Tucker Carlson interviews the father of a murdered American and a resigned Catholic editor over the killing of US citizens in West Bank settler violence and the suppression of related news coverage
Tucker Carlson presents two interviews: one with Kamal Musallet, whose American-born son Saif was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the West Bank in July 2025, and one with Stephen Harriet, a former political editor at the Catholic outlet Zeal/Catholic Vote, who resigned after being told to suppress coverage of Israel.
Summary
a Florida-based Palestinian-American businessman whose son Saif, born in Port Charlotte, Florida, was beaten to death on July 11, 2025, by a mob of approximately 50 Israeli settlers while attempting to reach family-owned land in the West Bank, is the first guest. No one has been punished for the killing. The host then interviews Stephen Harriet, who resigned as the most senior political editor of Zeal News — a news outlet run by the Catholic organization CatholicVote — after executives told him the publication was adopting a new policy of drastically reducing, and in some communications entirely eliminating, coverage of Israel until the midterm elections. A directive he says was conveyed following a meeting between the outlet's CEO and US Ambassador to the Vatican Brian Burch at the Napa Institute conference. Harriet also raises concerns about the broader messaging environment for American Christians, arguing that they are being drawn into complicity in policies he considers unjust — including military actions against civilians in the Arab world and the hostile framing of Arab-American communities, many of whom are Christian and voted for Trump. Harriet reads a statement from Father Bashar, the pastor of Taiba, the last all-Christian town in the West Bank, appealing to American Christians to advocate for the community's protection and right to remain on their land.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening Monologue: The USS Liberty and the Pattern of Impunity
Tucker Carlson: The most shocking part of the story of the USS Liberty — the American ship bombed by the Israeli government back during the Six-Day War in 1967 — is not simply the facts of the case. 34 Americans murdered by the Israelis, 171 wounded, bombed, strafed with machine gun fire. That's a tragedy and it's shocking. But the most shocking part of the story is that the US government, beginning with the then-president Lyndon Johnson, covered it up, prevented the survivors from talking about it, prevented the public from knowing that it even happened. That's ongoing, by the way. American officials still refuse to talk about what happened to the USS Liberty, by and large, with some exceptions.
So that's the part of the story that really makes you wonder what is going on here. It's one thing for a foreign country, a foreign government, to murder your citizens. That does happen. But the idea that your own government would take the side of the foreign nation as it murders your people — the people your government is in charge of caring for — that is really stunning. And you have to ask why.
Well, in some cases, of course, it's just a product of evil intent. There are bad people in positions of power. But for the most part, it's not active evil. It's passive evil. It's the result of moral cowardice. It's more painful to take the side of your own people than it is the side of a foreign government. Therefore, you take the side of a foreign government. That's just the truth about the way most people are, unfortunately.
So as you think about that, you think about the depth of the betrayal involved in the aftermath of the USS Liberty murders. You think, well, that couldn't possibly happen now. Well, in fact, it is happening now. Right now, more than a dozen American citizens have been murdered in pogroms in the occupied territories that Israel controls — the West Bank. And they've been murdered by Israelis, mostly Israeli settlers, the ones conducting these pogroms, armed by the US government, carrying American rifles.
And if you think the term pogrom is too strong, you don't know the details of what's happening there. Israeli settlers, many of them American citizens, carrying American weapons, murdering the local population — Palestinians, some of whom, more than a dozen of whom, have been American. And by the way, they are prohibited from defending themselves. They cannot carry weapons. Palestinians can't carry weapons on their own land, but Israeli settlers who seek to steal that land can.
So these pogroms have been ongoing, of course, but most Americans have no idea that American citizens have been murdered during the course of them. And they have no idea because the media by and large don't report it, and American officials have no interest in talking about it.
Introduction: Saif Musallet and the CNN Footage
Tucker Carlson: So we want to bring you a very specific story of a young American man — and by American we mean literally American, born in the United States, worked at his family's ice cream shop in Tampa — who was murdered last summer in July of 2025 in the West Bank. He was murdered attempting to go to land that his family owns, has a deed to — not owns in some conceptual sense, but literally owns. And he was killed by settlers, none of whom have ever been punished for that crime.
Under normal circumstances, we would give a long monologue about why this is bad. Of course it's self-evidently bad, and what it means. But we've just conducted two of the most extraordinary interviews we've done in a long time. One with the father of the boy who was murdered, and another with an American journalist who works for a Catholic publication who was effectively prevented from talking about this entire topic — who was censored on behalf of the Israeli government in the United States.
So these two interviews answer at least two questions. The first is: what is happening? You may not know the details of what is being done with your money, in your name, to your fellow citizens in a foreign land. And the second is: why haven't you heard about this? Why is there effectively a media blackout on the details? Not a total media blackout — in fact, we're about to play you a clip from CNN, which, to their credit, they did cover the murder last summer of the boy from Florida. But by and large the American media do not report on the details of these crimes, of these pogroms. Why is that? And the second interview, with the editor — former editor — from this Catholic publication, gives you a sense of just how the news coverage is shut down at the level of the news organization, what the censorship looks like within the newsroom.
