House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) joined other Republican leaders in criticizing Tucker Carlson for his interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, saying it was a “big mistake.”
The remarks from Johnson, who made them in an interview with The Hill published Tuesday, were a firmer condemnation of the interview than he’d made weeks earlier.
“I spoke briefly with Tucker about that, and I think it’s a responsibility. He has a lot of listeners, and I think giving Nick Fuentes that platform is a big mistake,” Johnson said.
“We should not be giving a platform to amplify those views. And I think that’s important for us to say,” he continued, describing Fuentes’ rhetoric as “vile, terrible stuff. I mean, it’s not just antisemitic, it’s openly racist, it’s violent — things you can’t even repeat on the House floor.”
Johnson raised some concerns about Carlson’s Fuentes interview earlier this month in an interview with The National Review.
“I don’t think — whether it’s Tucker or anybody else — I don’t think we should be giving a platform to that kind of speech,” the House speaker said, adding: “He has a First Amendment right, but we shouldn’t ever amplify it.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have also spoken out about Fuentes’ interview with Carlson, who let many of the white nationalist’s most egregious remarks go unchallenged.
“Last I checked, ‘conservatives should feel no obligation’ to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats,” McConnell said last month, borrowing words from Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts’ defense of Carlson. Roberts has since said it was a “mistake” to defend Carlson over the interview.
Cruz had harsher words.
“If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing. Then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil,” the Texas senator said at the time.
He later said his Republican colleagues, even if they opposed Carlson’s interview with Fuentes, were too “frightened” of speaking out “because he has one hell of a big megaphone.”
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, dismissed the criticism of Carlson earlier this month, saying the ousted Fox News host has “said good things about me over the years” and that people must make up their own mind about Fuentes, a person who has repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler.
“If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don’t know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word out,” Trump said. “People have to decide.”