Tucker Carlson wishes he never interviewed Nick Fuentes, then said Ted Cruz is ‘far worse’ than Fuentes and called him ‘just so repulsive’

Tucker Carlson has admitted he regrets his interview with Nick Fuentes. During a conversation, the former television host said he wishes he had never sat down with Fuentes. The October 2025 podcast episode got more than 7 million views on YouTube, but Carlson now calls it a total distraction that wasn’t worth the trouble.

Carlson said the main reason he regrets it is the labels he received afterward. For a month, he was flooded with calls and messages from people calling him a Nazi. He said he had wanted to focus on the war with Iran at the time, but the Fuentes interview took over everything instead.

Carlson also told The New York Times that the interview didn’t damage him personally, and that he has spoken to people he considers far worse than Fuentes. He pointed directly at U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Senator Ted Cruz as examples, claiming these individuals have hurt far more people than Fuentes ever has.

Carlson’s strong dislike of Ted Cruz reveals deep cracks in the conservative movement

Carlson described Cruz as the only guest he has ever been truly impolite to, saying he finds the senator “just so repulsive.” His reasoning comes down to their roles and actions. He said Cruz is a sitting U.S. senator who has advocated for wars and called for the killing of whole populations, while he sees Fuentes as “just a kid,” around 26 or 27 years old.

The original October 2025 podcast episode caused a major debate. During the interview, both Carlson and Fuentes criticized conservatives who support Israel, with Carlson claiming that people like Cruz and Huckabee had been “seized by a brain virus.”

Fuentes, who has previously been pushed out of conservative circles for his views, including past remarks where he called Adolf Hitler “really f—ing cool” and claimed that organized Jewry held outsize influence, used the platform to express his disdain for what he calls “the Jewish oligarchy.” This is not the first time Carlson has found himself at the center of political controversy, as he has publicly admitted to shaping major political outcomes in the past.

The backlash after that interview was swift. Ted Cruz told the Republican Jewish Coalition: “If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and 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.” 

According to The Guardian, Cruz also called the rise of antisemitism on the right “a poison” and an “existential crisis” for the country. The tension between Cruz and Carlson is nothing new, as Cruz previously attacked Carlson with sharp personal insults in a separate and heated public dispute.

The interview also had some defenders. Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, stood by Carlson during the controversy. Roberts argued that conservatives should focus on the left rather than attacking people on the right. He said that while he might “disagree with or even abhor things that Fuentes says,” canceling him is not the answer, and that the right approach is to challenge those ideas in open debate.

When asked why he seemed friendlier toward Fuentes than toward other guests like Huckabee, Carlson said that if he agreed with everything Fuentes said, he would simply say so. He told his interviewer that he is “simply naughty for talking to Fuentes in the first place,” brushing off the idea that he was being too accommodating. It is clear, though, that the shadow of that interview is something he would prefer to leave behind.