So we want to frame the first interview we're about to bring you with that clip we just mentioned from CNN, which has video in it that you may not have seen. This is something worth watching. What you're about to see is video of the father, accompanied by a news crew, attempting to go to the place where his son was beaten to death during these pogroms.
Kamal Musallet hasn't been able to reach this land in over a year. This is the hillside where his son Saif, an American citizen, was killed. Beaten to death by Israeli settlers exactly one year ago. Since then, settlers have illegally occupied the area, preventing this father from getting the closure he so desperately seeks.
"We have to keep an eye because usually they'll come down that way."
But this solemn, sacred moment won't last. Within seconds, we spot a car speeding towards us. We start to leave, but as we drive away, we see that four settlers have set up a roadblock. Armed with clubs and rocks, they try to block our way — first with their bodies, and then —
"And now it looks like he's trying to slash our tires. He's trying to slash our tires."
"Oh, he's got a knife. He's going for the tires."
"Oh my God."
A group of independent journalists and activists are in the car behind us.
"MOVE. MOVE."
But their vehicle isn't armored.
"Drive."
But the settlers aren't done. More arrive, blocking another road before chasing us and attacking us again.
"No, they're trying to stop our car again. They're hitting us."
We finally make it back to safety, where I get on the phone with the Israeli military, which is responsible for security in this area. But settlers have also called the military, and these soldiers are only interested in harassing us, refusing to take action against the settlers.
Tucker Carlson: That man, as you just saw, is called Kamal Musallet. He runs an ice cream shop and a Smashburger store in Tampa, Florida. And we're about to bring you our interview with him. We're not going to say a lot more, because nothing we could say would be half as affecting or informative as what you're about to hear him say.
But we add one thing. You will hear him describe his efforts to get the attention of his own US senator, Rick Scott of Florida. Keep in mind Kamal Musallet is from Florida. He grew up in Clewiston, Florida, right near Lake Okeechobee. He's not some foreigner. He's an American citizen and has always been. His family, his parents, were American citizens. And of course his son, now gone, was an American citizen too. Rick Scott is the Republican senator who represents him. And yet Rick Scott has refused to meet with him. Rick Scott is always welcome on this show to explain why — consider this an official invitation to Senator Scott. But keep in mind, as you listen to this, that his representative in the United States Senate, Rick Scott, has refused to meet with him or do anything to affect justice in this case. The killers of his son remain unpunished.
Interview with Kamal Musallet: The Death of Saif Musallet
Tucker Carlson: Kamal Musallet, thank you so much for joining us. I'm hoping you'll tell us the story of your son. I just want to be clear for people watching that he was an American — not simply a green card holder or even a naturalized citizen, but a birthright American, born in Florida, fully American. And he was murdered in the occupied territories by settlers. So tell us who he was and what happened, if you would.
Kamal Musallet: My name is Kamal Musallet. Saif Musallet was born in Port Charlotte, Florida. He was working at an ice cream shop in Tampa, Florida. He and I built it together, we opened it up, and he was serving ice cream to kids — that was his job description.
Saif, in the summer of 2025, July, was in the West Bank, Palestine. He wanted to visit his family. My wife was there at that time, and his siblings were there. And honestly, he actually wanted to hopefully find a potential wife. He wanted to get engaged. He said, "Maybe I can find my spouse there." So I told him — I was debating, because business was booming, the ice cream shop was doing well — but he convinced me. He said, "Let me go there for now." I told him, "Okay, but what we'll do is switch places — I'll go take care of the ice cream shop while you go there." We spent some time together there. We spent our holiday, the Eid, and we attended my nephew's wedding, which is his cousin. And then I came back to the States. I left him there.
Israeli settlers, since April of 2025, had been basically trying to steal more land — the land theft that they're doing and getting away with. Since April, they'd been coming to our town. It's basically across from our village. Our village consists of homes and schools and so forth on one hill, and then the other is kind of like open field, but it's part of our village. Tucker, as you might have heard before, our village consists of 80% American citizens. My grandfather came to the States in 1895 on a boat and lived in New York. My father came in the '60s. So I'm second generation. I've been here for years. I grew up in Clewiston, Florida — small town by Lake Okeechobee.
Tucker Carlson: I know it. Yeah.
Kamal Musallet: I went to Friday night football games. That's who we are. So we are Americans. My son was born in the States. My older brothers were born in the States. Our village — just like my father, most of the older generations moved to the States. So 80% of our village consists of Americans. Of 20,000 people, only 4,000 live there and 15,000 live abroad, either in the States or South America, and most of them are American citizens. Most of these American citizens own these lands. I own a piece of land on this mountain, and the Israeli settlers have been going there since April 2025 and preventing us from getting to our lands.
And as you know, Tucker, there's Area A, B, and C. Believe it or not, this land where these settlers are right now, this moment as we speak — I can't get to my land there. It's Area A and Area B. It's not Area C, the disputed area that the Oslo Agreement says is under Israeli authority. No, this is under Palestinian Authority. But the Palestinian Authority doesn't even go there. So they were trying to get to their lands since April, and week after week they were attacked and attacked and attacked. It just doesn't make sense that we can't get to our lands because of five or six or seven of these Israeli settlers attacking us. They're armed with M16s. They're armed with sticks, with rocks, and so forth. And every time someone would try to go there, they would get hurt or attacked. But it's our right to be on our land. This is land owned by us. This land is owned by American citizens, Tucker. There are many Americans all over the world that buy land and own land in many foreign countries.
