A senior State Department official and two GOP members of Congress met Friday with members of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has long faced accusations of extremism and pro-Nazi sympathies.

The State Department meeting is in line with the recently released National Security Strategy, which stated that it would be U.S. policy to boost anti-European Union and anti-immigration parties in the European Union.

“My exchange with Under Secretary [of State for Public Diplomacy] Sarah Rogers on the new national security strategy of the Trump Administration has made it clear that Washington is seeking a strong German partner who is willing to take on responsibility,” Bundestag member Markus Frohnmaier posted after the meeting, according to an X translation.

“Germany should act once again as a capable leading power by making a consistent turn in migration policy and independently organizing European security, in order to strengthen the German-American partnership on an equal footing. Only if we do our homework will we secure our relevance on the international stage. To shape this path together, I would like to organize a deepening event in Berlin in February 2026.”

Responding to a critic who noted that leaked Russian documents allegedly described Frohnmaier as a Russian asset, Rogers praised the AfD.

“Unlike the Russian government (and the current German one), AfD took an anti-censorship stance in its meeting with me last week. One reason they’re gaining popularity in Germany,” Rogers said.

She also reposted an X post from Special Envoy Ric Grenell, who said that those criticizing the meeting “don’t understand tough diplomacy.”

“Talking is a tactic. We are tired of failed diplomacy where you don’t talk to people and think it’s a punishment. Your guy [former President] Joe Biden didn’t talk to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin for 4 years while a war raged,” Grenell said. “Our side isn’t afraid to talk, and send clear directives as to what we expect. Your silence is weakness. You are so afraid to defend your ideas — and I get it. Your ideas have failed. The German is an official member of the Bundestag and Sarah’s job is to talk and explain our National Security Strategy.”

U.S. officials have met repeatedly with AfD members during the past year.

On Capitol Hill, Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Tim Burchett (R-TN) met with the AfD delegation, at Luna’s invitation. They did not share details about that meeting. Luna has met previously with AfD members earlier this year and publicly offered to host them on Capitol Hill.

Luna said last week that she and other lawmakers would be meeting with “dozens of members” of the AfD.

“The Chancellor of Germany is trashing our President and censoring German citizens,” Luna said on X. “The AfD, whom the German uniparty has tried to smear, intimidate, and even de-bank, is actually working to strengthen ties with the United States and restore a healthy relationship between our governments.”

The Florida congresswoman has also recently faced criticism for her dealings with the Russian ambassador in Washington, advocating for restoring U.S.-Russian ties and accepting a dossier of alleged Russian findings on the John F. Kennedy Jr. assassination.

“Rep. Luna’s decision to roll out the red carpet for members of a far-right, Holocaust revisionist, Putin-loving party is grotesque,” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a co-chair of the bipartisan House antisemitism task force, said ahead of the meeting. In a separate post, he described the AfD members as “neo-Nazis.”

The New York Young Republican club also hosted around 20 members of the AfD at a gala last week.

“Young Republicans in New York are set to honor a Nazi sympathizing extremist,” the Jewish Democratic Council of America said, in response to the Young Republicans event. “This isn’t happening in a vacuum: [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio, [Vice President JD] Vance, and [Elon] Musk have all defended the extremist AfD party. Antisemitism is a feature of the Republican Party, not a bug.”

Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) said on Friday that there is a concerted network, on both the right and left, pushing antisemitic and anti-Israel ideology to the point that it has become “pervasive,” particularly among younger people.

Speaking at a Hudson Institute conference on antisemitism, Mast, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he does not have a “silver bullet” to address the problem because of how widespread it has become. He recounted a recent speech in a class at a military academy where he saw “probably a 50/50 divide about why we have this [U.S.-Israel] relationship, what is the benefit of this relationship?”

The Florida Republican said that he sees a “very specific network that is in place that works together to sow antisemitism that is now, in many cases, working on the left and right across the media, to go out there and put this wedge in this relationship.”

Mast described the effort as “pervasive, systematic, planned out, orchestrated” and a “very, very serious global threat across multi-national organizations, media across the globe and adversaries and terrorist organizations.”

Mast said that in response “we need to do a really good effort of showing the pervasive effort to drive this wedge — through antisemitism, is my opinion — between the United States of America and one of our greatest allies anywhere in all of these spheres — military capabilities, relationships, intelligence sharing, geography, signals intelligence, geospatial intelligence, human intelligence — all these different things that we are so close in, beyond the trust that we have.”

The Foreign Affairs Committee chair said that Europe is one of the U.S.’ “biggest adversaries” in the fight against antisemitism, describing its actions post-Oct. 7, particularly several states’ decisions to recognize a Palestinian state, as “the most unhelpful thing that could possibly be done.” He said that those efforts emboldened the terrorist groups fighting Israel.

Mast said he had not interacted much with Tucker Carlson, one of the most prominent anti-Israel voices on the right, but had a direct conversation with Carlson after the commentator attacked the congressman for his time in the Sar-El program, where he volunteered in a support capacity alongside the Israeli Defense Forces. Mast said he told Carlson he was overlooking that Mast’s ultimate loyalty is to the United States, not to Israel. 

“You never bothered to ask the question of, ‘How many countries have I taken an oath to support and defend?’ Just one: the United States of America,” Mast said he told Carlson, going on to emphasize he took that oath five times as a member of the military and an equal number as a member of the House, in addition to nearly losing his life three or four times in U.S. military service. “You’re connecting dots that don’t exist because you failed to ask some really fundamentally important questions which is, ‘Where do your allegiances lie?’”

Mast said he decided to sign up for the IDF volunteer program during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, when he faced down anti-Israel demonstrators in Boston following his time in the military.

“Some of these people draping themselves — like we see on our college campus here — draping themselves in Palestinian flags, chanting, rallying, whatever, they started harassing me and my family for being a U.S. service member,” Mast said. “At the end of that night, we got home and I told my wife, ‘I don’t know what it’s going to look like, I’m going to find a way. I’m going to show my support for Israel against this hypocrisy and against these pricks that we encountered.’”

