Tucker Carlson questions if Britain should have fought in WW2
Conservative principles face implementation challenges as policy meets political complexity.
he asked a question that makes people wince. Pressing Jacob Rees-Mogg on whether Britain actually benefited from entering World War II wasn't a Holocaust denial or a spit on Churchill’s grave. It was a genuine challenge to a settled story, the kind of thing that used to be allowed before the "greatest generation" became a sacred cow.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson questioned whether Britain benefited from fighting World War II and challenged a former U.K. Conservative Party lawmaker to explain why the country should have entered the war in the first place.
Carlson pressed former Conservative politician Jacob Rees-Mogg on the legacy of the war during a wide-ranging interview, questioning whether Britain was better off after defeating Nazi Germany. JD Vance defends friendship with Tucker Carlson as pressure to condemn antisemitism grows ‘You don’t have control’: Tucker Carlson says coronavirus pandemic has exposed theological weakness of US Antifa group suspended from Twitter after posting video of mobbing Tucker Carlson’s home “I’m saying now that we’ve had it, and as a lover of history, why don’t you tell me the ways in which Britain benefited from … ‘winning the Second World War,’” Carlson said.
Carlson pointed to the collapse of the British Empire, India’s independence shortly after the war, and the rise of the United States as the dominant global power. He also questioned whether Britain had sacrificed its sovereignty by allowing U.S. troops to remain stationed in the country.
Rees-Mogg defended Britain’s decision to enter the war, arguing that the country’s victory over Nazi Germany preserved its sovereignty and prevented Hitler from continuing to expand across Europe. “Our self-respect was hugely maintained by defeating the greatest evil the world has known,” Rees-Mogg said.
Carlson also challenged the conventional narrative surrounding Hitler’s decision to invade Poland, noting that Hitler had repeatedly claimed he did not want war with the U.K. and had previously reached agreements with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. “I’m very surprised you’re verging on defending Hitler,” Rees-Mogg told Carlson. “I’m actually not a secret Nazi,” Carlson replied. “I’m someone who tries to think clearly about cause and effect.” The exchange comes as Carlson has faced controversy for past commentary on World War II, Israel, and antisemitism.
Carlson has faced criticism for interviewing Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper in 2024 and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust, made antisemitic comments, and praised Adolf Hitler.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) previously called Carlson the “most vocal proponent” of antisemitism on the political Right. Cruz also criticized Carlson after his interview with Fuentes, saying that failing to challenge someone who praised Adolf Hitler made a person “complicit in that evil.” Cruz likewise responded to the podcast host’s interview with Rees-Mogg. “Yes, Tucker, the U.K. is better off for winning WWII,” he said. “America is better off for winning WWII.
And the world would be much worse off if the Nazis had won WWII. This is not complicated.”
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
he asked a question that makes people wince. Pressing Jacob Rees-Mogg on whether Britain actually benefited from entering World War II wasn't a Holocaust denial or a spit on Churchill’s grave. It was a genuine challenge to a settled story, the kind of thing that used to be allowed before the "greatest generation" became a sacred cow. Carlson's point, whether you agree or not, is that Britain ended the war victorious and broke, then spent the next seventy years watching its empire dissolve into the very ruins it fought to preserve.
Now, the obvious pushback is that some questions shouldn't be asked because the answers are too dangerous to the civic religion. That's exactly the reflex we should distrust. The war against Hitler was worth fighting. That's not a fuzzy moral sentiment, it's a historical fact. But Carlson isn't asking whether Nazism was evil. He's asking whether a bankrupt Britain, strapped to American debt and Soviet ambition, made a rational decision for its own people. Rees-Mogg's own murmured answer, about "the abstract concept of freedom," was the weakest kind of defense, because it ignored every concrete cost.
Here's where we land. Questioning the sacred cows of our own side is not a sin. It's how we got the nerve to question the left's sacred cows. The liberal reaction to Carlson is predictable, a chorus of "how dare he," but the honest conservative response is more complicated. We can say Carlson is wrong without saying he shouldn't be asked. And when he is, the answer better be better than Rees-Mogg's. Because if "we fought because freedom is good" is all we've got, we're not remembering the war, we're just reciting it.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.