Antisemitism is rising on the American right, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned on Tuesday, expressing concern that efforts to combat it are not doing so quickly or effectively enough. 

“I want us to be winning, but I’m not sure it is accurate as a descriptive manner that we are winning right now,” Cruz said at an antisemitism symposium in Washington organized by the Republican Jewish Coalition and the National Review. 

Cruz has emerged in recent months as one of the Republican Party’s most vocal critics of right-wing antisemitism. He has targeted influential commentator Tucker Carlson and his strain of isolationist, anti-Israel politics that has in recent months crossed over into overt antisemitism, though Cruz has bemoaned other Republicans’ wariness to criticize Carlson by name. 

At the RJC event, Cruz called Carlson “the single most dangerous demagogue in this country.”

But he said that not enough of his colleagues and allies on the right are aware of the extent of the problem. 

“I don’t want to wake up in five years and find myself in a country where both major political parties are unambiguously anti-Israel and unapologetically antisemitic, and I think that is a real possibility. If Tucker and his minions prevail, that will happen,” Cruz argued. 

Cruz expressed fear that this attitude is not just present but popular among young people on the right, as evidenced by two viral Turning Point USA events last fall where students at Auburn and Ole Miss cheered after deeply anti-Israel questions were asked.  

“I worry about the 19-year-olds who say, ‘Oh, that’s what our team believes. That’s who we are.’ Let’s be clear, if you are a young, ambitious Democrat, it is obvious what you should do. You should be viciously anti-Israel,” said Cruz. 

He applauded the people who came out to the Museum of the Bible on Tuesday to discuss antisemitism but pointed out that their concern does not reflect how the rest of the country thinks about the issue.

“The fact that this room is persuaded does not mean that the college campus is. It does not mean that the Capitol Hill interns are. It does not mean that the interns at Heritage, at [Conservative Partnership Institute] and every other conservative institution in this country, that they’re persuaded,” said Cruz. “We need to fight and engage it and take on the core premises, because if we lose the next generation, we lose the country.” 

Cruz posited that Carlson and other anti-Israel influencers are being paid by foreign nations like Qatar, China and Russia, though he acknowledged that he lacks proof for that theory. 

“I don’t believe all of these voices who have suddenly discovered that Israel is the source of all evil, that everything bad in the world was done by the Jews, that America is controlled by the Jews and that radical Islamic terrorists are really nice, wonderful people — I don’t think these people just arrived on this view organically and magically,” said Cruz. 

“I think many of these influencers are cashing a check,” he added. “The people in this room could do an enormous service by documenting that. I don’t have the evidence right now to prove it, but Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the right one.”