Jewish Insider senior national correspondent Gabby Deutch contributed reporting.

Among the most high-profile speakers at this weekend’s Doha Forum in the Qatari capital are Tucker Carlson, his business partner Neil Patel and investor Omeed Malik — a lineup raising eyebrows given Carlson’s recent track record of credulously hosting antisemitic and Holocaust-denying guests on his right-wing podcast. 

The conference, which is partnered with a panoply of elite institutions from CNN to the Atlantic Council, will bring together Trump administration officials, ambassadors, politicians and philanthropists alongside figures who hold fringe or hostile views of Israel and U.S. Middle East policy.

The forum’s layout elevates voices aligned with Doha’s regional agenda while pairing them with Western political, philanthropic and corporate leaders — a mix that lends legitimacy to speakers with out-of-the-mainstream views.

Carlson — who launched the Tucker Carlson Network in 2023 with co-founder and CEO Patel after being fired from Fox News — has been one of the leading right-wing voices who is “elevating antisemitic ideas on the American right,” in the characterization of conservative Washington Post columnist Jason Willick. Earlier this year, Carlson came under fire for holding a friendly interview with neo-Nazi commentator Nick Fuentes.

His interview on the Doha Forum stage on Sunday will take place in conversation with the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, an indication of his prominence at the confab.

Malik is an Iranian-American investor whose firm, 1789 Capital, was a major early backer of Carlson’s media venture. Malik is scheduled to speak alongside Donald Trump Jr., who is a partner of the company, after Carlson’s appearance.

Meanwhile, Patel will be speaking during a session called, “What Happens Now? Media Power and the Search for Truth in the Age of Distrust,” standing in stark contrast to accusations by Carlson’s critics that the podcaster often promotes unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. 

Beyond the Carlson orbit, the Doha Forum speaker list includes appearances by other leading anti-Israel voices including former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, sanctioned U.N. special rapporteur Francesca Albanese and former Iran envoy Rob Malley, who had his security clearance suspended in 2023 amid allegations of mishandling classified information.

Those voices will be mixed with a more traditional cast of guests, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker and Heritage Foundation senior fellow Victoria Coates.

The conference will feature several panels focused on Israel, including one titled “The Gaza Reckoning: Reassessing Global Responsibilities and Pathways to Peace.”

As 2,000 Jewish philanthropists, activists and professionals prepared to leave Washington on Tuesday as the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly wrapped up, they heard a stern warning from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Americans must confront antisemitism on both sides, including the right; if they don’t, the nation will face an “existential crisis.” 

“I do not want to wake up in five years and find that both major parties in America have embraced hatred of Israel and have tolerated, if not embraced, antisemitism,” Cruz said.

Cruz has become the most prominent Republican elected official speaking out against a rising tide of right-wing antisemitism. But the weeks following podcaster Tucker Carlson’s interview with neo-Nazi provocateur Nick Fuentes have sparked a reckoning for Republicans, including some who until recently considered antisemitism to be primarily a left-wing phenomenon.

That internal tension was on full display at a Tuesday afternoon conference hosted by the conservative National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. The group was until recently affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, until the conservative think tank’s president came to Carlson’s defense. Earlier this month the task force members voted to cut ties with Heritage.  

The NTFCA gathering, arranged in less than two weeks after the group’s split from Heritage, took place in a basement ballroom at The Line Hotel in Washington. About 100 people were in attendance, among them representatives from Jewish advocacy groups including the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations of North America and Combat Antisemitism Movement.

The event’s organizers — NTFCA co-chairs Ellie Cohanim, who served as deputy antisemitism special envoy in the first Trump administration; Mario Bramnick, a Florida pastor and president of the Latino Coalition for Israel; and Luke Moon, a pastor and executive director of the Philos Project — took the opportunity to forcefully reject Carlson and other far-right media figures who are gaining clout among conservatives by attacking Israel and its backers, and to issue a call for conservatives to join them in calling out growing animosity toward Jews. They don’t think enough people are doing so. 

“I remember Luke, early on, said, ‘Mario, keep your eye on the right.’ I said, ‘Well, look, that’s a fringe. It’s not really important,’” Bramnick said. “But now we’re seeing a very troubling development during President Trump’s second administration within the MAGA movement: antisemitic acts coming from MAGA movement leaders.” The Project Esther report that the task force developed with Heritage last year was focused solely on left-wing antisemitism. 

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee delivered remarks via video. “There is so much antisemitism around the world today. But what perhaps is most troubling to me is that it is not just rising up on the far left,” Huckabee said. 

Two other Trump administration officials also spoke: Justice Department senior counsel Leo Terrell, who said combating antisemitism “is the American thing to do,” and former Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), Trump’s nominee for international religious freedom ambassador. 

Trump, meanwhile, defended Carlson this week when he was asked about the right-wing podcaster’s interview with Fuentes. 

The convening was a launchpad for a new movement of conservative activists willing to take on antisemitism within their own party. It saw staunch partisans stake out surprising positions, like when Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein said he was “disappointed” that Trump claimed not to know much about Fuentes.

“The fight on the left is still happening. That is not done. That is a work that still has to go on. But we now have an emergent threat on the right,” Moon said. “It’s the early days of this war. I don’t feel like we did win the last battle, but we didn’t lose yet either.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) upped the ante on his recent rhetoric targeting right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson, telling a gathering of Jewish leaders in Washington that calling out antisemitism from Carlson and his Republican allies is necessary to defend American values. He said America faces an “existential crisis” if the rising antisemitism on the American right is not addressed.

“I do not want to wake up in five years and find that the Republican Party has become like the Democrat Party,” Cruz said on Tuesday at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly, which brought together 2,000 philanthropists, activists and Jewish communal professionals. “I do not want to wake up in five years and find that both major parties in America have embraced hatred of Israel and have tolerated, if not embraced, antisemitism.”

