‘Want To Be As Clear As I Possibly Can’: Tucker Carlson Sets Record Straight On His Views Of Hamas

Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson said Monday on British journalist Piers Morgan’s show, “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” that he believes “any organization that kills the innocent,” including Hamas, is a terrorist organization.

A clip from Carlson‘s episode on Friday circulated online and in the media, with people like Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz alleging Carlson didn’t know if Hamas is a terrorist organization. Morgan asked Carlson point blank if he believes whether members of Hamas “are terrorists or not.”

“I think any organization that kills the innocent, including Hamas, is a terror organization,” Carlson said. “What I object to — and I just want to be as clear as I possibly can — what I object to is the proceeding with the conversation without the defining of terms. The purpose of language is to convey specific ideas, and so in order to have a conversation you have to define what you’re talking about. If I were to throw a couple Korean terms in and refuse to tell you what they mean, we couldn’t have a conversation because you don’t speak Korean. So I want to define terrorism, and I’m going to do it very precisely.”

“Terrorism is the act of murdering the innocent. If you murder the innocent, you are engaged in terrorism. And that would include, in specific cases I can think of, Hamas, which has murdered the innocent, people at a music festival. I mean, what? That is terrorism. Anybody who murders people who committed no crime is committing terrorism,” Carlson said as Morgan was heard trying to jump in.

The clip that circulated online from Carlson’s show was from an episode released Friday, in which the DCNF co-founder spoke with former U.S. State Department Press Officer for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Shahed Ghoreishi. (RELATED: Christian Patriarch Says IDF Struck Gaza’s Only Catholic Church In Raid)

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At roughly the 29-minute mark in the episode, Carlson asked how Christians could be killed in Gaza, saying they wouldn’t be associated with Hamas if they were Christians. Carlson added that no one could claim Christians are “in Hamas while simultaneously claiming that Hamas is a group of jihadis,” continuing, “they’re [Hamas] Islamist extremists, which they also claim,” and stating, “seems more like a political organization.”

Morgan asked Carlson if his definition of terrorism would include Israel. The DCNF co-founder said, “it includes anybody.”

“But, by the way, let me just say, it’s so funny. ‘Does that include Israel?’ It includes people I know personally in the United States. I know a lot of people who have okayed the order,” Carlson said. “I know in some cases people who participated in carrying out the order to murder people who committed no crime. Does that mean they’re terrorists? I don’t know. I’ll let God figure out what that means. It means they’re committing acts of terror. That is terrorism because the point of it is not to punish the guilty. The point of it is to inspire fear.”

“The point of it is to depopulate a place, move a population, whatever the point of it is. The effect of it is to punish people who’ve committed no crime. And in our system, the Western system, which is very distinct from the Eastern system, very distinct. And it’s distinct on this one precise point,” Carlson said. “We believe and have always believed since this country was founded [that] the worst thing you can do is punish the innocent. That’s the worst thing you can do. That’s worse than not punishing the guilty. We often said that to each other. We no longer say that because there is a pretty concerted effort to blur the meaning of these terms. But I’m not going to be deterred from defining words precisely. Terror is murdering people, killing people, punishing people who committed no crime, period.”

Carlson has consistently discussed the effects that the Hamas-Israel conflict has had on Palestinian Christians. During an April interview with the Rev. Munther Isaac, Carlson said an Israeli airstrike in October 2023 left the St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church campus in the Gaza Strip in ruins.

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