Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took to social media Friday night to rebuke conservative commentator Tucker Carlson for remarks questioning whether the United Kingdom gained from its role in World War II. The exchange came after a clip from Carlson's podcast circulated online, where the former Fox News host suggested Britain's victory may not have been beneficial.
"Yes, Tucker, the UK is better off for winning WWII," Cruz wrote on X. "America is better off for winning World War II. And the world would be much worse off if the Nazis had won WWII. This is not complicated."
Carlson's comments surfaced during an interview with former U.K. Conservative lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg, in a segment titled "Was WWII good for Britain?" Carlson expressed skepticism about the outcome, asking, "Has the U.K. benefited from it? There are a lot of people in Britain who can't speak English, so it would be nice to have at least a European language spoken in your country."
He went on to question the conventional narrative, saying, "Why don't you tell me the ways in which Britain benefited from—I'm going to use quotes here—'winning the Second World War.' Because from my perspective, it looks like the empire ended. India was lost two years later, the United States took over the world, and has had troops here ever since."
Cruz's pushback is the latest in a growing rift between the Texas senator and Carlson, who has increasingly drifted toward controversial figures since leaving Fox News in 2023. In 2024, Carlson faced widespread condemnation for hosting Darryl Cooper on his show, a podcaster who downplayed Nazi Germany's systematic murder of six million Jews, suggesting the genocide was a result of poor planning rather than deliberate intent.
Carlson also gave a platform to white nationalist Nick Fuentes, a repeat Holocaust denier who has made numerous antisemitic statements. During that interview, Fuentes referred to Adolf Hitler as "very cool" and promoted anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.
Cruz previously criticized Carlson for interviewing Fuentes, telling the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Summit, "If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very cool and that their mission is to defeat 'global Jewry,' and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil."
The senator's latest comments come amid heightened political tensions in Texas, where a new poll shows a tight race in the state's Senate contest, and as Trump heads to Texas to push his manufacturing agenda. Cruz's defense of the Allied victory also aligns with his broader foreign policy stance, which has often emphasized American leadership on the world stage.
The controversy underscores a divide within conservative circles over historical narratives and the treatment of extremists, with Cruz positioning himself as a defender of traditional American and Western values against what he sees as reckless revisionism.