The conservative movement has faced internal division and tensions since Carlson hosted neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes on his podcast last month. 

By digging in on his campaign against Carlson, Cruz further separated himself from President Donald Trump, who on Sunday night offered praise for the former Fox News host when he was asked about Carlson’s decision to do a friendly interview with Fuentes. 

“He said good things about me over the years. I think he’s good,” Trump said. “You can’t tell him who to interview.” 

Cruz, meanwhile, has gone after Carlson in increasingly sharp messages, after having his own heated interview with the podcaster in June — including at the recent Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas, then at a Federalist Society conference in Washington and now at the GA. 

In his latest speech, he did more than calling out Carlson and his Republican enablers. He made the case that countering Carlson’s influence is necessary for the future of America.

“That is a poison that not only does damage to Israel. That is a poison that does damage to America,” Cruz said. “And if we’re going to stop it, we’re going to stop it because we stand up and say, ‘No, this is not who we are. This is not what we believe. This is not what the Constitution and the Declaration [of Independence] were all about. This is not what America was all about.’”

At the GA, Cruz was addressing a friendly audience who had spent two days immersed in programming about antisemitism in America. But he warned that many people are not fully grasping the scope of the problem. He described a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this year where, he said, Netanyahu tried to push back on the idea that right-wing antisemitism was a threat. 

“I’ll tell you, he actually was a little dismissive of that. He said, ‘No, no, no, that’s Qatar, that’s Iran, that’s bots,’” Cruz said. “My response: ‘Mr. Prime Minister, yes, but no. Yes, that’s happening. Yes, there are millions of dollars being spent to spread this poison. Yes, that’s happening online. But it is real and organic.’”

The misunderstanding, Cruz said, also exists in the Christian world.

“My message to the Christians is, this poison is spreading. There are pastors who love Israel, who think all is fine,” Cruz said. “My message to them is, ‘Go and talk to the teenagers in your congregation. Go and talk to the 20-somethings in your congregation, because they’re picking up their phone and they’re watching Tiktok and they’re watching Instagram, and they’re hearing this message being driven, and it is resonating.’”

The answer, Cruz said, is for other public officials — Republicans in particular — to speak out. But what’s at stake, he argued, is more than just their party or the Jewish community. He made the case that they must do so for the good of America. 

“My hope is that we see other Republicans willing to stand up, willing to stand up and to be clear, willing to draw a line,” he said. “This is a fight worth fighting. Saving America is worth fighting. Bringing us back to our founding principles — that is worth fighting.” 

President Donald Trump on Friday night publicly disavowed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), once one of the president’s closest and most committed allies on Capitol Hill, saying he was withdrawing his endorsement of Greene and is prepared to support a primary challenger to the far-right Georgia congresswoman.

Greene, long dogged by controversy for her record of promoting antisemitic and otherwise fringe conspiracy theories, has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of Israel on the right, accusing the country of genocide and leading efforts attempting to cut off U.S. aid to the Jewish state.

She has also repeatedly publicly criticized Trump’s policies and Republican leadership on Capitol Hill since the start of the government shutdown, earning Trump’s ire. Her breaks with the GOP have made her into a budding star in liberal media circles, where her ongoing promotion of conspiracy theories has increasingly been overlooked.

Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he has heard that “wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie” and that “if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support,” accusing her of having “gone Far Left.”

Greene’s district is among the most heavily Republican in the country, and losing Trump’s support could prove a significant blow to the congresswoman.

“All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” Trump wrote, adding that Greene’s criticism began after he showed her statewide polling that placed her at just 12% support and discouraged her from running for Senate or governor, both positions Greene had been eyeing.

According to NOTUS, Greene is discussing a presidential run in 2028, though she denied that to the publication.

“[Greene] has told many people that she is upset that I don’t return her phone calls anymore, but with 219 Congressmen/women, 53 U.S. Senators, 24 Cabinet Members, almost 200 Counties, and an otherwise normal life to lead, I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day,” Trump continued in his post.

He later called Greene a “Traitor” and a “disgrace to our GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY!”

Greene responded on X, saying Trump had lied to her and claiming that two recent text messages about files related to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein had “sent him over the edge,” saying it is “astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out.”

Greene is one of a small number of Republicans cosponsoring a measure to force a vote, over Republicans’ objections on files related to Epstein. Trump, an associate of Epstein, has sought to prevent the full release of those files, calling the push for further disclosure “the Epstein hoax.”

“Most Americans wish he would fight this hard to help the forgotten men and women of America who are fed up with foreign wars and foreign causes, are going broke trying to feed their families, and are losing hope of ever achieving the American dream,” Greene said. “I have supported President Trump with too much of my precious time, too much of my own money, and fought harder for him even when almost all other Republicans turned their back and denounced him. But I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump.”

In a subsequent post, Greene shared a graphic showing she has not received support from pro-Israel groups alongside another graphic comparing her “Liberty Score” to that of Trump-backed pro-Israel Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). In the post, she wrote: “This and the Epstein files is why I’m being attacked by President Trump. It really makes you wonder what is in those files and who and what country is putting so much pressure on him?”

She also claimed that Trump’s posts are driving a wave of security threats against her.

Trump has also worked to defeat Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), another of the most vocal anti-Israel Republicans The president has endorsed retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, who is challenging Massie in the GOP primary. 

On Friday, Trump called Massie a “LOSER!” in a separate Truth Social post, claiming that “the Polls have him at less than an 8% chance of winning the Election” and mocked his recent remarriage.

So much of the conversation about the rise of right-wing antisemitism has been focused on the supply side of the equation — the growing number of online commentators and podcasters, led by Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, who are mainlining anti-Jewish tropes, conspiracy theories and Holocaust revisionism to their sizable audiences.