So that July 11th, just like every other week, many people were trying to get to their lands. They were prevented by these Israeli settlers. Saif was one of the people trying to get to his land. I have about an acre of land there in Area A. There weren't many settlers visible — it seemed they had an ambush ready for them. When they got there, maybe 50 settlers, a mob of them, ambushed Saif. They ambushed his friend Muhammad Shalabi, attacked many other people that day. His friend Muhammad Shalabi was shot in the back — a close friend of his, a Palestinian, but his name is not as well known because he's not an American. Saif was beaten to death that day.
What happened was that the first ambulance trying to reach him was attacked by stones on the way there and had to go back. My other son Muhammad, when he heard about this — and I'm in the States, Tucker, right now at this moment —
Tucker Carlson: Sorry. All right.
Kamal Musallet: It's hard to imagine. It's my oldest son. So I get these messages saying that Saif is on this mountain and Saif has been hurt. Nobody's giving me direct messages. Nobody's telling me exactly what's happening. And I understand that — nobody wants to tell the father what's going on.
My younger son Muhammad, he heard what happened. He crossed this mountain, and I guess the adrenaline pumped into him and he wasn't afraid that there were Israeli settlers there. He wasn't afraid that the Israeli army — remember, Tucker, the Israeli army's presence was there at that moment. And that's why we couldn't get another ambulance. After the first ambulance went back, they had to get a permit for another ambulance to enter to get to Saif. And it took two and a half hours until they finally got the permit to reach Saif.
But my son, when he heard this, he went there. He crossed this mountain. He told me there were settlers on top, but they didn't see him. The Israeli soldiers didn't see him. He got to his brother. He reached his brother. And I was calling and calling and calling. When I called Saif's phone and someone answered, I was kind of relieved at that moment. But Saif's face was blue. He had a hard time breathing. His body just couldn't take it. What's sad is my other son told me that he was still breathing and waiting for some sort of help. He was unconscious with his eyes open.
When I called him later on, my son told me that Saif didn't look good, that he needed medical attention, medical help. And when they finally approved for this ambulance to get to him after two and a half hours, they put him on the stretcher, and five minutes before he got into the ambulance, my son told me that he took his last breath.
Tucker Carlson: Oh.
Kamal Musallet: So it was just that — just that time. If they had allowed the ambulance, if the first ambulance had gotten to him, he would be with us right now at this moment. I would not be having this interview with you at this moment. I would be with my son. We would be in the ice cream shop working together.
The first one didn't make it — why not allow the second one to get there sooner? They should have been the ones knowing that illegal Israeli settlers were on land that is not theirs, under the Oslo Agreement, under international law, under Israeli law. There are these big signs up there — I don't know if you've seen pictures of them — that it is illegal for an Israeli to be in Area A. There are these big red signs. So under Israeli law, it's illegal for them to be there. They attacked my son. They attacked many other people. Why are they not even sending ambulances to help these people that have been hurt?
He took his last breath at that moment. And ever since then, there's been no accountability. There's been no justice. There's only been more settlers going there. Till this day, over a year later, settlers are still in those areas. Every time we try to go there, we get attacked.
Just on the one-year anniversary, I don't know if you saw the CNN report that I did with Jeremy Diamond. I agreed with CNN that I would do a follow-up. I had a condition that I needed to be safe. They provided me an armored car. They provided me bulletproof vests. So think about it — to try to get to my own land, the only way that I can feel safe is if I'm in an armored car. And this is one year later since my son was murdered.
And we all know — what did Mike Huckabee say when he learned about Saif's murder? He called it a criminal and terrorist act. A criminal and terrorist act. What did the director of the FBI say? I was listening to him not long ago and this thing popped up. He said — these are his exact words — "If you kill an American citizen in an act of terrorism, we will hunt you down. We will bring you to justice, and you will face justice here in America." And Mike Huckabee called it a criminal and terrorist act.
Accountability and the Failure of US Officials
Kamal Musallet: Why is my son different than any other American? If it was any other place in the world, Tucker, that a mob beats an American citizen to death in a foreign country, what would be the outcry? Would they not send authorities from the US to investigate it? Why is my son different in this situation? It just doesn't make sense.
I didn't get a call from Rick Scott. I didn't get a call from DeSantis. I tried to set up meetings with them when I went to DC. But don't get me wrong — there are many senators out there that are sincere. Van Hollen is one of them, and him and 27 or 28 other senators signed a letter demanding an independent investigation led by the US. And till this day, nothing.
I try to get some answers from the Israeli authorities and they've given me no updates. So that day when I went with Jeremy, one year later, I wanted to go to the place where my son was killed. I wanted to maybe get some closure. I wanted to see the tree that he was under — because his friends put him under a tree where there was shade. It was hot that day. And I wanted to reach that tree.
