Tucker Carlson, the influential far-right podcaster, spent more than three decades defending the Republican Party before leaving it this year over his opposition to the war with Iran. He is known for his nativist rhetoric and once said immigrants were making the United States “poorer and dirtier.”

Abdul El-Sayed, a son of Egyptian immigrants, has spent his adult life pushing for progressive causes. Now El-Sayed is the Democratic Party’s nominee in a pivotal Senate race in Michigan, running on a left-wing platform that calls for universal healthcare and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Yet, in a striking twist that underscores his shifting politics, Carlson has taken to defending El-Sayed. Both are vocal critics of the Israeli government and the war with Iran.

‘I Wouldn’t Vote for Mike Rogers’

In recent weeks, Carlson has repeatedly spoken in positive terms about El-Sayed and castigated his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, a critic-turned-ally of President Donald Trump with hawkish foreign policy views.

“I wouldn’t vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint,” Carlson said on his podcast this month.

As the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approached, Rogers targeted El-Sayed for saying in 2021 that the military actions of the United States after the attacks had “scarred millions” around the world.

Carlson stepped in to defend El-Sayed.

“El-Sayed did not celebrate airplane hijackings or cheerlead al-Qaida,” Carlson wrote in his newsletter, “he simply said that the U.S. conducting terrorism of its own in response to 9/11 was not exactly an appropriate reaction. He is obviously right.”

Political Consultants Are Puzzled

Political consultants were puzzled. Could Carlson really be endorsing El-Sayed?

In text messages with The New York Times, Carlson would not go that far.

“I’m a podcaster,” he wrote. “I don’t make endorsements.”

But Carlson continued to assail Rogers, a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee who was an early, vocal supporter of the war with Iran, and who has long been a supporter of Israel. Carlson called Rogers the “embodiment of the cruelty and stupidity of the national security state.”

“He’s a toady to Israel and an enemy of civil liberties,” Carlson told the Times, noting that Rogers had previously lost a Senate race in 2024. “I can hardly believe Republicans nominated him.”

To some, Carlson’s defense of El-Sayed is an example of what political commentators regard as a horseshoe alliance, a nod to the theory that both ends of the spectrum bend toward each other on some major issues.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Tim Balk/Jordan Gale

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