Less scrutinized is the demand-side part of the equation: Why are so many people in the independent podcasting ecosystem mimicking the same antisemitic arguments and hosting the same extremist guests? Is there really a significant audience for this nonsense?  

On paper, there’s no constituency for this type of extremism. As an example: Carlson’s public sympathizing towards Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, for instance, is about as politically toxic as you can get with the American public. A recent NBC News poll found just 3% of Americans view Putin favorably, while a whopping 84% view him negatively. 

But in the world of social media, a small but passionate audience of superfans — even if they’re extremists — can be more lucrative than a much broader audience of mainstream news consumers. The problem is that the perception of influence, fueled by these social media platforms, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

We saw this pattern play out on the left in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, when politically toxic views about policing, immigration, race and gender identity received outsized attention on Twitter, were enforced by a small number of online influencers and quickly became conventional wisdom in institutional liberal circles. The shift was so profound that most of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates embraced left-wing positions that they later ended up regretting.

With Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter (now X), the platform’s algorithm now incentivizes far-right discourse, creating a marketplace for bigoted and antisemitic influencers. It’s what’s creating a demand for the conspiratorial content of Carlson, Owens and others, and it also explains why more-mainstream figures in the “independent” media space, like Megyn Kelly, are increasingly flirting with these extremist narratives.

“It’s not lost on me that there was a great celebration on the right when Elon Musk bought Twitter — and now it looks like one of the worst things for the right in a long time. The algorithms on X really promote the worst excesses of the post-liberal right,” said one former official at a conservative policy institution granted anonymity to discuss concerns. “Tucker and Megyn are in the business of monetizing the algorithm more than building an audience.”

For all the ideas being floated around on how to fight back against the surge of antisemitism, it’s telling that very few conservatives are focused on an obvious source of the hate — the lack of guardrails on social media, especially from X. It’s not a coincidence that the acceleration of some of the most virulent antisemitism on the right occurred after Musk unblocked Nick Fuentes, a neo-Nazi influencer, in May 2024. (Fuentes remains blocked on other major social media services, including Meta and YouTube.)

The First Amendment protects anyone’s freedom to say whatever they want, no matter how odious. It doesn’t guarantee anyone to have their extreme views amplified on private platforms to the point where our public discourse now resembles a modern-day Tower of Babel story.

As a result of the excesses of left-wing ideology on social media in the last decade, the conservative rallying cry was to rail against any curation or regulation on these social platforms as censorship. We’re now seeing where that zero-sum game way of thinking leads. 

It’s muted those mainstream voices alarmed by what’s happening on social media from even suggesting that, at the very least, our tech titans have a responsibility to prevent hate and extremism from distorting the body politic — before it’s too late.

As the GOP uneasily contends with rising hostility to Israel among younger right-wing voters, Nate Morris, a 45-year-old Republican Senate candidate in Kentucky who is courting the populist right with an anti-establishment message, emphasizes there is at least one long-standing party axiom he will never abandon: unwavering support for the Jewish state.

Morris, the wealthy founder of a successful waste management company who calls himself a “Trump America-First conservative,” said his commitment to upholding a strong U.S.-Israel alliance extends from his alignment with President Donald Trump’s vision for the Middle East.

“I think he’s been the most pro-Israel president we’ve had in our country’s history, and I want to continue that kind of leadership on the issue in the United States Senate, on behalf of Kentucky and the country,” Morris told Jewish Insider in an interview last Friday during the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit in Las Vegas, where he met privately with members to pitch his campaign to succeed retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Trump, he added, “has gotten it right, and obviously the success speaks for itself.”

But Morris also cited a more personal reason for what he described as his unequivocally pro-Israel worldview, explaining that, as a “proud” evangelical Christian, he has “always believed Israel is the land that was given to the Jews by God.”

“My views on Israel are never going to change,” he pledged. “They’re in my bones. That’s the way I was raised. That’s what my faith teaches me.”

“Look, all our differences here and the different positions that are out there, we’ve got to have more education, we’ve got to have more conversations as a party,” Morris said, without referring to Carlson or Roberts directly. “I want to discuss these things as a party, get on the same page as a party.”

His comments, while hardly unusual in a deeply evangelical state like Kentucky, come at a fraught moment for conservative Christian supporters of Israel, in the immediate wake of Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with the neo-Nazi streamer Nick Fuentes, a source of sustained criticism throughout the RJC’s three-day summit attended by elected officials, conservative activists, media personalities and other political candidates.

But even as Carlson had expressed his disdain for Christian Zionists, claiming they had been seized by a “brain virus,” Morris was relatively cautious when addressing the interview with Fuentes as well as the backlash toward the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank whose president, Kevin Roberts, has continued to stand behind Carlson.

“Look, all our differences here and the different positions that are out there, we’ve got to have more education, we’ve got to have more conversations as a party,” he said diplomatically, without referring to Carlson or Roberts directly. “I want to discuss these things as a party, get on the same page as a party.”

Morris also stressed that “we shouldn’t be in the business of canceling anyone, but educating them and making sure they understand the full context and what’s at stake here.”

“That’s the way we’re going to win as a party,” he said, “and I think that is what’s going to tamp out any differences that we have and that we shouldn’t be having.”

The hesitance to offer a forthright condemnation speaks not only to Carlson’s strong influence in the MAGA movement but also to how his fan base likely overlaps with the right-wing coalition that Morris is hoping to activate in a competitive primary with two more-established rivals. 

Morris, a friend of Vice President JD Vance who launched his campaign in June, is facing Daniel Cameron, the former state attorney general, and Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), both of whom are strong supporters of Israel. Morris described the race as a “proxy war between Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump,” as the outgoing senator has become one of the most vocal Republican critics of the president in the upper chamber and frequently warns of growing isolationism in the GOP.

Even as he worked as an intern for McConnell early in his career, Morris, who attended graduate school at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs as well as Oxford, has sought to tie his rivals to the retiring senator, arguing that Kentucky voters are “ready for change” and that Congress is in need of “new perspectives.”