But that day when we went with CNN one year later, they're still there. We got attacked. The car was attacked. The journalist behind us got attacked. We were safe because we were in an armored car. The footage shows that the settlers were trying to slash the tire with a knife. And it was after reaching the area that the attack occurred. I reached that area and, to be honest, it was really hard on me, because I started to imagine my son being in that area, being attacked, and his friends being attacked. Our next goal was to reach the tree where he took his last breath. And on our way there, we were attacked, then chased around the whole mountain until we got out safely. And even after that, they came down to the village and started attacking.
Until when? Why is there not sanctions on these people, on these terrorists? Why is there not enough international pressure stopping this? And this is not only happening to Palestinians. This is happening to Americans. We're funding this.
That day, they said they apprehended four people. But what really happened? Because the next day we couldn't get there. The Israeli army, claiming to be so capable, can't remove seven or eight settlers from this mountain. The Palestinians can only do so much. They can't retaliate against them. The only thing they can do is basically nothing. We took it to the courts. We tried to evict them — which makes no sense, evicting them from land that's not even theirs. And the Israeli Supreme Court has a court order that they must be removed, that they must leave. And still nothing. No investigation from the US Department of State. Israeli authorities are not removing them.
And till this day, as a father, I feel I have a responsibility for my son, for Saif, that I can't give up. And as an American, Tucker — he loved being an American. He got his new passport, the new one with the cards. He sent me a video. He said, "Dad, look at the new passport. It's different." And his friend sent me a video after he was killed that I'd never seen before until after he was killed. He was holding this US passport and he was saying — these were Saif's direct words — "Blue is blue. It doesn't matter if you're a Palestinian American. It doesn't matter if you're any other. Blue is blue. American is an American." He believed in it so much. And it kind of — how disappointed would he be right now that his passport did nothing for him.
Tucker Carlson: Okay. This is who Saif was. Let me ask you two questions. Has anyone ever been arrested for your son's murder?
Kamal Musallet: They claim at the beginning some were — four were arrested that day. They didn't give me information on who. They were released soon after.
Tucker Carlson: So no one's been punished for murdering your son.
Kamal Musallet: Nobody's been punished.
Tucker Carlson: That's my first question. My second question — I just want to make sure I have this clear. You're an American. You run an ice cream shop in Tampa where your son, an American citizen, worked. You're Floridians. And Rick Scott, the Republican senator from Florida, will not meet with you after your son, an American citizen and Florida resident, was murdered in a foreign country. Did I get that right?
Kamal Musallet: We've tried to do direct meetings with him. I think they wanted us to meet with their staff or so forth. I wanted direct contact. I wanted to meet him directly. I went to DC. I met with many senators. Why not my senator? My Florida senator?
Tucker Carlson: I just want to say that again. Rick Scott — and the phone number for his office is on the internet, I encourage everyone to look it up and give the office a call — Rick Scott, the Republican senator from Florida, will not meet with his own constituent whose son was murdered in a foreign country.
You think, like the USS Liberty, that could never happen now. That American leaders would never tolerate their own people being killed by a foreign country. They would never cover up on behalf of a foreign power when Americans are murdered. But clearly it is happening again.
Kamal Musallet: Yeah. And my son is not even the only American that's been killed there. Since 2003, a dozen Americans have been killed. And even after my son — my whole thing was, maybe this time will be different. Maybe something will happen. There was media coverage of Saif's story, and I thought it won't happen again, there'll be some sort of international pressure, no other American will be killed there. And even after my son was killed, two more Americans were killed by Israeli settlers. And it just doesn't stop.
Why is the US government not doing enough for their citizens when it comes to them being killed by Israelis? I don't know, Tucker — don't you think if it was any other place in the world, they would send investigators to see what happened? It's been a year down the road and I feel now it's even too late. What kind of investigation can you do after a year?
I'm going to try to keep doing my part and demand justice, demand accountability. And hopefully this impunity that they have — thinking they can do anything they want and get away with it, because they are — nobody's stopping them. There's no true accountability. Nobody's going to jail. And like I said, when the director of the FBI said you're not going to get away if you kill an American citizen, these guys have.
Tucker Carlson: You can also rape children and molest children in the United States and flee to Israel and never face justice. And that's happened a lot. So they behave as if they have impunity because they do have impunity. That's the answer.
Kamal Musallet: They do have impunity. And Mike Huckabee called me up two days after. These were my exact words that I asked him: "Should I not fear to go into my land as an American — land that is under my name, that I purchased — anytime I want?" And he said, "No, you should not." One year later, I still fear going into my land. He came to my house. We sat with each other. He told me he wants to get answers from the Israeli authorities. And still today, no answers from them. The case is still open, but with no answers, with nothing.
Tucker Carlson: Well, he is the United States ambassador in a country that would only exist because of the United States. So if he wanted answers, he could get answers. He's the envoy from the Trump administration, the benefactor of Israel. It's not that hard to get answers if you really want to. So he doesn't really want to.
Kamal Musallet: What hurts a lot, Tucker, is — imagine what it feels like — my own tax dollars that I pay contributed to my own son's murder.
