Tucker Carlson has come under fire for sending a guest onstage who claimed Winston Churchill “was the villain of World War II” and that millions of people “died” in Nazi concentration camps.
On Monday, the right-wing media personality hosted self-proclaimed historian Darryl Cooper on his podcast show — a man accused of being a “Nazi apologist” for comments seemingly sympathetic to Adolf Hitler.
The two-hour conversation was condemned by many on social media, including Liz Cheney – while Elon Musk promoted the video to his 196.5 million X followers, calling it “very interesting” and “worth watching.”
It appears the controversial tech billionaire has since deleted his post.The Independent has contacted X for comment.
During the podcast show, former Fox News host Carlson, who called Cooper “the foremost historian in the United States,” asked him how he would assess Churchill.
Cooper, who explained that he was “exaggerating a bit,” said: “I thought Churchill was the bad guy in World War II.”
He continued: “He didn't kill the most people, he didn't commit the most atrocities… I think if you look into it and tell the story properly, you see that he was primarily responsible for the development of that war.”
Cooper admitted that this does not mean he believes Hitler was the “protagonist” of World War II, but went on to explain how the Nazis “started a war they were completely unprepared for.”
Towards the end of the Holocaust, six million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis in concentration camps. The goal was to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe.
Cooper sparked anger by downplaying the death camps and suggesting that the Nazis were expressing “humanity” while quoting letters from German soldiers.
“[The Nazis] say, 'We can't feed these people, we don't have enough food to feed these people.' One of them says [in a letter]: “Instead of waiting for them to slowly starve to death this winter, wouldn't it be more humane to kill them all quickly now?”
Both conservatives and liberals quickly criticized Carlson for giving Cooper a platform for his comments.
Former Republican Congressman Cheney criticized Carlson for spreading “pro-Nazi propaganda.”
“This is basically pro-Nazi propaganda, including: 'Churchill was the biggest villain of WW2' and Hitler 'didn't want to fight'. No serious or honorable person would support or endorse this kind of nonsense,” she said in a post on X.
Conservative commentator Erick Erickson said: “We didn't expect Tucker Carlson to become an outlet for Nazi apologetics, but here we are.”
And the anti-hate organization Anti-Defamation League said: “Tucker Carlson's praise of Nazi apologist Darryl Cooper is an insult to the memory of the 6,000,000 Jews murdered by Hitler's Nazi regime.”
The Republicans Against Trump account also weighed in, saying, “Tucker Carlson just invited a Nazi apologist to explain why Hitler wasn’t so bad and how Winston Churchill was the real ‘bad guy.’ This is a reminder that Tucker Carlson got a major speaking engagement at the Republican Convention and speaks to Donald Trump regularly.”
The Independent has contacted Cooper and Carlson for comment.
Cooper responded to the negative reactions to X by posting a lengthy thread on X in which he said his intention was “not to defend the actions of the Third Reich or any of its leaders,” but to argue that “of all the warmongering leaders, Churchill was the one most determined to prolong and escalate the conflict into a world war of annihilation.”
“Germany and Italy did not want it – before the conquest of Western Europe, German leaders, including Hitler, were even skeptical that they could take on Britain in a fight,” he added.
“We may be sceptical about Hitler's motives for repeatedly offering peace and for showing restraint towards British citizens despite months of provocation, but the fact is that Germany offered peace and by all accounts genuinely wanted it.”
Cooper has a history of making offensive comments about the Nazis.
Multiple posts cited a photo Cooper posted on X during the Olympics in July, where he shared a photo of Hitler standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. In the since-deleted post, he appeared to suggest that Nazi-occupied France was “preferable” to modern-day Paris during the 2024 opening ceremony.
“This may be too blunt a statement for some, but the photo on the left was infinitely better than the one on the right in almost every way,” he said.
After he deleted that post, Cooper appeared to respond to the negative reactions. “I like to post provocative nonsense, to see how close I can come to crossing various lines,” he said in a post on X. “But there are a few people who, even though they disagree with me a lot, try to give me the benefit of the doubt, and when they tell me I've crossed the line, I check myself. Simple.”
After the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler on July 13, Cooper made another bizarre comment about Hitler.
The next day he posted on X: “If you're having a bad day, just remember that Trump's shooter is currently wandering through hell looking for Hitler while the two guys Kyle Rittenhouse dropped are trying to tell him the news.”