To underscore his point, Morris noted that Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, recently hosted an event for his Senate campaign, where Morris got the chance to “hear firsthand a lot of the inside details” about how the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas “came together.”

“What I love about the president is he uses tools of diplomacy, the same tools he uses as a negotiator and as a business leader, and he has applied those to his foreign policy to be able to get things done,” Morris said.

Trump’s approach “shows that when you have outsiders and business people negotiating, you can get great outcomes,” he added. “That’s one of the big reasons why I’m running for the U.S. Senate. I think that we need more people coming from the outside.”

“The thing is, unless you go there and see it, you don’t understand that every day, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Morris told JI. “You’re under constant threat and potential for assault when you live there and when you’re a citizen of Israel.”

He also called Vance, who encouraged him to run for the open seat, a fellow “outsider” who “wasn’t a career politician” before he launched his own bid for Senate in Ohio just a few years ago. Morris said that they had talked about foreign policy “in the context of” their “general worldview,” but did not elaborate. 

Morris was previously a fundraiser for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the libertarian Republican, with whom he traveled to Israel in 2013 on a trip that included evangelical leaders. He said the visit instilled in him a heightened sensitivity to Israel’s ongoing security concerns. (Paul has regularly voted against military aid to Israel and opposed Trump’s attack against Iran’s nuclear program, as part of his overall opposition to foreign aid and military engagement overseas.) 

“The thing is, unless you go there and see it, you don’t understand that every day, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he told JI. “You’re under constant threat and potential for assault when you live there and when you’re a citizen of Israel.”

The first-time candidate acknowledged waning support for Israel in younger Republican circles, even as he declined to criticize Carlson and others for stoking anti-Israel sentiment on the far right.

He expressed concern about students who posed a series of antisemitic questions to Vance at a recent Turning Point USA campus event, but stopped short of addressing the backlash the vice president subsequently faced for choosing not to challenge the students’ hostile remarks about Jews and Israel. 

While his evangelical faith primarily drives his own support for Israel, Morris said he also believes that “it makes the most sense for the United States,” and skeptical younger conservatives could be persuaded simply on the basis of that argument. “Even looking at it economically,” he said, “I could sell that all day long to any American, to say you’re going to prosper more by this relationship.”

“I think that these are the kind of tools that we can use to get over any hatred, any disagreement — any of the discourse that has been disgusting we’ve seen online,” Morris told JI. “These are the kind of things that can help change hearts and minds.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticized Republicans who refuse to disavow prominent antisemites in the conservative movement as “cowards” after the Heritage Foundation and its president, Kevin Roberts, defended Tucker Carlson and his friendly interview with neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes. 

Cruz warned during a half hour address at the opening of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit in Las Vegas on Thursday evening that young Christians were turning away from supporting Israel, something he argued was the result of pro-Israel Christians being maligned by leading voices in the America First movement. 

The Texas Republican senator did not mention the Heritage Foundation, Roberts, Carlson or Fuentes by name, though he accused anyone who uncritically promotes Adolf Hitler of being “complicit” in spreading virulent antisemitism.

Fuentes has praised Hitler on multiple occasions; in his statement, Roberts said he “disagree[s] with” some of Fuentes’ views, “but canceling him is not the answer.” 

“The last year, we’ve seen three prominent people on the right publicly muse, ‘Gosh, maybe Hitler’s not all that bad.’ No. He is the embodiment of evil, a grotesque bigot. And if you’re confused by that, you’re an imbecile,” Cruz said on Thursday. “Too many people are scared to confront them. I want to ask you, how many elected Republicans do you see standing up and calling this out? How many do you see willing to take on the voices in the anti-Israel right?”

“More than a few of my Republican officeholders are terrified of upsetting people with really big megaphones,” he explained.

Cruz warned that antisemitic ideas are spreading among young Americans through social media and argued that rising support for isolationism and the pro-Israel community’s failure to adequately explain the benefits of the U.S.-Israel relationship accounted for the broad ideological shifts on the issue — but he noted that there “is also a theological argument” being made on the Christian right against Jews. 

“We are seeing young Christians and young evangelicals turning against Israel, and they are being pitched lies,” Cruz said. “One particular lie is something called replacement theology, and replacement theology is a twisted view that the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, that the promises in the Old Testament no longer apply and that Christians have replaced Jews. Now in my Bible, I believe every word of it is true, and I believe every promise that God made to the people of Israel remains a promise that is made to the chosen people.”

After noting that he was “proud to be a Christian Zionist,” Cruz noted Carlson’s recent comments expressing his disdain for people who identify as such while appearing to note his protected status in the Trump administration. Carlson attacked Cruz and other pro-Israel conservatives, including U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, by name in his podcast conversation with Fuentes, where Carlson claimed that those who identify as Christian Zionists have been infected by a “brain virus.”

“There are some people who are embraced at the highest level of government who said there is no one they hate more than Christian Zionists,” Cruz said. “Well, I’ll tell you what, there’s no one I hate more than communists and jihadists who want to murder us. Now is the time for choosing. Now is the time for courage.”

“If you sit there and nod adoringly while someone tells you that Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II, if you sit there and nod while someone says, ‘Well, there’s a very good argument that America should have intervened on behalf of Nazi Germany in World War II.’ If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil,” he added.

Omri Ceren, Cruz’s legislative director and longtime advisor, criticized Heritage directly in a post on X on Friday morning, writing that: “I mean, if Republican Jews don’t have a place at @Heritage that’s a choice its current leadership is institutionally empowered to make, but it sits uncomfortably with the organization’s history.”

Cruz’s comments were met with praise from Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s special antisemitism envoy during the Biden administration, who posted a message on X commending the Texas Republican.

Under pressure from Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr. and prominent right-wing activists in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Anti-Defamation League is removing from its website the Glossary of Extremism and Hate, one of the organization’s signature anti-hate resources. 

