Hunter Biden and Tucker Carlson sat for a joint interview this week in which both condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and dismissed accusations that their criticism amounts to antisemitism, a pairing that would have been unthinkable just months ago.

Carlson, one of the most prominent voices on the American right and a former Fox News host, used the interview to make an unverified claim that Israeli-linked figures, not Russian operatives, were behind key allegations tied to the Hunter Biden laptop affair. Hunter Biden, once one of the right's favorite political targets, defended Carlson against antisemitism charges and called Netanyahu "evil incarnate." Neither man offered documentary proof for the most explosive claims made during the sit-down.

The interview marks a striking realignment. Carlson spent years hammering the Biden family on his Fox News program. Hunter Biden spent years as a symbol of everything the right said was wrong with Washington. Now the two men appear to share a common target in the Israeli prime minister, and a common grievance about how criticism of Israel is policed in American politics.

Carlson claims Israeli figures, not Russians, pushed laptop allegations

The most provocative moment came when Carlson alleged that people with ties to Israel approached him directly with claims about the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop. The Jerusalem Post reported that Carlson told Hunter Biden during the interview:

"The claim that there was material involving the [abuse of minors] on the computer came from the Israelis. I'm just telling you that they came to me with it, and that's how I know it."

Carlson went further, saying he sent a producer to meet a person he described as having ties to Netanyahu. He did not name the person or the producer. He did not present public evidence for the claim during the interview, describing it instead as personal experience.

He also alleged that Washington insiders knew about the Israeli connection but deflected blame toward Russia because of political pressure not to criticize Israel. Carlson has discussed the laptop saga in various settings over the years, but this specific allegation about Israeli involvement represents a new and unsubstantiated turn.

"They were behind it. I felt like everybody in Washington knew it, but there was so much pressure not to criticize Israel in any way that they just said, 'It's the Russians, it's the Russians.'"

Carlson also acknowledged that he stayed silent about these claims while employed at Fox News. "I admit it. I didn't say it. I was part of the problem too, but I knew," he said.

Hunter Biden called Netanyahu 'evil incarnate' and defended Carlson

Hunter Biden, for his part, used the interview to push back against the idea that criticizing Netanyahu makes someone antisemitic. He acknowledged the oddity of defending Carlson, a man who spent years targeting his family.

"I'm supposed to hate Tucker Carlson because he's antisemitic and all of that stuff. I know you're not. You're not antisemitic. I know 100 percent you're not antisemitic."

He then turned his fire directly on the Israeli prime minister:

"If it is antisemitic to say that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is evil incarnate, then you know what? I don't know what to tell people anymore. All you have to do is open your eyes. Literally, open your eyes, open your heart for one second and understand."

Carlson responded by calling the antisemitism accusation "such an obvious lie," a characterization consistent with the broader "America First" movement's increasing willingness to criticize Israeli government policy without treating such criticism as off-limits.

The laptop story Hunter Biden still won't own

The interview also revisited the laptop controversy itself, a saga that has followed Hunter Biden for years and that he continues to reframe. During the two-hour sit-down, Hunter denied abandoning his MacBook Pro at a Delaware repair shop. Instead, he claimed his cloud storage was hacked, suggesting Russian or Israeli intelligence, or "some kid in his basement", stole his digital files, the New York Post reported.

That claim sits uneasily alongside the public record. The FBI presented the MacBook Pro as evidence at Hunter Biden's 2024 federal gun trial. Hunter himself admitted during those proceedings that he made $664,000 from a Chinese infrastructure investment company, a fact that contradicted his father's repeated insistence that he never discussed business with his son.

Hunter admitted the limits of his own hacking theory during the interview: "I don't have digital forensic evidence that it was hacked by this person or this entity." A man making sweeping claims about who compromised his data while conceding he cannot identify the culprit is not exactly building a case.

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in September 2024 to failing to pay $1.4 million in federal taxes and was convicted of three gun felonies. His father pardoned him in December 2024, after repeatedly vowing he would not do so.

Years of evidence contradicting the Biden family's denials

The broader record of the Biden family's business entanglements has grown steadily. Former Biden family business associate Tony Bobulinski told Carlson in a separate, earlier interview that he personally met with Joe Biden twice in connection with a Chinese business venture involving Hunter. Bobulinski alleged the Biden family received a $5 million no-collateral, no-interest loan from Chinese officials and that the family maintained what Jim Biden reportedly called "plausible deniability."

"I've seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business. I've seen firsthand that that's not true," Bobulinski said.

A 2011 letter from then-Vice President Joe Biden to Hunter's business partner Devon Archer further undercut the family's denials. "I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter. I hope you enjoyed lunch. Thanks for coming," Biden wrote, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Archer later testified to the House Oversight Committee that Hunter Biden called his father more than 20 times during business meetings to sell the Biden "brand."

Joe Biden himself said in August 2019: "I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses, period." The letter, the testimony, and Hunter's own courtroom admissions all point the other way.

Bobulinski's account was detailed further in an October 2022 Fox News interview in which he described insider knowledge of the Biden family business structure. That interview predates the current Carlson-Biden sit-down by years, but it established Carlson as a central figure in publicizing the Biden family's financial entanglements, which makes his new alliance with Hunter Biden all the more jarring.

From target to ally: a political realignment worth watching

The shift in the Carlson-Biden dynamic reflects a broader fracture within the American right over Israel policy. Carlson has become one of the most influential figures in the "America First" movement, which has opened space for harsh criticism of the Israeli government that would have been politically radioactive in mainstream conservative circles just a few years ago.

Hunter Biden, meanwhile, has continued making headlines through a string of public appearances. He recently disclosed that his father's prostate cancer had spread, telling the BBC that "it's not good." That interview, conducted days before the Carlson sit-down, added a personal dimension to Hunter's increasingly visible public profile.

But the central question raised by the Carlson interview remains unanswered: where is the evidence? Carlson made a serious allegation, that Israeli-linked operatives, not Russian intelligence, were behind key claims about Hunter Biden's laptop. He offered no documents, no names, and no corroboration beyond his own account. He acknowledged staying silent for years while employed at a major news network.

Hunter Biden, for his part, continues to dispute the basic facts of the laptop story despite a federal trial in which the device was entered as evidence. His cloud-hacking theory remains unsubstantiated by his own admission. And his willingness to sit with Carlson, a man who built segments around the Biden family's failures, suggests the interview served both men's interests more than it served the public's need for answers.

None of this means their criticisms of Netanyahu are wrong. Disagreeing with a foreign leader's policies is not antisemitism, and conflating the two has long been a tactic used to shut down legitimate debate. But wrapping that reasonable point inside a fog of unverified intelligence claims and laptop revisionism does not strengthen it. It muddies it.

Hunter Biden has also spoken publicly about his father's pardon, arguing it kept the family out of further political jeopardy. That pardon, granted after Joe Biden repeatedly promised it would never come, remains one of the most brazen acts of presidential self-dealing in recent memory. It freed Hunter from accountability for federal crimes and removed any remaining leverage the justice system held over the Biden family.

When two men who spent years on opposite sides of the same scandal suddenly find common cause, the question is never whether they agree, it is what they are each trying to avoid. Carlson wants distance from the establishment right's unconditional support for Israel. Hunter Biden wants distance from the laptop. Neither man's credibility is improved by the other's company.