Tucker Carlson speaks on first day of AmericaFest 2025 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: Charles-McClintock Wilson/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

Firebrand podcaster Tucker Carlson, one of the most vocal critics of the US-Israel war against Iran, is now blaming the conflict on the Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch movement, telling listeners of his podcast that the war’s aim is to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and rebuild the Jewish temple.

The far-right pundit, who has a history of peddling antisemitic conspiracy theories, alleged in his podcast released Wednesday that Israel started its “global religious war” last Saturday as an excuse to destroy the mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the Al Aqsa compound, referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount, in order to build the Third Jewish Temple.

The site is Judaism’s holiest and the historic location of the First and Second Temples. 

“There are key players involved in this war, the one happening tonight, who believe that what we’re seeing on our television screen and on Twitter will usher in a series of events that will begin with the destruction of the Dome of the Rock, Al Aqsa Mosque, and then the rebuilding of the Third Temple,” Carlson said.

“This has been going on a long time in public through, in part, the efforts of a group called Chabad. C-H-A-B-A-D,” Carlson said, spelling out the name of the Orthodox Hasidic religious movement. 

“Chabad has been pushing in a pretty subtle way, unless you look carefully, for the reconstruction of the Third Temple,” Carlson said.

As proof, Carlson pointed to photos of Israeli soldiers with patches of an illustration of the Third Temple, claiming — but providing no evidence — that they came from Chabad.

In a social media post from two years ago, soldiers fighting against the Hamas terror group were pictured sporting the patches. The Instagram page belongs to The Temple Institute, an NGO advocating for rebuilding the Third Temple that has no connection with Chabad. 

The post was accompanied with the caption: “Hamas made it clear from the start when they named their barbaric attack on Israeli citizens, men, women and children, ‘the al Aqsa flood,’ al Aqsa being the jihadist nomenclature for the Temple Mount.”

“Yes, Iranian-backed Hamas, as well as Iran’s other terror proxies are waging war against Israel, against Jerusalem, against the Holy Temple and all that the Holy Temple stands for: peace, brotherhood, prayer, and love for HaShem’s world,” the post read, using the Hebrew name for God, and ending with the biblical passage promising a “house of prayer for all nations.”

Carlson said that building the Third Temple “is totally anathema to Christianity.”

“Christians have a way of dying disproportionately in these wars, which tells you something about their real motives,” he said.

The Chabad movement, which is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, is not politically affiliated and is widely known for its welcoming engagement with fellow Jews, with a presence in more than 100 countries. 

Chabad spokesperson Yaacov Behrman said Carlson’s claims that Chabad is behind the war amount to “a slanderous lie” and “dangerous blood libel.”

“He is also wrong about the Temple patches. They did not come from Chabad. Had he done even basic research, that would be clear,” he added in a post on X. “Reckless rhetoric like this is dangerous and irresponsible.”

Carlson’s @TuckerCarlson claim about Chabad and the Temple Mount is a slanderous lie. His implication that Chabad is behind the war in Iran is a dangerous blood libel.

Chabad’s focus is on encouraging
mitzvos—good deeds—to bring more goodness into the world and hasten the…

— Yaacov Behrman (@ChabadLubavitch) March 5, 2026

Rabbi Jonathan Markovitch, the chief Chabad emissary in Kyiv and rabbi of the Ukrainian capital, said he heard Carlson’s comments while sitting in a shelter in Tel Aviv during missile sirens, after being stranded in Israel by the war. 

Calling the comments “nonsense,” he said they were driven neither by “concern for human life or any values,” but by “an ugly interest.”

“While I am sitting here in a shelter because of missiles sent by extremists who prefer destruction and death over caring for their own people, there are those who choose to spread baseless antisemitic accusations,” he told The Algemeiner. 

“As Chabad emissaries and as Jews, we try to help every person, in every place in the world,” he added.

The Republican Jewish Coalition denounced Carlson’s remarks as “disgusting” and posted a photo of US President Donald Trump at the Queens gravesite of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late Chabad leader, adding that “President Trump and his administration reject this nonsense.”

Tucker Carlson’s opprobrious comments against Chabad are disgusting.

President Trump and his administration reject this nonsense. https://t.co/7kjRQWjP0z pic.twitter.com/Gxjp0gHEMq

— RJC (@RJC) March 5, 2026

US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Carlson’s comments on X, calling them “more abhorrent antisemitism from Tucker Carlson, invoking medieval tropes and ugly conspiracies.”

Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, Chabad’s social media director, pushed back on Carlson’s claim in a post on X, writing that belief in the Third Temple and the Messianic era is important “not just to Chabad, but to all of Judaism,” and describing it as part of the 13 Principles of Faith codified by the medieval Jewish thinker Maimonides.

“The sum total of the goodness and kindness that each of us do, Jew and non-Jew, usher in an era of world peace, when ‘Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore,’ where a third Temple ‘be a house of prayer for all nations,'” Lightstone added.

Carlson’s remarks were endorsed by several commentators, including fellow podcaster Candace Owens and former US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

In a post on X, Owens warned followers to pay attention to where Chabad centers were located near them, describing Chabad members as “dangerous” and calling them “a radical sect of mystic occultists that follow the idea of a war messiah.”

Greene shared Carlson’s podcast episode, calling it “incredible.”

Incredible podcast by Tucker Carlson.
Telling the truth is no threat to anyone.
The greater threat is war for heretical lies. https://t.co/Vf1fZ9GjsU

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) March 5, 2026

Christian Zionist and longtime Carlson critic Laurie Cardoza-Moore slammed the remarks, saying Carlson was “ignorant of the Bible and all things Christian or Jewish.”

Cardoza-Moore, who is president of the Christian Zionist group Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, said she has worked alongside Chabad rabbis worldwide “to build bridges and understanding between our communities.”

“Tucker is simply rehashing medieval antisemitic conspiracies that led to the death of millions of Jews. He does not speak for America or Christendom. He has become a tool of the enemy,” she told The Algemeiner.

In an interview with The Algemeiner last month, Israeli Christian leader Shadi Khalloul accused the former Fox News host of “destroying Christian-Jewish relations” all over the world and “endangering the persecuted Christian community in the Middle East” by falsely portraying Israel as hostile to Christianity.

Carlson has ramped up his anti-Israel content over the last year, according to a study released in December by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), which tracked the prominent far-right podcaster’s disproportionate emphasis on attacking the Jewish state in 2025.

In September, for example, the podcaster appeared to blame the Jewish people for the crucifixion of Jesus and suggest Israel was behind the assassination of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

In a recent episode in which he interviewed US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Carlson insisted that Israelis should be subject to genetic tests to determine any ties to the land of Israel.