Mike Huckabee suggests Tucker Carlson possessed, mentally ill: 'Maybe that demon got into him'

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Monday, October 19, 2026

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee suggested during a podcast last week that political commentator Tucker Carlson could be mentally unwell and demonically possessed amid his staunch criticism of the Israeli government and the lingering war in Iran.

During an Oct. 14 episode of "Pod Force One with Miranda Devine," Huckabee appeared to deride Carlson's account of being demonically attacked in his sleep during his waning months at Fox News. Citing Ephesians 6, Carlson confirmed to The Christian Post on Halloween in 2024 that he believes he was "physically mauled" by an unseen force in his bed on Feb. 20, 2023.

"And I'm thinking, you know, if a demon attacked me in the middle of the night, I think my dog and my wife would have said, 'Is everything OK?' But I'm thinking that demon must have got into him," said Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister who formerly served as the governor of Arkansas.

Carlson, who claimed the spiritual attack left him breathless and with bloody scratch marks visible along his rib cage, has described the incident as a turning point in his spiritual life that drove him to read the Bible and take Christianity more seriously.

When asked if he was being serious about Carlson being demonically possessed, Huckabee said, "I don't know what it is. I do think there's something that is mentally off. And I don't say that facetiously, and I don't say it flippantly."

Noting he has known him since the early 1990s and worked with him when they were both at Fox News, Huckabee said Carlson has become "a person I don't recognize, and he says things that are bizarre." He cited their tense, hours-long conversation at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport days before the outbreak of the Iran war in February, when Carlson questioned the certainty of knowing if modern Israelis are the descendants of those who lived in ancient Judea.

Huckabee also condemned Carlson for interviewing far-right podcaster Nick Fuentes last year and dismissed Carlson's fear of leaving Ben-Gurion Airport amid his concern that the Israeli government would try to assassinate him. Carlson claimed in February that he was detained and his producer was interrogated at the airport, which Huckabee defended at the time as routine airport security procedures.

Huckabee sparked a diplomatic incident during his interview with Carlson when he said, "it would be fine if [Israel] took it all," in response to Carlson noting that the land promised to Abraham's descendants in Genesis 15 includes a vast swath of the Middle East. Though he promptly walked back his remark as "somewhat of a hyperbolic statement," Huckabee prompted outrage from Arab and Muslim nations at the time.

Opponents of Carlson have repeatedly seized on his claim of a demonic attack to push back against the former Fox News host's criticism of Israel while portraying him as mentally ill or ensnared by evil.

Other Christians who have suggested that Carlson is under demonic influence include Eric Metaxas, who alleged that Satan is using Carlson to sow discord among President Donald Trump's fractured and diminishing political base; Dinesh D'Souza, who has mocked Carlson by posting AI-generated memes showing him being clawed by a demon; and Rod Dreher, who has implied that Carlson platformed Fuentes last year because he declined to undergo the exorcisms he prescribed.

Carlson has been an outspoken opponent of U.S. intervention in Iran on behalf of Israel, and publicly broke with Trump after unsuccessfully lobbying against it in an Oval Office meeting in late February. He has also raised questions regarding to what extent Christian Zionism and dispensationalist eschatology are influencing U.S. foreign policy decisions.

During an interview with NPR last month, Carlson framed the war as a futile conflict that has damaged the U.S. economy, diminished American power and destroyed Trump's legacy.

Carlson has denied the frequent charges of antisemitism against him, telling NPR that he finds it "outrageous" that criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has been conflated with hatred of the Jewish people.

"As to whether it's, strictly speaking, antisemitic to criticize the behavior of a secular foreign government: I mean, it goes without saying that no, in fact, that accusation is not only baseless, it's crazy. And I almost don't want to dignify it even by responding to it," he told NPR. Carlson also claimed that he and Trump clashed during their last meeting over Huckabee and his rhetoric.

Huckabee's role as U.S. ambassador to Israel and the nature of his relationship with Netanyahu's government have increasingly come under scrutiny in recent weeks following an investigation by The New York Times regarding David Milstein, who is Huckabee's 36-year-old senior advisor and the stepson of Fox News host Mark Levin.

In an Oct. 8 story that cited 15 current U.S. officials and internal communications, the NYT reported that Milstein had suppressed, revised or delayed cables to Washington from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in an attempt to portray the Israeli government's actions more favorably.

The NYT noted it was unclear how much Huckabee knew or to what extent Milstein's interventions influenced White House policy, with officials noting Huckabee sometimes worked with Milstein to shape reporting, but also restrained him when he overreached.

Huckabee publicly rejected the allegations in the NYT, calling the reporting deficient and overly reliant on anonymous sources.