The database identifies over 1,000 terms relating to extremist ideologies and groups, and it has faced scrutiny in recent days after viral social media posts revealed that the Glossary of Extremism included an entry about the slain Turning Point USA founder and his organization. 

Musk, Trump Jr., Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and other conservatives slammed the civil rights organization for its apparent portrayal of Turning Point and Kirk, just weeks after his death, as extremists.

An ADL spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider that the organization removed the glossary entirely and that it does not consider TPUSA an “extremist group.” The glossary no longer appears on the ADL website. 

“With over 1,000 entries written over many years, the ADL Glossary of Extremism has served as a source of high-level information on a wide range of topics for years. At the same time, an increasing number of entries in the Glossary were outdated. We also saw a number of entries intentionally misrepresented and misused,” the spokesperson told JI. “At ADL, we always are looking for how we can and should do things better. That’s why we are moving to retire the Glossary effectively immediately. This will allow ADL to explore new strategies.” 

But although the Glossary of Extremism and Hate has been deleted from the ADL’s site, material about Kirk and TPUSA — including criticism of the group for its ties to “a variety of extremists” — still appears in another resource on the ADL’s website. A spokesperson described that “backgrounder” as one of “a multitude of resources on its website that address extremism and its many expressions.” 

The ADL first published its backgrounder on Turning Point in February 2019. The piece was then updated in January 2023 and again on Monday afternoon, after screenshots of the page itself and the glossary entry on TPUSA circulated on social media. The edited version softens some of the ADL’s language about TPUSA while holding firm on its description of the group’s more extreme elements.

The ADL’s page on TPUSA, which will remain on the website, but not as part of a searchable glossary entry, appears in a section about “Extremism, Hate or Terrorism.” Prior to this week, the entry stated: “Since the group’s founding, Kirk has moved further to the right and has promoted numerous conspiracy theories about election fraud and COVID-19 and has demonized the transgender community.”

“Kirk also promotes Christian nationalism: the idea that Christians should dominate the government and other areas of life in the US. TPUSA continues to attract racists to the group. Numerous TPUSA representatives have made bigoted remarks about minority groups and the LGBTQ+ community,” the TPUSA entry continued. “White nationalists have attended TPUSA events, even though the group says it rejects white supremacist ideology.” 

Kirk was one of the most influential conservative activists in the country until he was shot and killed at a Utah university speaking engagement this month by a perpetrator who wrote in text messages to a romantic partner that he “had enough” of Kirk’s “hatred.” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said earlier this month that the suspect was “deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology.”

The ADL’s webpage about Kirk, which remains active, still says that Kirk “created a vast platform that was used by numerous extremists and far-right conspiracy theorists. A number of such individuals speak and attend his annual AmericaFest and other events sponsored by TPUSA.”

But the updated page edited some of the language about Kirk and took a more subdued tone towards TPUSA. The ADL now describes the group as “a political student organization that appeals to a wide range of conservatives, from moderate Republicans to the far-right. TPUSA has played a significant role in GOP politics and elections, helping to galvanize young people.” 

The ADL also added a lengthy section about Kirk’s support for Israel, and goes on to say that TPUSA and Kirk “publicly supported the state of Israel and spoke out against its critics. These views made him a target of prominent voices from the extreme right such as the Groypers.”

Still, the ADL states that TPUSA “has promoted some conspiracy theories,” and that some people tied to TPUSA “have a history of bigoted statements about the Black community, the LGBTQ community and specifically transgender people, and other minority groups.”

The ADL spokesperson told JI that an organization’s inclusion in its Glossary of Extremism did not necessarily mean the group was a hate group. “To be clear, inclusion in our glossary did not mean that the purpose of the group was to promote extremism or hate, and Turning Point USA is not an extremist group,” the spokesperson said. 

“We recognize that TPUSA repeatedly stated that it rejects white supremacist ideology; however, as we noted in our materials, white nationalists openly attended their events and some people affiliated with the organization had a history of bigoted statements about minority groups. So we felt it important to have it covered both in the glossary and as a fuller backgrounder with more in-depth research on the group,” the spokesperson added.

On Sunday, prior to the changes, Musk decried the ADL’s descriptions of Turning Point as “deeply wrong” and in need of an immediate correction. 

“The ADL needs to change this now,” Musk wrote on his X platform.

Trump Jr. wrote that ADL’s inclusion of TPUSA in its glossary was “disgraceful.”

In a tweet alongside a screenshot of the organization’s prior page about Turning Point, Luna, who represents Florida’s Gulf Coast, said the ADL “has some explaining to do.” “Seems to me like if they don’t agree with you, they will label you a ‘hate group,’” she wrote on X on Monday morning.

“‘America First’ is not hate speech. Turning Point USA is not a hate group,” Luna wrote in a subsequent tweet later Monday. 

Andrew Kolvet, the longtime executive producer of Kirk’s podcast, posted earlier in the day: “Good morning to everyone except the pro-Antifa, anti-Christian hate group known as the ADL.” The Antifa remark was in reference to criticism from conservatives over how the ADL classifies the far-left group on its site.

This is not the only time the ADL has recently reassessed its educational resources. In late 2023, the organization eliminated a major educational program, “A World of Difference,” after 40 years. The organization published a slew of anti-racism resources in the summer of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, but some of them have since been removed from its website. In 2022, the ADL promised to review its educational content following a Fox News investigation that slammed the group’s use of “concepts from critical race theory.” 

Under CEO Jonathan Greenblatt’s leadership, the ADL has had to fight off critics from both the ideological left and the right as it grapples with its mission amid rising antisemitism within both political parties. 

When Greenblatt took the helm of the organization a decade ago, replacing longtime ADL chief Abe Foxman, he faced criticism from some on the right for taking the organization in a liberal direction. In the first Trump administration, the ADL came out against the White House on several occasions, including by signing onto a lawsuit challenging the president’s policy banning travelers from several Muslim nations. 

