Ted Cruz Accuses Tucker Carlson of Defending Hitler in Talk With Ex-UK Minister

Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, accused Tucker Carlson on Monday of being "a vocal defender of Adolf Hitler."

On his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz, the senator played clips from Carlson's interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former British Conservative member of Parliament and cabinet minister. It was the same conversation in which Carlson argued that no treaty obliges the U.S. to fight Russia. Cruz introduced the clips as Carlson saying he "really wishes Hitler had won World War II." Carlson did not say that, and in the clips Cruz aired, he denied being a Nazi.

"It is actually an amazing thing that Tucker, number one, is a vocal defender of Putin. And number two, a vocal defender of Adolf Hitler," Cruz said.

The attack comes less than a month before Election Day. Cruz said Carlson had decided to "become a full-on Nazi. Embrace Adolf Hitler."

What Tucker Carlson Said to Jacob Rees-Mogg

In the first clip, Carlson asked, "Has the UK benefited from it?" He meant Britain's defeat of Hitler, according to Ynetnews' account of the exchange. Rees-Mogg replied that Britain would otherwise be speaking German.

"Who cares?" Carlson said. "There are a lot of people in Britain who can't speak English."

The "who cares" was about the language. Cruz read more into it, saying that "Tucker's whole point was, well, gosh, if the Nazis had won, then we'd all be speaking German, and everything would be great."

Later, Carlson said, "Hitler did not want to go to war with the UK." Rees-Mogg replied, "I'm very surprised you're verging on defending Hitler." Carlson answered, "I'm actually not a secret Nazi," and then added that he was "hardly a public Nazi."

"That's his defense," Cruz said. He accused Carlson of taking Hitler, Vladimir Putin and Iran's supreme leader at their word, calling him "blazingly naive and willfully naive."

Ted Cruz on the Russian and British Economies

Cruz also went after Carlson's claim that Russia has "a much larger economy than Britain's." Rees-Mogg had pushed back on the spot: "It's got a smaller economy than Britain's. It's got a larger military." Carlson held his ground: "It has much more wealth and resources. It has a much larger manufacturing sector."

Cruz called the claim "objectively, laughably false." He put Britain's GDP at $4.24 trillion and Russia's at $2.65 trillion. On per-person output, he put Britain at $61,056 and Russia at $18,525.

At market exchange rates, the record backs Cruz. The World Bank puts Britain's 2024 GDP at $3.70 trillion and Russia's at $2.19 trillion. Per person, the figures were $53,341 for Britain and $14,962 for Russia.

But adjusted for purchasing power, which accounts for lower prices inside Russia, the order flips. On that basis, the World Bank puts Russia's 2024 economy at $6.97 trillion and Britain's at $4.35 trillion. That gives Carlson a partial case, though not the one Cruz addressed.

Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists

Carlson also complained that "the British government has never apologized for violating its own ancient principles by rounding up not simply members of the opposition party, but their families." He named the Mosleys.

Oswald Mosley led the British Union of Fascists. Cruz said Mosley married in 1936 at the Berlin home of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, with Hitler among the guests. The Globe and Mail reported that Mosley's wedding to Diana Mitford took place at Goebbels's home, with Hitler as guest of honor.

Cruz said that "the British Union of Fascists never won even a single seat in Parliament" and so was not an opposition party in any real sense.

Cruz did give Carlson one point. "Now, to be fair, he has a legitimate criticism that the Brits have been violating free speech," he said. But he rejected Carlson's claim that, unlike Britain, "Russia is not doing that," pointing to Russia's gulags and its poisonings of critics.

Tucker Carlson and the Michigan Senate Race

Cruz closed by tying Carlson to Michigan's Senate race, saying that "Tucker has endorsed, formally endorsed" Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the seat. Cruz offered no source for the claim in the episode, and PolitiKool could not confirm that Carlson has endorsed El-Sayed.

El-Sayed leads Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee, by 3.7 points in PolitiKool's polling average for Michigan.