JTA: StopAntisemitism names Tucker Carlson ‘Antisemite of the Year’ as 2024 winner Candace Owens ramps up anti-Jewish rhetoric

The activist group StopAntisemitism has awarded the conservative personality Tucker Carlson its ignominious honor of “Antisemite of the Year,” citing his frequent invocation of classic antisemitic stereotypes.

The announcement comes as Carlson sits at the center of controversy on the American right about whether extremists should be welcomed in the Republican Party. It also marks the second year in a row that StopAntisemitism has selected a right-wing figure for its accolade, after years of awarding the mantle to mostly left-wing figures.

“Carlson mainstreams antisemitism by platforming and praising Holocaust revisionists and Nazi apologists, while hiding behind irony and plausible deniability,” the group said in a statement. “By legitimizing extremist voices and weaponizing conspiratorial imagery at massive scale, he has helped drag antisemitic ideas back into the mainstream.”

A watchdog presence with more than 300,000 followers on X, StopAntisemitism regularly mobilizes against activists and social media posts. The group has faced criticism for what some perceive as an inordinate focus on Muslim personalities, pro-Palestinian actions and non-prominent individuals. Its defenders deny that, pointing out that StopAntisemitism also regularly spotlights neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers on the right.

Its finalists for Antisemite of the Year included pro-Palestinian celebrities Ms. Rachel, Cynthia Nixon and Marcia Cross; mixed-martial-arts athlete and Holocaust denier Bryce Mitchell; two personalities associated with left-wing network The Young Turks; and social media personalities on both the far left (Guy Christensen) and far right (Stew Peters).

Carlson received the accolade on Sunday night, at the end of a weekend in which he was a keynote speaker at the convention of Turning Point USA, the young-conservatives group founded by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated this fall. In its announcement, StopAntisemitism noted Carlson’s speech at Kirk’s memorial service, in which he described the murder of Jesus in a way that both his critics and fans interpreted as implying that Jews or Israelis had been behind Kirk’s assassination.

At the convention, the Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro continued his campaign against Carlson and Carlson declared himself to free of the anti-Jewish animus that he has long been criticized as propagating.

“Let me just affirm one final time. Not only am I not an antisemite — and I would say so if I was — I’m not an antisemite for a very specific reason,” Carlson said in his speech. “Not because it’s unpopular or my donors don’t like it. I don’t have any donors. I’m not an antisemite because anti-semitism is immoral in my religion. It is immoral to hate people for how they were born.”

It was the same explanation that Vice President JD Vance offered earlier this month when he said in an NBC News interview that he believed antisemitism is wrong.

In his own speech to Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, Vance again refrained from criticizing extremists in the Republican Party, saying that he opposes “purity tests” for inclusion in the conservative movement. He also said he believed that antisemitism in the United States was being fueled by “a real backlash” against U.S. aid to Israel..

As the convention was underway, last year’s “Antisemite of the Year,” the right-wing streamer Candace Owens, embarked on a four-hour broadcast eviscerating Shapiro; amplifying antisemitic theories, including that Jews controlled the slave trade; and promoting a classic work of antisemitism by August Rohling, a German Catholic who believed in the blood libel and argued that the Talmud is a secret guide used by Jews for nefarious purposes. Rohling died in 1931.

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Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a fiery speech Sunday, closing down AmericaFest by commenting on the growing rift inside the conservative movement.

Vance proclaimed that “every American is invited” to the America First movement, adding that “we have far more important work to do than canceling each other.” While the VP didn’t call anyone out by name, he offered a direct repudiation of Ben Shapiro’s speech Thursday calling Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson, right-wing podcaster Candace Owens, Steve Bannon and others “frauds and grifters.”

“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests,” Vance remarked. “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” he said. “Let me just say the best way to honor Charlie is that none of us here should be doing something after Charlie’s death that he himself refused to do in life.” (RELATED: Megyn Kelly Updates AmericaFest As To Whether She And Ben Shapiro Are Still Friends)

Vance went on to say that “we build by adding, by growing, not by tearing down.” Vance then added that Charlie Kirk “understood that any family can have its disagreements, its tough conversations, we can learn and improve and treat one another better, we can love each other despite the disagreements. But winning demands teamwork.”

Carlson dismissed Shapiro’s attacks, calling it akin to “watching your dog do your taxes, while Kelly responded Friday, saying Shapiro “had the nerve to call me a friend right before he called me a despicable coward.”

Erika Kirk endorsed Vance for president in 2028. The conference drew over 30,000 attendees.