Tucker Carlson: Yes.
Kamal Musallet: That hurts. Because we all know our tax dollars go there, and my son was killed there. So do I have a part of that, in reality? We can pray for the best and hope that there'll be some change. They'll finally put a stop to this land theft that just keeps going and going and going.
Just three weeks ago, they put a new outpost in our land, in the Musallet land — land owned mostly by Americans from our village. They brought their sheep. They started small. Now there's a tent there. And now every day more and more settlers are going there. Now another area of our village that we can't go to because there are Israeli settlers there. This was just three weeks ago. So it's not stopping. It's increasing, actually, every day.
Tucker Carlson: I appreciate your taking the time to tell your story and the story of your son and what happened after he was murdered in this pogrom. And I hope many people will see this and I hope that change is the result of that. So thank you very much.
Kamal Musallet: Well, thank you, Tucker, for having me and letting me give my story and letting my son's legacy live on. Thank you.
Introduction to the Second Interview: Media Suppression of Israel Coverage
Tucker Carlson: So if you just watched that entire interview, we were emotionally exhausted by the end of it. You may be asking yourself, among many other questions, why didn't I know that this happened? Pogroms are underway — literal pogroms where people are being murdered, including American citizens, including a boy from an ice cream shop in Tampa. And I didn't know that even happened.
Well, the reason you may not have known is because the media are by and large not covering it. There is one exception. It's a Catholic publication whose political editor you're about to meet — former political editor — and his name is Stephen Harriet. Harriet describes how coverage of this story and stories like it has been shut down at a Christian publication. And of course, if it's shut down at a Christian publication, you can imagine it has no shot at all at most media outlets in the United States.
Interview with Stephen Harriet: Editorial Suppression at a Catholic Outlet
Tucker Carlson: Stephen, thanks so much for doing this. This story — what happened to you recently — is hard to believe at first. If I understand just the outline of it, you were working for a Catholic news organization and you were told not to allow anything in print that might criticize or discredit the state of Israel, up to and including the state of Israel's mistreatment of Christians. Is that right?
Stephen Harriet: It's not quite such a complete prohibition. More alarmingly — let me just give a little context. I work for, and I'm a longtime political editor for, Zeal News, which is a Catholic Vote news outlet. We have in the past — until very recently — done a lot of coverage, arguably more than any other Catholic outlet, on the mistreatment of Palestinians by Israeli forces and by the Israeli settler movement. One of our main sources on the ground has been the organization the Vulnerable People Project, which I know you've heard of and I've seen mentioned on your show.
What happened is, right after the Napa conference, it was conveyed to me that we were now adopting a new policy — to drastically reduce our coverage of Israel. I will say it's been presented to me in various ways. On one occasion, yes, it was a total prohibition: no coverage of Israel until the elections, as a rule, and maybe with exceptions, but if there are exceptions, it has to be explicitly brought to the CEO and brought under extra scrutiny.
Tucker Carlson: I'm sorry to ask you to pause — until which elections?
Stephen Harriet: I guess the upcoming midterms would be the reference. And to me, what was alarming at the outset was that this came in the context of right after the Napa conference in California, which was attended by the US Ambassador to the Vatican, Brian Burch.
Tucker Carlson: And what is the Napa conference?
Stephen Harriet: The Napa Institute. The people present would be influential Catholics in politics and media, donors, and the US Ambassador to the Vatican, Brian Burch, who is the former president of Catholic Vote. The current CEO of Catholic Vote and of Zeal, Kelsey Reinhardt, and another executive met with him. They also met with donors. And it was presented to me as coming from that — one of the takeaways from their meetings with donors and from their meeting with the ambassador was: we have to change our editorial policy on all articles we were publishing with regard to this one issue, Israel.
That in itself, without even getting into the substance of what the policy change might be, was so alarming that I immediately went to my immediate supervisor and said, "I think this violates my conscience. I don't think I can abide by this." But that was only, I guess, the beginning.
Tucker Carlson: May I ask you again to pause and tell us what your supervisor said when you explained your conscience won't permit you to work under these conditions?
Stephen Harriet: My direct supervisor was very sympathetic. And there are, as you know on this issue, a lot of sympathy. In fact, as I said to one of my bosses, you could cast about for sympathy for days. If you tell people we're changing our policy on Israel stories until the elections, you'll find that sympathy in one or two retirement communities, maybe in Florida and New York, and maybe in some boardrooms in DC. But as you've seen, people are very morally outraged by the comportment of Israel in the West Bank and of course in Gaza over the last three years almost.
So yes, my direct supervisor was very sympathetic. There are plenty of people who are very sympathetic. And in fact, Tucker, I'd honestly say — and I said this to everyone before I resigned — I said, "I believe that you are fundamentally in agreement with me on this. I view you not as some bad guy trying to impose something on me, but as a good person who's been manipulated." And to me, that's my main attitude toward this.
