Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has lashed out at Tucker Carlson in a series of explicit social media posts after the conservative pundit revealed he is buying a house in Qatar.
Carlson made the revelation while interviewing Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani on stage at the Doha Forum Sunday.
“I have been criticized as being a tool of Qatar, and I just want to say – which you already know – which is I have never taken anything from your country and don’t plan to,” Carlson told the PM.
“I am, however, tomorrow buying a place in Qatar. I like the city, I think it’s beautiful, but also to make a statement that I’m an American and a free man and I’ll be wherever I want to be. I have not taken any money from Qatar, but I have now given money to Qatar.”
Cruz, whom Carlson humiliated in an interview this summer when they sparred over U.S. military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, responded by posting a bizarre AI meme of the right-wing commentator sitting with his legs spread and lifted in the air with the caption: “Live footage of Tucker Carlson interviewing the Prime Minister of Qatar.”
He posted a follow-up making a sexually explicit comment about Carlson’s willingness to please.
Later, the senator reacted to a tongue-in-cheek post from Neil Patel, CEO of Carlson’s media company, who had posted a picture of himself with the pundit in Doha with the ironic caption: “Greetings from the bloodthirsty, terror-supporting slave state of Qatar.”
“Fact check: true,” Cruz replied.
Carlson’s statement also attracted swift backlash from Laura Loomer, another longstanding enemy and President Donald Trump’s self-appointed “loyalty enforcer,”.
She wrote on X: “Qatar is the financier of the Muslim Brotherhood and they continue to allow HAMAS officials to live in Doha, where Tucker now wants to buy a place to live.
“The Prime Minister then admitted Qatar spends ‘a lot of money on lobbying’ by paying people to come to Qatar so they can ‘protect’ the U.S.-Qatari relationship.”
Carlson subsequently repeated his defense of the decision to Doha News, saying: “I like it here a lot. By the way, I’m an American, I can go wherever I want and speak to anyone I want to because I’m a free man.
“That’s the promise of my country. And some are seeking to change that and to put our population into mental bondage. And I’m not participating in that.”
Carlson previously clashed with Loomer and Cruz in June after the right-wing commentator, typically an isolationist on foreign policy issues, broke ranks with Trump. He shared his disapproval of the strikes on Iran, arguing that America should not allow itself to be drawn into another regional conflict out of loyalty to Israel.
That prompted the more hawkish members of Trump’s MAGA coalition to accuse him of taking money from Qatar when he interviewed Al Thani previously in March, mocking him with the nickname “Qatarlson.”
“They know I’m not working for Qatar,” Carlson subsequently told Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast.
“I’ve never taken a dime from any foreign country or anybody. They’re the ones who have these weird, complex motives, and so they project onto everyone else the same.”
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