Originally published December 12, 2025
During the height of his Fox News fame, Tucker Carlson was the leading voice in accusing Leftists and Progressives of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” This pejorative political term describes an irrational, hysterical, or obsessive hatred of Donald Trump that causes otherwise reasonable people to lose touch with reality, abandon their principles, and react with disproportionate outrage to anything Trump says or does. Tucker used this phrase hundreds of times on his Fox News show and afterwards on his own network. Like a doctor trying to cure a disease by treating the sick, however, Tucker has been infected with his own variant of TDS – Israel Derangement Syndrome. He has an irrational, hysterical and obsessive hatred of Israel, and he has lost touch with reality, abandoned his principles, and reacts with disproportionate outrage.
In the latest episode of his show, Carlson makes the absurd claim that not only is “Israel is not America’s “Greatest Ally,” but that the country that benefits the United States is Qatar. Yes, the very Qatar that has spent hundreds of millions in the university system indoctrinating students into hating the United States is now a greater ally than Israel.
To quantify his statement, Tucker claims that “to qualify as America’s “greatest ally,” a foreign nation must offer the United States tangible benefits to the relationship. It can’t be a one-way street. But that’s exactly what this “special partnership” is. The American people get nothing out of it.”
Carlson is not an idiot. It is very easy to do some research and find out exactly how the United States benefits from Israel and why many members of Congress consider Israel to be America’s greatest ally in the Middle East, if not the world. Carlson has the phone numbers of many of these members and he could have called them directly if he was interested. He’s not, and he has other, more nefarious reasons for trying to pry apart the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Carlson is also not above lying to push his political agenda. He openly admitted as such during a 2018 interview with Ben Shapiro, when he said that if he were president and driverless technology would adversely affect trucking jobs, he would simply lie to the public. “And I — maybe — would make up some pretext for public consumption, like “Oh, they’re dangerous; the technology’s not quite finessed”. No. No; but the truth would be, I don’t want to put 10 million men out of work,” he told Shapiro. He has absolutely no qualms about people in positions of power, knowledge and authority openly lying to the public to achieve specific results, so why should anything he says not be held to that lens?
Fast forward to December 7th of this year, during a live session at the Doha Forum, Carlson didn’t just praise Qatar, he announced plans to buy a luxury home in Doha. “I’ll be giving money to Qatar, not the other way around,” he said. He then stoked the dying embers of an international conflict when he asked Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on why Israel had “bombed you,” with no reference to why Iran also shot missiles at Qatar.
The implication of Qatar’s innocence in regional conflicts despite its well-documented ties to Hamas and other terrorist organizations is astounding to say the least. “Qatar has been accused of causing the war by supporting Hamas,” Carlson mused, “but will likely be on the hook to pay for rebuilding Gaza.” Once again, Carlson makes no mention of the fact that if Qatar pressured Hamas on October 8th to surrender and release their hostages, there would be no need to rebuild Gaza. Carlson needs to make the evildoers sound good and the moral sound evil to balance the scales and achieve his goals – much like progressives have been doing for decades.
In order to accomplish this, he must push down Israel and raise up Qatar using the greatest tool in his arsenal – his massive platform. He’s been systematically doing this for months, from grilling Ted Cruz on Iranian trivia to gently caressing Nick Fuentes into mainstream acceptance. “To qualify as America’s “greatest ally,”” Tucker wrote on X, “a foreign nation must offer the United States tangible benefits to the relationship. It can’t be a one-way street. But that’s exactly what this “special partnership” is. The American people get nothing out of it.”
This is demonstrably false, and Tucker could easily understand why, but he won’t. Israel benefits the United States economically, militarily, and socially. There are direct, tangible returns that prove that American investment in Israel has a worthwhile return.
First, the notion that U.S. aid to Israel is a form of charity on par with all other foreign aid is simply false. The U.S. not only wants to be the world’s largest and most advanced military (for good reason), it also wants to control the development of military technology. In order to prevent the Israelis from creating their own military industrial complex, which would rival American weapons in a global marketplace, the U.S. decided to partner with Israel. In exchange for an aid package which must be spent in America – thereby securing American jobs – Israel will spend many times more money on American weapons annually.
Israel’s usage of American weapons on the field of battle has yielded proficient upgrades to these weapons that U.S. engineers simply would not have the ability to accomplish. As the old adage goes, “necessity breeds invention,” Israel’s need to defend itself has yielded some incredible inventions that America is now privy to. The most direct and famous of these is the iron dome missile technology, something that President Trump is trying to replicate in the United States with a “golden dome.”
While Tucker will willingly lie to the American people to save trucking jobs, it seems like he will also lie to the American people and lose weapons manufacturing jobs. Israel’s purchase of U.S. weapons sustains tens of thousands of American jobs in states like Texas and Arizona, from Boeing plants to Raytheon facilities.
While Carlson may not care about Iran having nuclear weapons, the United States certainly does. The one thing that everyone on every side of the political aisle can agree on is that Iran cannot go nuclear. So Israel’s direct involvement, from Stuxnet crippling nukes to Mossad taking out facilities, without putting U.S. blood or treasure into the conflict has saved potentially trillions of American dollars and thousands of American lives. Tucker, who swore endlessly and falsely that Israel was going to pull Americans into a ground conflict in Iran, should be thanking Israel instead of disparaging them.