I feel bound in conscience. And I even said this to executives before I resigned: "This is unmistakably a moral scandal." With the involvement of the US Ambassador to the Vatican especially — in light of how outspoken our Holy Father has been, as well as his right-hand man, the holy man Battista Pizzaballa, the cardinal who is the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to say nothing of the clergy on the ground in the West Bank — for the US ambassador to be going to the Napa conference and meeting with an executive at a media organization and saying we need to adjust our policy toward Israel and the way we cover it is inherently scandalous. And I said, "I will not be complicit in such a scandal. I don't appreciate being put in the position of sitting on it."
And sure enough, when I reached out to your team, your response, I think, was as commonsensical as mine — like, are you kidding me? That's very alarming. There's no mistaking it.
Tucker Carlson: No, it's shocking. I mean, this is a Christian news organization reporting on, among other things, the mistreatment of Christians in the Holy Land. And to hear not just that a US official, but the ambassador to the Vatican, would be trying to shut that down — yeah, I had trouble believing that could be true.
Stephen Harriet: Well, and to be clear, Tucker, I wasn't privy to this conversation. I didn't have a conversation with the US Ambassador to the Vatican. But it was very strange to me that three executives independently confirmed that this conversation had taken place. Two of them were present and recounted it — "as I was saying to Brian, and as he said" — so to be meeting with the ambassador to the Vatican and coming out of that meeting with a new editorial policy with regard to all stories having to do with Israel.
By the way, I'm Catholic Vote's most senior editor. I'm the political editor. To hear this as marching orders out of the blue, and for it to be presented frankly cavalierly — here's the other thing. When I talked with the CEO, she did mention — and I do quote — "I understand that some things have been communicated in a clunky and alarming way." At one point she even said she would have the person who communicated it to me rescind his communiqué. Nonetheless, I was like, "No, you don't go 'oops' on something like this." This is very grave. And I was frankly just — I'm still mystified that they would not see how serious I was, but also how grave the situation is.
Tucker Carlson: What do you think motivated this? And pardon my ignorance — what kind of coverage were you all doing before this conversation?
Stephen Harriet: Wonderful coverage. I'm very proud of it. I'm very proud of them — they really stuck their necks out. One of our main focuses, to give you a flavor of it, was Taiba. And thank you, by the way — I've heard you mention Taiba on your show.
Tucker Carlson: Yes.
The Christian Village of Taiba and the New Editorial Policy
Stephen Harriet: It's the last all-Christian town in the West Bank, and it has been subject to some really nasty settler violence and menacing activity — settlers surrounding it or trying to push the local community out. This is an ancient Christian community. They descend from the first converts. The West Bank is made up of descendants of Christ's first followers.
We've done some beautiful coverage of Taiba that included exclusive comments from the residents there. That coverage included citations of those residents expressing — essentially alleging — that Israeli forces were complicit in, or even facilitated, settler violence against them and threats against them by settlers.
So there's a final chapter to this. Hours after I tendered my resignation, the Zeal website published its first report on Taiba without my editorial oversight, and presumably in keeping with the new policy they had adopted on Israel. And in sharp contrast to all of the past reports on Taiba, there were no direct quotations from the residents. The main source it cited was an official statement from the Israeli military, and that statement gave its rationale as: "We are coming and declaring Taiba a closed military zone in order to protect the residents from settler violence." It flies in the face of everything — the whole perspective of the local community, including Father Bashar, the local pastor, whom we've quoted in our past reports. These are exclusive quotes, by the way. I got these exclusive contacts through the Vulnerable People Project.
And a major part of the policy that troubled me the most — when they said we're going to be changing our policy on Israel — was zero, absolutely no more citations of the Vulnerable People Project as a source. And I'm like, they're our main source. They're a gold mine. They're a US-based Catholic apostolate. Their work has been favorably written up by the official Vatican news portal. They have contacts with everyone on the ground, including Father Bashar. It's through them that I got these exclusive comments from Taiba's residents. To suddenly no longer be able to cite VPP or use them as a source — and they're offering us exclusives freely — that's a major curtailment of my ability to cover what's happening to the community in the West Bank.
So anyway, in this report, no quotations of local residents. The main quotation was an Israeli press release from the military. And since then, I've been in a group chat with residents of Taiba, and they told me — the general mood, the sentiment on the ground — is: "We are frightened of the increased Israeli military presence. We don't trust it. We're afraid it might even lead to a worse outcome. We feel more under threat." And in addition to that, settlers are still getting through. This is supposedly a closed military zone. The Christian residents of Taiba are saying their movement is being restricted, but settlers are walking into their town armed and not being stopped — which presumably would be the purpose of this closed military zone, to check them before they get in.
There's footage now of people in Taiba being confronted by settlers, and the Bedouin communities right outside of Taiba are being directly attacked by settlers — yesterday, as I was literally in communication with them directly while these attacks were happening. So the military zone is not working. More importantly, the residents don't even believe it was intended to.
Tucker Carlson: Yeah, it sounds like it is working according to its purpose.
Stephen Harriet: It's so disgraceful. It's so evil.
Tucker Carlson: Why would the United States ambassador to the Vatican abet the ethnic cleansing of Christians from the land that Jesus walked? I don't understand.
