Journalist Melissa Francis is speaking out about the brief airport interview between Tucker Carlson and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, offering a sharply different account from Carlson’s claims about what happened during his visit.
Francis told CBN News she helped initiate the exchange after discussing Israel with Carlson weeks earlier. “I was having lunch with Tucker … and I was showing him pictures from Israel and he said, ‘God, I’d love to go.’ And I said, ‘Let’s go. You should come,’” she said.
Carlson told her that President Donald Trump had encouraged him to travel to Israel and meet with the prime minister to “smooth this over,” describing tensions as having “gotten … really dicey.” Francis said Carlson later claimed he reached out to the prime minister but did not receive a response.
She said Ambassador Huckabee believed a firsthand visit would provide needed perspective, particularly given comments Carlson has made in recent months. Francis said Huckabee does not feel these comments accurately reflect what is going on here.
The interview ultimately took place at Ben Gurion Airport. Carlson did not leave the airport and later said he had been detained.
Francis offered a different characterization of the airport experience.
“On my way, my luggage was dumped out. They went through my passport. I always get pulled into the room that he’s talked about,” she said. “I think it’s about a country that has people come in and blow stuff up.”
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She added that she has traveled to Israel eight times since Oct. 7 and has consistently experienced heightened security procedures. “That’s how I get in and out every single time, and I don’t take it personally,” she said. “Welcome to Israel. Security is very good.”
Carlson has suggested Israel mistreats Christians and has platformed voices alleging persecution. Francis said that has not been her experience.
“I’m a Christian who has been to Israel, as I said, eight times for long periods of time. I’ve shot two documentaries. I have never had anything but the warmest reception,” she said. “I’ve never had anyone, either Arab or Jewish, threaten me in any way, spit on me, any of those things that he’s talked about. I haven’t seen that.”
She acknowledged that Carlson says his views are shaped by the people he interviews but declined to speculate on his sourcing. “Everybody has the right to their own opinion,” she said. “America is a democracy just like Israel.”
During the airport interview, Francis described the exchange as tense at times but substantive. “Tucker asked a lot of questions that I know Americans are asking and … Ambassador Huckabee really corrected him on things that he’s heard Tucker say that just aren’t accurate about how Christians are treated here in Israel,” she said. She declined to share specific details, calling it “between them.”
Francis also argued that broader public opinion in the United States is being shaped by what she described as a coordinated misinformation effort. “People there, they think Israel’s killing loads of babies every single day,” she said. “They really believe that they’re committing genocide.”
She attributed those perceptions to “the machine that is feeding out this completely false narrative,” naming Hamas, Qatar, Iran, Russia and China.
Carlson’s critics say his increasingly sharp rhetoric toward Israel has amplified some of those narratives. While Francis stopped short of directly accusing him of bad faith, she warned that Americans are being “tricked into thinking that Israel is not on our side.”
The airport episode has now become another flashpoint in Carlson’s ongoing commentary about Israel. With each successive claim from detention allegations to assertions of Christian persecution, the gap between his portrayal and accounts from on-the-ground journalists appears to be widening.
That escalation is raising new concerns about how far the rhetoric may go next.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a background in journalism from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