Greenblatt has also taken on progressive critics who disagree with the ADL’s stalwart support for Israel, and his assertion that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. After the Oct. 7 terror attacks, the organization has leaned more deeply into its pro-Israel ethos and its work targeting antisemitism, stepping back from some of its focus on other forms of hate. 

More recently, the organization has taken steps in the second Trump administration to reach disaffected conservatives — angering some longtime supporters in the process. In January, the ADL hired a lobbying firm with close ties to Trump to assist on its antisemitism work. 

When Musk made a hand gesture during Trump’s inauguration that resembled a Nazi salute, Greenblatt took flak from some in the Jewish community for coming to Musk’s defense. He has since said he should have “framed” his comments differently. 

This story was corrected to note the timing of when the ADL eliminated its “A World of Difference” program.

Elon Musk and several prominent right-wing influencers on Monday falsely accused the Anti-Defamation League of attacking Christianity by misrepresenting the organization’s classification of the antisemitic Christian Identity movement as an extremist group. The controversy, fueled by a partial, out-of-context screenshot of the ADL’s website, gained traction on X and other social media platforms.

The ADL’s backgrounder on the Christian Identity movement was published in April 2017 in the site’s “Extremism, Hate or Terrorism” section, which details the background and ideology of extremist groups. The page described Christian Identity as “a religious ideology popular in extreme right-wing circles.”

“Adherents believe that whites of European descent can be traced back to the ‘Lost Tribes of Israel.’ Many consider Jews to be the Satanic offspring of Eve and the Serpent, while non-whites are ‘mud peoples’ created before Adam and Eve,” the backgrounder states.

“Its virulent racist and anti-Semitic beliefs are usually accompanied by extreme anti-government sentiments. Despite its small size, Christian Identity influences virtually all white supremacist and extreme anti-government movements. It has also informed criminal behavior ranging from hate crimes to acts of terrorism,” it continues. 

Musk, who has been the occasional target of criticism from the civil rights group, said Sunday on X, “The ADL hates Christians, therefore it is is [sic] a hate group.”

On Sunday, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) posted a screenshot of the title of the ADL page on Christian Identity, omitting the explanatory section that followed.

“This is wrong @ADL,” she wrote on X. “You are intentionally creating a targeted hate campaign against Christians.”

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who has a checkered record on antisemitism issues, reposted Luna’s post, adding “Christian Identity isn’t hatred.”

The screenshot in question has circulated repeatedly on social media in recent years, prompting several news organizations to publish articles fact checking the claim that the ADL classified Christians at large as extremists. 

In response to the controversy, the ADL tweeted on Sunday evening that “Christian Identity is a virulently antisemitic and loosely organized movement that has nothing to do with mainstream Christianity. The screenshot being shared by some is completely and purposely misleading. The @FBI and other experts have all been tracking this movement for years because it has inspired people to violence.”

Greenblatt wrote in a post on X shortly after, “The idea that @ADL is anti-Christian is offensive and wrong. Many of our staff members are Christian. Many of our supporters are Christian. We are blessed to work with many Christian brothers and sisters in the shared fight against antisemitism and all forms of hate.

“In contrast, the Christian Identity movement is an antisemitic, racist, and unambiguously poisonous ideology. Its values bear no resemblance to those of any mainstream Christian denomination,” his tweet continued.

A spokesperson for Luna did not respond to Jewish Insider’s request for comment.

Right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson, who has hosted Holocaust deniers and antisemitic influencers on his podcast, used his address at the memorial for conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in Arizona on Sunday to compare Kirk’s assassination to the killing of Jesus. 

The former Fox News host began his remarks to the more than 70,000 people in attendance at State Farm Stadium in Glendale by noting that the political engagement brought on by Kirk’s killing “actually reminds me of my favorite story ever,” before offering an account of how Jesus was killed in Jerusalem. While he never brought up the Jewish people by name, he made references to Jewish culture to suggest that he was referring to the antisemitic trope that Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus. 

“It’s about 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem and Jesus shows up, and he starts talking about the people in power, and he starts doing the worst thing that you can do: just telling the truth about people, and they hate it, and they just go bonkers. They hate it, and they become obsessed with making him stop. ‘This guy’s got to stop talking. We’ve got to shut this guy up,’” Carlson said.

“I can just sort of picture the scene in a lamp-lit room with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus, thinking about, ‘What do we do about this guy telling the truth about us? We must make him stop talking.’ There’s always one guy with the bright idea, and I can just hear him say, ‘I’ve got an idea. Let me just kill him. That’ll shut him up, that’ll fix the problem.’ It doesn’t work that way,” he continued.

Carlson, who spoke for just under six minutes, then quoted the beatitude from Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” He connected the passage to Kirk’s political message, making the argument that the slain conservative activist “was bringing the gospel to the country. He was doing the thing that the people in charge hate most, which is calling for them to repent.”

“How is Charlie’s message different? Charlie was a political person who was deeply interested in coalition building and getting the right people in office, because he knew that vast improvements are possible politically, but he also knew that politics is not the final answer. It can’t answer the deepest questions, actually, that the only real solution is Jesus,” Carlson said. “Politics at its core is a process of critiquing other people and getting them to change. Christianity, the gospel message, the message of Jesus, begins with repentance.”

Carlson went on to praise Kirk for not having “hate in his heart” and being able to “forgive other people” by following “a call to change our hearts from Jesus,” before acknowledging his own shortcomings.

“Charlie was fearless at all times, truly fearless. To his last moment, he was unafraid. He was not defensive, and there was no hate in his heart. I know that because I’ve got a little hate compartment in my heart, and I would often express that surely about various people,” Carlson said. “He would always say, ‘That’s a sad person, that’s a broken person, that’s a person who needs help, that’s a person who needs Jesus’. He said that in private, because he meant it.” 

If there is one word to describe the political mood in dealing with rising antisemitism, it would be apathy. Even the most jaw-dropping displays of anti-Jewish hatred — from abject Holocaust denial on far-right podcasts to support for Hamas’ atrocities on the extreme left — are increasingly responded to with shrugs from mainstream political leaders. 