Stephen Harriet: I don't either, Tucker. And I can't speculate beyond to say — in a way, I think that what's happening right now, we battle, as scripture says, against powers and principalities. It would be simplistic and unproductive to go, "Okay, I found the bad guys." Where none of the bad guys are, we're all good.
Tucker Carlson: Right.
Stephen Harriet: The line, as Solzhenitsyn said, between good and evil runs through the human heart. And I just found it runs through the hearts of everyone in my organization.
Tucker Carlson: Right. Yeah. And ours for that matter.
Stephen Harriet: And ours, right? And so the message that I feel I want to send is more like: right now the church in the Holy Land is suffering. And I want Catholics in America to be intimate with Christ, to be close to Christ, to look to Christ and not lose sight of Christ on the cross and not lose sight of the body of Christ where it's suffering — especially not allow whatever the interests might be that would say, "Well, until the elections, we need to downplay some" — that's just not an option for us as Christians. It's not.
We have to be focusing on being in solidarity, I think especially with our co-religionists when they're under attack, in the land where Christ walked, the birthplace of our faith. What could be more important than that? Someone's ambitions for 2028? Some donors who are angling for something? Certainly not even in the interest of the current administration, which has been increasingly outspoken, by the way, against Israeli aggressions. We have Trump directly decrying Benjamin Netanyahu's use of arms in Lebanon, where their offensive is explicitly modeled after their Gaza offensives, and specifically calling it out for high civilian casualties. We have Vice President Vance warning about domestic efforts to pressure people to comply with Israel's interests. And we have the Trump administration repeatedly calling them out over annexations and over the settler movement explicitly.
So again, I don't — if you know what I mean — I guess I'm saying, why would this happen? Because there's a devil. Not because I found the bad guys. It's not as simple as that. In fact, I would also say that especially alarming is the fact that this is all especially alarming because of how good everyone involved is.
Tucker Carlson: Yes.
Stephen Harriet: There is a powerful outpouring of pressure in the direction of keeping American Christians from looking at their own church where it suffers and their own Lord and being intimate with the people in the Holy Land. It's so powerful that even the best of us — Catholic Vote and Zeal, I think, have done arguably the best of all outlets in the US in terms of coverage of this issue — and even they, someone got to them. You see what I'm saying?
Tucker Carlson: Of course I do.
Stephen Harriet: So to me, it's almost like — it's not like I found the bad guys and I want to go on Tucker's show and tell everyone how bad they are. My attitude is almost more like: wow, this is so bad that even the best people, who are ostensibly advocating for the interests of our faith and of our Lord and of the body of Christ, are feeling enough pressure that they're going to their editor and saying, "Shut up." Like, we have to be really careful. Whatever they — like I said, even if they weren't saying shut up and no coverage, even if they were saying we've got a new policy on this one issue — that's it. That's enough for me. I'm like, no, that's very alarming.
Tucker Carlson: That is such a wise perspective, and I just want to thank you for it. Because it is bigger than the story itself, and it is of a piece. And the rest of the piece is Christian persecution, and it's happening in a lot of different places. Most strikingly in Ukraine, where the government in charge has banned the largest Christian denomination, and not one in a thousand Americans knows that their tax dollars are supporting this. So I wonder if you see this as foreshadowing of Christian persecution in the United States.
Christian Persecution, Political Messaging, and the Broader Pattern
Stephen Harriet: Yes and no. I mean, yes. I shouldn't say "and no," of course. Yes, in the sense that — the symbol that convinced me and kept me tied to Christianity, even when I struggled most profoundly with my faith to the point of identifying as an atheist, was the crucifix. And it was because it looks like reality. Christ identified himself — went out of his way to identify himself — especially with people who are not let in on the program, people who are marginalized, who are not respected or represented. And then he died like one of them. And he said, "You have to treat them like they're me."
Right now I see, definitely in our political messaging, something that is more dangerous to Christians because it doesn't directly target Christians. Instead, it inveiggles them into complicity in attacking their innocent neighbors who are not Christian. And so it's still a betrayal of the heart of Christianity. It is a betrayal of love and of human solidarity. And it is a stumbling block to our neighbors to whom the gospel is meant to be good news, not a threat.
So right now in our messaging — and unfortunately Catholic Vote has even been, again, some of the best of us are being drawn into this — you've seen the messaging about Muslims. We're living in a context where we as American taxpayers have been made complicit, by our taxpayer dollars, in numerous decades of unjust military actions, including against civilians throughout the Arab world. Most of the victims of which, yes, are Muslims, many of whom are also obviously Christians. And there's no downplaying the gravity of ISIS, the rise of radical Islam, and the persecution of minorities — Yazidis, Christians, and so forth — throughout the Middle East.
But in the context of this, we are part of — we helped get people elected who are involved in horrifically unjust actions. We just bombed a girls' school in Iran based on, like, 1.0-level GPS AI systems. No apologies. And that's just the latest of a long train of examples of abuses, military brutality, to say nothing of our backing of Israeli policies that have hurt people. Trump went to the Knesset and gave a speech at one point, and he boasted of US manufacturers providing the arms that Benjamin Netanyahu used in Gaza, and then he turned to Netanyahu, who was present, and said, "And you used them well." I cried that day. It twisted my guts, because I helped get this man elected, and this is evil.
