Cruz says fellow Republicans 'frightened' to call out Tucker Carlson

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) slammed Republicans on Friday for not condemning Tucker Carlson for his interview with white nationalist and antisemitic commentator Nick Fuentes.

During a speech at The Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C., Cruz said that while Carlson, Fuentes "and the rest of their ilk" have a right to say whatever they want to say, Republicans have an "obligation to stand up and say it is wrong," Politico reported.

“My colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrible, but a great many of them are frightened, because he [Carlson] has one hell of a big megaphone,” Cruz said.

“It’s easy right now to denounce Fuentes,” Cruz later said at the convention. “Are you willing to say Tucker’s name?”

The Texas senator explained his issue is not that Carlson gave Fuentes a platform, rather that Carlson did not push back on Fuentes's conspiratorial and bigoted claims.

“The last I checked, Tucker actually knows how to cross-examine,” Cruz said.

Cruz previously blasted allies on the right at the Republican Jewish Coalition leadership summit Oct. 31.

“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,” Cruz said.

Cruz's condemnations are part of a chorus of criticism of Carlson following his interview with Fuentes. The controversy ballooned after Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, a friend of Carlson's, defended the interview and dismissed calls to have Fuentes canceled.

“Most importantly, the American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right,” Roberts said. “I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer either.”

“When we disagree with a person’s ideas and opinions, we challenge those ideas and debate, and we continue to see success in this approach as we continue to dismantle the vile ideas of the left,” Roberts added.

Other conservative commentators have sparred over the interview, including Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro, who did so during a live event this week. Shapiro panned the interview, which he called a "breach [in] basic moral values," accusing Carlson of "in my view, gloss[ing] the Nazi."

After Shapiro mentioned Carlson's travels to Russia and Carlson saying Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro "is actually not that bad,” Kelly pushed back. She said she wasn’t interested in defending Carlson, but noted Maduro was "culturally conservative."

"Who gives a s‑‑‑?” Shapiro shot back. “I don’t give a s‑‑‑ whether he’s anti-LGBTQ rights. This is the No. 1 thing about Nicolás Maduro? You know how far down the list you have to get before you can get to anything remotely recommendable about Nicolás Maduro?”

For his part, Carlson on the podcast said he wanted to understand Fuentes’s views. Carlson had been criticized for also not pushing back on them, which include Fuentes's admiration for Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and him stating that he disliked Christian Zionists “more than anybody.”