The most recent example of obvious antisemitism being ignored by a party’s political class came out of Minnesota, where we reported about Minneapolis Democratic mayoral candidate Omar Fateh — running as a democratic socialist against sitting Mayor Jacob Frey — hiring top staff who celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks. 

In normal times, a candidate would be ashamed to be associated with extremists, and would immediately cut ties with the offending staffers. Not long ago, having ties to that type of extremist rhetoric would be disqualifying for the candidate as well. 

But these are not normal times. Not only has Fateh, a state senator, ignored the controversy entirely, but the local and national media has been uninterested in following up on Jewish Insider’s reporting about the radical operatives on Fateh’s team. 

Even more shocking: Two of Frey’s most prominent backers, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — have remained silent when asked about their thoughts about the antisemitism stemming from an endorsee’s political rival. It’s a sign that many mainstream Democrats fear that speaking out against antisemitism or anti-Israel extremism could lead to a backlash from other grassroots supporters. 

At best, it’s a sign that speaking out against hate carries few political benefits these days.

We saw a similar dynamic in Virginia this month, when former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), the Democratic nominee for governor, initially avoided answering questions from our reporters when asked about the rhetoric from an influential Democratic legislator tagging Zionism as “evil.” (After other leading Democrats weighed in, she responded: “One can and must denounce these tragedies without using antisemitic language, whether intentional or not.”)

Unlike in Minneapolis, which is heavily Democratic and deeply progressive, Virginia is a more competitive battleground. But even in battleground states, the makeup of the Democratic Party has changed to the point where speaking out against virulent anti-Israel rhetoric carries the potential for backlash from Arab and left-wing voices within the party coalition.

The apathy towards antisemitism is far from only a left-wing issue. On the right-wing side of the ledger, there are numerous examples of a grassroots infrastructure — from podcasts to social media influencers — that has become openly antisemitic and hostile to Israel. 

Tucker Carlson is the most prominent of these voices, but the number of podcasters and so-called influencers who share his worldview is growing. It’s as much a demand-side problem as a supply-side one. It’s now perfectly plausible to build a niche as a far-right purveyor of hate in the new social media ecosystem, and build a lucrative audience from that base. 

We’ve also seen, on the Republican side, the reticence to confront antisemitism when it’s happening from within its own ranks. When the Pentagon hired a deputy press secretary with a long history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, barely a peep of protest was heard from within partisan circles. In fact, she’s since been promoted to become the lead press secretary at the Defense Department.

There’s something broken in our political culture where we’ve, broadly speaking, become numb to the crazy. It’s a bipartisan phenomenon. And it’s happening as real-life antisemitic violence is at record levels, highlighted recently by the firebombing against Jews in Boulder, Colo.; the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington; and the attack on Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home in Harrisburg, Pa. 

The trend only underscores the need for Jewish organizations to speak up in the face of this rising hate, and if necessary, turn up the political pressure on all fronts. 

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host and right-wing media personality, suggested on Monday that the U.S. had lost its “moral authority” because it has refused to call for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas.

“If you see a nation with awesome power abetting war for its own sake, you have a leadership that has no moral authority, that is illegitimate,” Carlson said at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where he was participating in a discussion on the future of “storytelling.”

The answer came in response to a question asking him to assess why the U.S. had vetoed a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.  

“It’s something that I try to express, and I’m often called a traitor for saying that. It’s the opposite,” Carlson added to applause. “I say that because I believe in the United States. I think it has been a morally superior country, and if we allow our leaders to use our power to spread destruction for its own sake, that is shameful.”

Carlson used a family-related analogy to illustrate his point. “The United States is for this moment the most powerful country in the history of the world,” he told the crowd, “so if you were to frame this in terms we’re all familiar with, which are the most basic terms, the terms of the family, the United States would be Dad, it would be the father, and the father’s sacred obligation is to protect his family and to restore peace within his walls.”

“If I come home and two of my kids are fighting, what’s the first thing I do, even before I assess why they’re fighting, before I gather the facts and know what’s happening? ‘Stop the fighting,’” he continued. “So if I come home and I have two kids fighting and I say ‘Go, go, beat the crap out of him!,’ I’m evil, because I’ve violated the most basic duty of fatherhood, which is to bring peace.”

He clarified that his comments, which did not mention Hamas, were not in reference to “any specific region of conflict,” but said he was “deeply offended by” U.S. conduct abroad. 

He concluded that he was “very distressed and concerned that we are entering an era where this awesome force for good is instead being used for evil.”

His new comments underscore the extent to which Carlson is leaning into his role as one of the leading figures promoting a neo-isolationist message that is now gaining traction even among some of the most hawkish Republicans in Congress. Only 18 Republican senators — less than half of the GOP caucus — voted for legislation that would advance military aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan over the weekend.

Elsewhere in the discussion on Monday, Carlson, who recently stirred controversy for interviewing President Vladimir Putin of Russia, reiterated his claim that the U.S. had provoked Russia into its war with Ukraine and said that his first visit to Moscow had been “radicalizing.”

Calling Putin “impressive” and “very capable,” Carlson, who was dismissed from Fox News last spring and now runs a media platform whose interviews run largely on X, formerly Twitter, also said that Moscow was “so much cleaner and safer and prettier, aesthetically,” than “any city in” the U.S. — an observation he described as “radicalizing, very shocking and very disturbing.” 

In another sign of how Carlson, 54, has embraced conspiratorial thinking as he cultivates an audience on the populist right, the longtime conservative  media commentator repeated a claim that the U.S. government had for years “prevented” him from arranging a sit-down with Putin by “spying on” his text messages and “leaking them to The New York Times,” which he said had “spooked the Russian government into canceling the interview.”

“My country’s intel services were working against me illegally,” he alleged, “and that enraged me.”