New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani also recently visited the site.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, too, denounced Carlson’s remarks while tying him to the president.
“More abhorrent antisemitism from Tucker Carlson, invoking medieval tropes and ugly conspiracies,” the Jewish Democratic Senate majority leader said. “Yet the GOP continues to mainstream him as one of their most visible thought leaders and President Trump regularly invites him to the White House. “
Bill Ackman, a major Jewish donor increasingly backing Republicans, also denounced Carlson, saying that his rhetoric was dangerous.
As the only or most prominent purveyors of Jewish life in many places, Chabad rabbis and synagogues have been repeated targets of antisemitic attacks, including in Sydney in December, when two men killed 15 people at a Chabad Hanukkah party.
Carlson “has reached a level of absurdity that is going to get someone killed,” Ackman, the hedge-fund investor and anti-antisemitism advocate, wrote on X. “He needs to stop this now. Someone who knows him well needs to intervene or he will have blood on his hands.”
In Carlson’s video — the second in two days in which he pointed the finger for the Iran war at Israel — Carlson dug into calls among figures on Israel’s far right to reclaim the Temple Mount in Jerusalem from Islamic control. He also criticized Christian figures including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for invoking the Third Temple, highlighting a video taken in 2018, when Hegseth was a Fox News host, that showed him saying, “There’s no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible.”
The ancient temple is reflected in contemporary Jewish practice and prayer, with holidays structured in part around the pilgrimage schedule. For the most part, though, the ancient rabbis who codified Jewish law following the temple’s destruction in 70 CE sought to create a tradition that would endure without the temple. Various denominations have taken different approaches to the rabbis’ theological stance that the temple can only exist in the age of the Messiah, with some envisioning a literal rebuilding and others viewing a future temple in symbolic terms. While some fringe operators have sought to actually construct a third temple, an endeavor that would require displacing Muslim holy sites, the more mainstream approach is that the conditions for a messianic era can be hastened by the fulfillment of Jewish values and commandments.
An article published on Chabad’s website, for example, discusses the rebuilding of the Third Temple as a literal idea, to be located “on the other side of the Western Wall,” but says, “Outwardly, it doesn’t seem like a good plan for peace, especially considering the location.”
The author, Chabad.org editor Tzvi Freeman, continues, “It seems that when it comes time for all the Jewish people to return to their land, the Temple will need to be built first. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can jumpstart the Messianic Era simply by rearranging the Temple Mount architecture.”
Rabbi Motti Seligson, a Chabad-Lubavitch spokesperson, tweeted a refutation of Carlson’s talking points written by analyst Joel Mowbray. Carlson’s targeting of Chabad, Mowbray claimed, was rooted in Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s past relationship with a Chabad outpost in Washington, D.C., and reflected Kushner’s own role in the negotiations that preceded strikes on Iran.
“Because Chabad is not known to almost anyone outside of the Jewish community, it makes for an easy target of dark conspiracy theories,” Mowbray wrote. He argued that, contrary to Carlson’s claims, the way Chabad seeks to bring about the Third Temple is “through acts of kindness. Truly by doing good deeds in order to ‘merit’ God rebuilding the Jewish holy site.”
“It has nothing to do with tearing down an Islamic holy site, let alone starting a holy war,” he continued. “It’s a prayer asking God to return us to the elevated state of spirituality that existed during the time of the Temple, and more importantly, for Him to send ‘Moshiach,’ or the Messiah.”
Personal testimonies about Chabad’s more everyday impacts resounded on Thursday as Jews around the world responded to Carlson’s attacks. Daniella Greenbaum Davis, a Jewish commentator and former producer on “The View,” shared personal accounts on social media of Chabad stocking her with Jewish texts after she suffered pregnancy losses.
“Geopolitical masterminds responsible for the Iran war? Not so much,” Greenbaum Davis wrote on X. “Just the kindest people you will ever meet who believe they are put here on this earth to spread goodness and godliness and help anyone, with anything, at anytime.”
Those kinds of sentiments, Seligson said in an interview, were a positive takeaway for Chabad from this entire episode.
“The outpouring of support and, really, love coming from all segments of the Jewish community and well beyond is really a testament to how Chabad has enriched so many millions of people’s lives and helped change the world for the better,” he said.
Some in Chabad, which is famous for finding the silver lining in bad situations and for being willing to venture to the most distant corners of the Jewish world, had fun with Carlson’s callout. San Antonio-based Chabad rabbi Levi Teitel, known for cracking jokes online, posted on X that the sect would soon be opening “Chabad of Tucker Carlson’s Brain.”
