Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson visited Israel briefly on Wednesday for a filmed sit-down with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, focused on claims about the treatment of Christians in Israel and the wider region, sources told The Jerusalem Post.
According to the sources, Carlson conducted the conversation inside Ben Gurion Airport and did not travel beyond the airport complex. He departed Israel at around 3 p.m., ending a trip that lasted only a few hours.
The unusual in-and-out visit followed a public back-and-forth between the two former Fox News hosts after Carlson published an episode in early February, filmed at the Jordan River baptism site and titled “Christian Persecution.”
In the episode, Carlson interviewed Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem Hosam Naoum and a Jordanian Christian businessman, presenting a case that Israel mistreats its Christian population and that American Christians are unknowingly funding that mistreatment through US aid.
Huckabee responded on X on February 5, writing: “Hey @TuckerCarlson instead of talking ABOUT me, why don’t you come talk TO me?” Carlson publicly agreed to a face-to-face conversation.
Tense moment in American conservative politics
The sit-down comes at a tense moment in American conservative politics, where support for Israel has become a sharper internal argument than in past years.
Carlson has increasingly positioned himself as a leading critic of US policy toward Israel and of “Christian Zionism,” language that has drawn pushback from mainstream Republicans and pro-Israel conservatives.
In the episode, Carlson claimed that Christians in Israel are “far fewer in absolute numbers” than when the state was founded in 1948.
Data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, most recently published on Christmas Eve 2025, shows the opposite. The Christian population in Israel has grown from approximately 34,000 in 1949 to around 185,000 today, representing one of the few growing Christian communities in the Middle East.
Christians as a share of Israel’s total population have declined from roughly 10% to under 2%, but that proportional drop reflects faster growth among Jewish and Muslim populations rather than a shrinking Christian one.
Carlson also described the United States as funding “the cultural and religious life of the region,” a framing that conflates US military assistance to Israel with a broader claim about religious life that he did not substantiate.
Huckabee, a longtime evangelical leader and a close political ally of President Donald Trump, has taken the opposite approach. He was confirmed by the US Senate as ambassador to Israel in 2025 and presented his credentials to President Isaac Herzog shortly afterward.
The episode’s portrayal of Huckabee went further than the claims made by Carlson’s own interview subject.
After the Archbishop described difficulties accessing an Anglican hospital in Gaza, Carlson told viewers that “what Ambassador Huckabee is doing is shameful and he’s going to have to answer for it.” The Archbishop responded: “I don’t want to blame Huckabee for this.”
Naoum also described incidents of Jewish extremists spitting at Christian clergy in Jerusalem as the work of “fringe groups” and “radicals,” a characterization that sat at odds with the episode’s broader framing.
The original episode did not include any Israeli government response.
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