Why Does Tucker Carlson Hate Winston Churchill?

Carlson's ridiculous claims about Churchill fit a wider pattern of deliberate deceit.

by Ben Cohen

In a recent interview with Piers Morgan, Tucker Carlson made an extraordinary claim: Winston Churchill failed to save Western civilization and doesn't deserve his heroic status in history. “Show me the victory,”Carlson demanded repeatedly, dismissing Churchill's defeat of Nazi Germany as merely “theoretical” and criticizing his inability to prevent Poland from falling under Soviet influence.

Here’s the transcript:

CARLSON: This is England. This is the country that gave free speech to the United States. This is where it all came from. This habeas corpus came from. The Magna Carta was signed here. This is Western civilization. What is it? It’s England, actually. And so if you allow it to become what it is now, Western civilization ends. I don’t think that’s overstating it at all. If Saudi Arabia fell today and became Buddhist or something, it would have a massive effect on the entire region. Like the holy sites are here, right? It’s much more significant merely than its landmass.

MORGAN: Let me ask you-

CARLSON: The same was true for your country. It was hugely significant for us in the US were your descendants and we did what you did, but with like much more land and resources. So I’m very distressed about it. So people want to tell me Churchill’s an incredible guy. Really? Well, why didn’t he save Western civilization? He didn’t even save Poland.
MORGAN: He did save western civilization.

CARLSON: How?

MORGAN: He defeated the Nazis.

CARLSON: Well I know he helped defeat the Nazis with his friend Stalin-

MORGAN: The nazis wanted the whole world to be speaking German.

CARLSON: I’m not defending the Nazis. I’m just saying, where is Western civilization? What did he preserve? Where is it? I don’t know where it is.

MORGAN: Churchill died the year before I was born. The same year.

CARLSON: He died in 63.

MORGAN: 65, I think about a month before I was born. It was a natural succession.

CARLSON: But the question was like, Where’s the victory? I don’t understand. Like, everyone wants to yell at you for not loving Churchill. Okay, well, show me the victory — no it’s a theoretical victory. He beat Hitler. Great. I’m totally for beating Hitler.

I don't understand. Everyone wants to yell at you for not loving Churchill.

Okay, the victory—it's a theoretical victory.

Oh, he beat Hitler. Great. I'm totally for beating Hitler, totally for it.

MORGAN: But you can’t say 80 years on, Churchill didn't win the war, because look at what's happened since.

CARLSON: But the war is not just like an engagement in Poland or even in downtown Berlin. The war is the effort to save Western Civilization. And I agree with you that Hitler was a grave threat to Western Civilization, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said.

But that was lost. So where's the victory?

I watched as much of the interview as I could to understand the wider context, but Carlson’s agitated conspiracy theorizing made keeping track of his reasoning almost impossible. Other parts of the interview included Carlson claiming the Biden administration wanted to “kill Trump”, vaccines make you impotent, and that the Episcopal Church has been taken over by “dreadfully unhappy middle-aged lesbians”. In another separate interview with Morgan for his own channel (shot on the same day), Carlson also explained why he believes Volodymyr Zelensky is a corrupt dictator who assassinates his enemies and uses US money to enrich himself.

But Carlson's attack on Churchill and Zelensky isn't just historical revisionism – it's part of a much more dangerous game.

Tucker the performer

Tucker Carlson is an expert and the art of misdirection and confusion. He says something completely outrageous and claims “I really mean that”, then waits for the shocked reaction before walking it back and saying he didn’t really mean that. In that regard it was quite difficult to parse what he meant about Winston Churchill. Churchill didn’t save Western civilization because middle aged lesbians now control his church, but he did beat Hitler so that was good?