Study shows 2025 spike in anti-Israel, antisemitic rhetoric from Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens

A study conducted by the Jewish People Policy Institute, whose results were published Monday, put hard numbers behind the anti-Israel, antisemitic turns of right-wing American influencers Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens over the last year.

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, compared to coverage of other international issues, such as the war in Ukraine or tensions with China. For Owens, the shift began in February 2025; for Carlson, in April.

The study, driven by artificial intelligence, noted that Carlson has condemned outright antisemitism — but also that he has provided an uncritical platform to people who are openly antisemitic, including Holocaust denier and white nationalist Nick Fuentes. In the case of Candace Owens, the antisemitism has become increasingly open.

The study used AI to survey the transcripts of some 3,000 videos posted to the YouTube channels of Carlson and Owens, each of which has more than five million subscribers. The analysis tracked keywords and comparisons between content addressing Jews and Israel, on the one hand, and content addressing other global issues, on the other.

AI-based sentiment analysis was also used to assess attitudes toward Israel and identify antisemitic expressions based on the definition provided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association. The IHRA formulation defines some ways of talking about Israel as antisemitic, but does not classify generic criticism of Israeli policy that way.

According to the study, Carlson’s references to Israel became markedly more negative this year, with only about half of them being negative from November 2024 to April 2025, but some 70% of them being negative in the following six months.

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 a speech, he also compared the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to the killing of Jesus, blaming the latter on people in Jerusalem “sitting around eating hummus.” He has also falsely suggested that Jeffrey Epstein was an asset of Israeli intelligence, and – citing a discredited conspiracy theory – that Israel had foreknowledge of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Owens’s references to Israel, by contrast, were already overwhelmingly negative – to the tune of some 96% in the first six-month period. However, the quantity of references spiked after that. Moreover, her videos were often explicitly antisemitic. Some 45% of her videos over the last year in which Jews were mentioned were classified by the algorithm as antisemitic. From May-November 2025, the figure is roughly 75%.

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.” She has called Israel an “occult nation,” pointing as evidence to the Star of David on its flag (a “cultic…hexagram”), and has suggested Israel was behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Both figures, JPPI noted, have accused Israel of genocide in its war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza; compared Israel to Hamas; accused Israel of deliberately killing children; and alleged covert Israeli influence over the US.

Such language – much of it recognizable in the US as a fixture of rhetoric on the far-left – “is now becoming part of the lexicon of prominent figures on the American right,” the think-tank said.

US Jews say right-wing antisemitism spiking

Separately, JPPI conducted its own “Voice of the People” survey, asking Jews who have registered with the organization about their concerns regarding antisemitism on the American right.

The survey is not conducted via a representative sample of American Jewry. However, because the sample is nevertheless large, diverse, and information-rich, it is useful for recognizing trends and gaps between different groups of Jews, according to JPPI.

Approximately 88% of the American Jews surveyed by JPPI said they agreed with US Senator Ted Cruz’s assessment that there has been a significant increase in antisemitism on the right in recent months, which the Texas representative said was the largest he’d seen in his life. Only 4% of US Jews surveyed said they disagreed with Cruz.

Though Jews across the political spectrum said they agreed with Cruz’s assessment, the rates differed between groups: among respondents who voted for Kamala Harris in the last presidential election, 93% agreed; among those who voted for Trump, 76%.

US Vice President JD Vance publicly dismissed Cruz’s comments, characterizing the change in public opinion as merely “real backlash to a consensus view in American foreign policy” on Israel. Asked about the vice president’s remarks, 73% of respondents said they disagree.

The fight over antisemitism on the right burst into public view earlier this month, at the first major gathering of the Turning Point USA group since Charlie Kirk, its founder, was murdered.

At the conference, Shapiro railed against “charlatans who… traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty,” calling out Carlson and Owens by name. In response, Owens said Shapiro’s comments were evidence Israel was involved in Kirk’s killing. Steve Bannon, a powerful adviser to Trump who served in the president’s first administration, said, “Ben Shapiro is like a cancer.”