Tucker Carlson, the Kennedy Assassination, and the Theater of ‘Just Asking’ About Israel

In one of Tucker Carlson’s recent Instagram reels, drawn from a conversation with far-left anti-Israel pundit Cenk Uygur, Carlson returned to a maneuver that has become central to his treatment of Israel and Jews.

Carlson noted references to Israel in the assassination files of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, and wondered aloud why some remain redacted more than 60 years later.

His guest, Cenk Uygur, supplied the line that Carlson basically asked for: “That’s almost an admission.”

Carlson widened the frame: Why do we keep seeing Israel [in these files]? Why are the lines blacked out? Why, he asked, are there two “monuments” in Israel to James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s former counterintelligence chief?

Then came the disclaimer. Carlson says he opposes conspiracy thinking because it “drives you crazy.” But, he adds, “if you don’t tell people the truth, like what are they supposed to think?”

The performance is familiar. The host is merely “asking questions.”

But questions of this type are not requests for information. They are accusations regardless of the punctuation. They gesture toward a very nefarious destination, while preserving the speaker’s ability to claim he never quite traveled there.

And as with almost everything Carlson has written or said about Israel in the past few years, this series of “questions” is missing important information and is deeply misleading.

Anyone who has spent time with the Kennedy archives knows that Israel is hardly unique in attracting redactions. Black bars sit beside Mexico, Cuba, the former Soviet Union, Jordan, and a host of other countries. They exist for reasons that are often mundane: protecting sources, preserving methods, honoring liaison agreements, or shielding names that remain sensitive.

A redaction is not a confession. It is often paperwork.

Carlson should know this. Uygur should as well.

But this ordinary explanation, and the fact that many other countries have redactions in the Kennedy assassination files, would collapse the drama.

The “show” depends on persuading viewers that redactions related to Israel must mean something darker.

And so, evidence is withheld. Suspicion advances. Tone does the work that proof cannot.

This is not investigation. It is nefarious storytelling.

Then there is the Angleton insinuation.

Angleton oversaw counterintelligence and, among many responsibilities, managed relationships with allied services across Europe and the Middle East. His ties with Israel grew out of years of professional cooperation and personal familiarity.

Israel later honored him.

There is nothing extraordinary in that. Intelligence communities commemorate foreign officials who strengthen relationships and collaboration. Streets are sometimes named. Plaques are mounted.

Gratitude is not evidence of control. And commemoration is not proof of conspiracy.

To present routine diplomacy as something sinister is to convert normal statecraft into conspiracy.

Carlson’s particular gift (and grift) lies in inversion. He warns against conspiracism while practicing it. He performs reluctance while manufacturing certainty.

If conspiracy thinking corrodes those who consume it, as he says, one might imagine restraint before distributing it at scale.

But insinuation has become Carlson’s product. And it is not randomly distributed. It moves in one direction. The questions chosen, the contexts omitted, the raised eyebrows, the studied bewilderment — they point somewhere specific.

Toward Jews. Toward Israel.

There is never any actual evidence that Tucker provides. What remains are misleading hints elevated into conclusions, delivered with deniability and received, inevitably, by far too many, as fact.

History knows this propaganda method well. It is the politics of implication, the art of constructing guilt through repetition rather than demonstration. The speaker positions himself just outside the accusation while ensuring that the audience hears it clearly.

We know, in retrospect, what such machinery can produce.

The tragedy is not only that it is dishonest. It is that it works.

Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish history. He serves on the board of Herut North America.