Canadian-born MK urges US conservatives to sideline Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens

By Sam Sokol 6 January 2026, 4:10 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Likud MK Dan Illouz speaking before the Knesset, 2025. (Courtesy)

Canadian-born Likud MK Dan Illouz calls on American conservatives to reject right-wing pundits Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, calling their views “a threat to America as much as to Israel.”

Speaking with The Times of Israel, Illouz says the two prominent far-right pundits “are not just antisemites, they are anti-Western world and act like the woke left. Israel and America are deep allies and our alliance is critical [for] freedom. We must work together to sideline these views.”

Addressing the Knesset in English yesterday evening, Illouz denounced the pair’s “intellectual vandalism,” calling them “a new enemy rising from within” who are selling “poison” as patriotism.

“If the West allows these voices to rewrite history and erase the line between good and evil, it is committing civilizational suicide,” he said.

Asked if he was worried about the appearance of interfering in American politics, Illouz tells The Times of Israel that “defending the alliance between America and Israel is not interfering. I am in touch with many pro-Israel conservatives who know that Candace and Tucker are a threat to America as much as to Israel.”

The two controversial talk show hosts, who have come to represent a fault line within the pro-Donald Trump Make America Great Again movement, each significantly intensified their focus on Israel this year, taking a hard antisemitic turn in their rhetoric.

Carlson, who was ousted from his top-rated Fox News show in 2023 amid fallout from a defamation lawsuit, has in recent months accused conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, of being loyal to Israel rather than to the United States, and of supporting “usury.”

In recent months, Owens has also attacked Shapiro — who originally platformed her on his Daily Wire website — as a “Talmudic Jew,” urging her listeners to buy a discredited antisemitic screed from the 19th century. She has also claimed that Jews were behind the transatlantic slave trade, and that “they believe they have a right to own us.”

Shapiro attacked both figures during a speech of his own at an event at the Heritage Foundation in December, declaring that “if conservatives do not stand up and draw lines, conservatism and the dream of America itself will cease to exist.”