A “gotcha” moment from Tucker Carlson‘s interview with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) over the population size of Iran appears to have backfired on the conservative commentator, with social media making fun of the trivial nature of some of his questions.
Carlson posted the clip on his X account on Tuesday evening, with the full interview expected to be released Wednesday.
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In the clip, Carlson grills Cruz on not knowing “anything about the country,” despite Cruz being a vocal advocate of regime change in Iran.
Carlson started the discussion by asking what seemed like an innocuous question about the number of people living in Iran. Cruz didn’t know the answer, but Carlson informed him it was 92 million.
“You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?” Carlson asked. “How could you not know that?”
Cruz responded, saying, “I don’t sit around memorizing population tables.”
Carlson got increasingly frustrated at Cruz’s lack of knowledge, intensifying the conversation.
“Well, it’s kind of relevant because you’re calling for the overthrow of the government,” Carlson said. He later suggested that Cruz doesn’t “know anything about the country.”
“I didn’t say I don’t know anything about the country,” Cruz replied.
The brief preview clip sparked memes on X, poking fun at the interaction between Cruz and Carlson.
Posts on X suggested Carlson’s questions were too specific and unnecessary “fluff” information.
Others on social media delighted in seeing Carlson make Cruz squirm during the exchange.
The heated conversation between the two continued, with Carlson asking what the “ethnic mix” of Iran was, leading to Cruz shouting, “I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran!”
“You don’t know anything about Iran!” Carlson said as he and Cruz started yelling over each other. “You’re a senator who is calling for the overthrow of the government, and you don’t know anything about the country!”
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The less than two-minute clip went viral Tuesday night, leading Cruz to get defensive on X, saying Carlson had released only a “snippet playing ‘gotcha’ on the population of Iran.”
“I declined to play that silly game,” Cruz wrote. “WATCH the full 2-hr interview, where Tucker ATTACKS Trump, attacks the “AIPAC lobby,” & falsely claims Iran is NOT trying to assassinate Trump.”
Tensions in the Middle East have heightened, and pressure has increased on President Donald Trump over whether the U.S. should get involved.
Trump has previously promised to avoid direct engagement in another major conflict in the Middle East, causing a rift in the GOP, including between Carlson and Cruz, an outspoken Iran hawk.
On Wednesday morning, when asked if or when the U.S. might enter the conflict, he responded: “You don’t seriously think I’m going to answer that question. You don’t know that I’m going to even do it. You don’t know. I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate.”