Intelligence flows are even more vital. Post-9/11, Mossad tips foiled plots against U.S. targets, from Hezbollah cells in New York to ISIS recruiters in California. As Brookings noted after Israel’s June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, “Israel carried out a series of airstrikes… followed by several days of Israel-Iran escalation,” but the preemptive intel shared with CENTCOM prevented broader U.S. involvement.
Economically, Israeli FDI pumps $24 billion annually into U.S. tech hubs, birthing innovations like Intel’s processors (40% of revenue from Israel) and Mobileye’s self-driving tech now in Ford vehicles. Americans are healed by medicine by Teva Pharmaceuticals, have their online identity secured by CyberArk Software, and build their websites on Wix. Israel’s safety and security benefits Americans in ways that even the most ardent BDS advocates cannot fathom.
Meanwhile, Carlson paints Qatar as a hero – a “neutral” mediator hosting U.S. troops at Al Udeid Air Base, pumping LNG to American ports, and brokering hostage deals. On paper, it’s seductive: $243 billion in 2025 deals, including Qatar Airways’ $96 billion Boeing bonanza, promising 154,000 U.S. jobs. The wrapping paper is very nice to look at, but the present inside is garbage. These are leverage points for a regime accused of sponsoring terror, laundering influence, and playing both sides in America’s forever wars that Tucker claims to hate.
Start with the base. Al Udeid, home to 10,000 U.S. personnel and CENTCOM HQ, is a crown jewel—Qatar’s $8.4 billion upgrades through 2033 sound like largesse. In reality, it’s self-preservation. After seeing Iraq invade Kuwait in 1990, Doha realized that their tiny peninsula surrounded by some of the most despotic regimes in the world is ripe for conquest, so they bought themselves the best insurance policy in the world; the American military. Since the base has been used as a forward operator for Middle Eastern conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and other areas, Qatar has used America’s own addiction to the base against us, threatening eviction to the U.S. while hosting terrorists at Five Star resorts a few miles away.
Qatar uses its treasury to subtly shape American culture and politics in ways far greater than Carlson admits. Qatar has spent billions in media, real estate, and universities. While Carlson may cheer at the college campus encampments and the rioting that has become part of daily life in nearly every major U.S. city, it harms Americans. Qatar funding and building out Middle Eastern studies departments all over the country on the condition that it becomes required courses has radicalized American students into becoming anti-American activists.
Qatar claims “neutrality”, which makes Carlson’s assertion that they are a greater ally for America than Israel even more odd. This is like comparing your little brother with a fairweather friend who is constantly shifting allegiances. Qatar openly finances al -Qaeda and Hamas, who in turn openly call for the destruction of America. This is Tucker’s chosen one.
Carlson’s massive shift on these issues had to come from somewhere. While monetary manipulation cannot be used as a catch-all excuse for shifting ideology (it doesn’t happen with the NRA or AIPAC, we cannot assume it’s happening here), it’s more than likely that already existing ideas can be brought to the forefront when there is incentive to do so.
Enter Omeed Malik, the Iranian-Pakistani-American venture capitalist whose 1789 Capital bankrolled TCN’s 2023 launch with a $15M seed round—the majority stake. Malik likes to invest in politically right-wing startups. In 2019, he started out Farvahar Partners, a boutique advising “anti-ESG” startups. But 1789—co-founded with Rebekah Mercer and Chris Buskirk in 2022— made a name for itself focusing on “MAGA” companies like Public Square (anti-woke e-commerce) and GrabAGun (firearms retail via SPAC).
Malik’s tie with Carlson is inseparable. As TCN’s “main investor” pre-2025 buyout, he enabled the network’s independence claim. Carlson buying Malik out of his investment didn’t harm their relationship, as they were together at the Doha Forum. Malik was front-row for Carlson’s Al Thani interview, then co-headlined with Donald Trump Jr. on “Monetizing MAGA.”
Malik is an investment partner and friend of Garrett Ventry, who is registered as a Qatari lobbyist in September 2025, pocketing $1M/year to “promote a positive image” via Washington Reporter—a Malik-funded newsletter. At May’s Qatar Economic Forum, Malik and Trump Jr. pitched Trump-era investments, aligning with Doha’s $1.2T U.S. commitment. Jewish Insider raised “eyebrows” at the lineup: “Tucker Carlson, his business partner Neil Patel and investor Omeed Malik.” Tablet Magazine speculated Malik’s post-2018 wealth surge (from <$500K Bank of America salary) tracks Qatar’s Trumpworld infiltration.
This may sound circumstantial, and there is yet to be a known paper trail of money directly from Qatar to Carlson – yet it is undeniable that Carlson is surrounded by pro-Qatari actors. Initial investments into TCN helped keep Carlson in his lavish lifestyle after his firing from Fox News. Continued affiliation with characters from pseudo-historian Darryl Cooper (who posits that Winston Churchill was the true villain of World War Two and Carlson called “the greatst historian ever”) to Nick Fuentes and friends who clearly are funded by Qatar is as good as an explanation as we have for Carlsons massive shift
While we don’t know who Carlson really has allegiance to, it’s clearly not America. Ditching proven allies for terror enablers is not “patriotic. Putting all your effort into promoting hatred of Christian Zionists rather than sounding the alarm on true threats to the Christian world is not helping Christians. Traveling the world to sew division in the American political system instead of traveling America to push for positive solutions to America’s problems is certainly not “America First”. The Tucker Carlson of 2017 would readily, repeatedly and rightly diagnose the Tucker Carlson of 2025 with a severe case of Israel Derangement Syndrome.
