Conservative American influencers Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens sharply increased anti-Israel rhetoric in 2025, study finds

JTA – Top conservative influencers Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have significantly ramped-up anti-Israel rhetoric on their platforms over the past year, according to a new study by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI). 

The study by the Jerusalem-based think tank, published on Monday 29 December, comes as alarm over growing antisemitism from the right has reached a fever pitch in recent months, with several top Jewish conservatives calling for the party to draw a line against the rising influence of antisemitic voices. 

“Antisemitism on the American far right is now overt and out in the open,” said Shuki Friedman, the director-general of JPPI, in a statement. “The data should serve as a flashing warning light for Israel and its leadership regarding the kind of support it can expect from the right, today and in the future. Only a determined effort to counter this extremism can help preserve this vital base of support in the United States.” 

The new study analysed roughly 3 000 YouTube videos from Carlson and Owens and used ChatGPT to identify antisemitic content and classify their mentions of Israel as either positive, negative, or neutral. 

For Carlson, who set off a firestorm within the party after he hosted a friendly interview with antisemitic and white nationalist livestreamer Nick Fuentes in October, Israel first became a predominant topic on his YouTube channel, which has 5.1 million followers, in April. 

Over the past six months, the share of Carlson’s content about Israel that was labelled as “negative” by JPPI rose to 70%, up from roughly half the previous six months. 

For Owens, 96% of her mentions of Israel were already classified as negative by JPPI at the start of the year, but the volume of her mentions of Israel and Jews sharply increased over the course of the year. 

Increasing anti-Israel sentiment on the far has been attributed to several factors, including the isolationist “America First” ideology and opposition to “forever wars” prominent in the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, parts of which view US aid to Israel is an excessive use of taxpayer money. 

At the same time, some right-wing influencers have been critical of Israel in ways that JPPI and other groups have said are indistinguishable from classic antisemitic tropes. 

“Across multiple videos, [Carlson and Owens] employ sharp rhetoric, including comparisons between Israel and Hamas, use of the term ‘genocide’, accusations of deliberately killing children, and the circulation of conspiracy narratives alleging Israeli influence over the United States,” the study read. 

While Carlson was named “Antisemite of the Year” by the activist group StopAntisemitism last week, the JPPI analysis did not identify “consistent or explicit antisemitic statements” in his content. Rather, the group said that Carlson has repeatedly offered an “uncritical platform to well-known antisemites”, including Fuentes. 

But the study found that Owens, who earned the accolade last year, has increasingly made antisemitism a hallmark of her YouTube account, which has 5.7 million subscribers. Over the past six months, three-quarters of Owens’ videos that made mention of Jews were classified as antisemitic by JPPI’s algorithm, compared to 45% of videos from the first six months of the year.