But right now, the messaging — "Muslims, else you can oppose the guy's candidacy for numerous reasons, but he said 'inshallah,' so that's actually code for 'I'm declaring war on Western civilization.'" I have a coworker, by the way, who is a Lebanese Christian, Lebanese-American. Jesus says "inshallah." It's like saying "how are you" — it's so common in their language throughout the Arabic world. One person who works for VPP is a Christian, an expat from Gaza, and he says it like 20 times a day.
Tucker Carlson: Do you know what it means literally? Do you know what the English translation from the Arabic means?
Stephen Harriet: God willing. Roughly.
Tucker Carlson: Exactly. That's "God willing." And as a Christian, there's kind of no sentiment I endorse more than that. That's not in conflict with my faith. It's an expression of my faith.
Stephen Harriet: Yeah. And the other thing is that the messaging on the right — we can't be complicit in it, as Christians.
Tucker Carlson: Oh, I know.
Stephen Harriet: It's funny, too. There's a Christian community in Dearborn, Michigan, and it's all about how they're going to slaughter everyone as soon as we're not looking. This is a group that has partnered with local Christians to get LGBT extremism out of schools.
Tucker Carlson: Yeah, I know.
Stephen Harriet: They're social conservatives. They're family-oriented.
Tucker Carlson: Oh, I know. Yes. And they all worked to elect Trump, which is the irony.
Stephen Harriet: They all did. And the support that Trump got from Arabs in the United States, Arab-American voters, was really, really strong — the majority. And by the way —
Tucker Carlson: Didn't Jesus spend two full days in a Samaritan village?
Stephen Harriet: Right. And the Samaritans were the enemies of the Jews. Of course, they were going to hell. They were heretics, apostates. And Jesus lingered in their village and brought them over to him. So the idea that we have a moral duty to hate Muslims — no, we have a moral duty to love people. Period.
Tucker Carlson: Yeah. Especially people when they are most directly under threat.
Stephen Harriet: Yeah. And I don't appreciate my friend having a crosshair put over her face because she has a Middle Eastern last name and because she says "inshallah." That's wrong. It is wrong. Christ demands that we not do that.
Tucker Carlson: Right. You're right.
Father Bashar's Statement and Closing Remarks
Tucker Carlson: I must say I'm really impressed by your bravery in resigning — something people almost never do. And I'm grateful that you did, because it opens up your future to something else, and you're clearly on a path that will help this country. So what is your next step?
Stephen Harriet: My next step, if I may — I asked Father Bashar. I said, "I'm about to do a high-profile interview that will air soon. Would you like to say something to American Christians? I'd be honored if I could convey what your message is." Father Bashar is the pastor in Taiba, and I wanted to know his perspective on what Zeal reported was a new policy of declaring Taiba a closed military zone so that the IDF could protect Christians. If you wouldn't mind, could I read his statement?
Tucker Carlson: Oh, I would be grateful if you did.
Stephen Harriet: Okay. This is what he texted to me.
"Taiba is not simply another village on the map. It is an ancient Christian community rooted in the land of Christ for centuries. And today, our people are facing a very serious threat to their ability to remain on their land in security, freedom, and dignity.
For months, we have experienced repeated settler incursions onto private and agricultural lands, fires, damage to property, intimidation of families and workers, and attempts to establish a permanent presence around our town. Even after Taiba was declared a closed military zone, settlers have continued to enter areas around the village.
This is why we believe that any new military presence or security measures must be judged by what actually happens on the ground. Are the attacks stopped? Are our homes and lands protected? Can farmers and workers reach their land safely? Can our children and families live without fear? Our concern is that measures announced in the name of protecting Taiba must not end up restricting the people who are being threatened while failing to stop those responsible for the violence. Protection must mean real protection of this community, its freedom of movement, its property, and its future.
To our Christian brothers and sisters in the United States, I would say: please do not look at us only as Christians who need sympathy. See us as your brothers and sisters who are asking for justice, dignity, and the right to remain in the land where Christianity was born. We do not ask that you stand against anyone. We ask you to stand for human dignity, for justice, for peace, and for the protection of innocent people. Use your voices, your churches, your institutions, and your relationships with your elected representatives to ensure that the protection of Christian communities in the Holy Land is not only spoken about, but translated into concrete action.
And please come and see us. Visit Taiba. Pray with us. Meet our children and families. Listen to their stories. And then go home and tell others what you have witnessed.
Despite everything, our message is not one of despair. We intend to remain. Our answer to fear is faith. Our answer to isolation is solidarity. And our answer to the threat of displacement is to strengthen life here through our schools, jobs, healthcare, support for young families, and especially through giving our children a reason to believe that they have a future in their homeland.
Please pray for us, but also walk with us. Help us keep hope alive in Taiba and keep the Christian presence alive in the Holy Land.
With gratitude and hope, Father Bashar."
Tucker Carlson: Stephen Harriet, thank you very much for doing this interview, and for explaining it so well, and for your integrity in how you responded. It's definitely a model for the rest of us. I hope we see you again.
Stephen Harriet: Thank you, sir.