An essay by Josh Hammer, a senior editor-at-large at Newsweek, ignited a sharp debate within conservative circles on Wednesday after he suggested in a Daily Mail column that Tucker Carlson — the onetime Fox News host who has remained an influential voice on the right — must be “neutralized” to preserve the Republican coalition.
Mr. Hammer’s piece criticized Mr. Carlson for hosting an interview with Nick Fuentes, a far-right commentator whose views many find repugnant. In characteristically forceful language, Hammer accused Carlson of “laundering” Fuentes’s beliefs and of waging “a war” on “the forces of civilizational sanity on the MAGA Right.” The concluding line of the article proved most combustible: “The fox is now comfortably ensconced in the hen house,” he wrote. “And unless the fox is neutralized, the victim could be the entire extant GOP coalition itself.”
Conservative reaction was swift and unrelenting. Critics argued that using the verb “neutralized,” even metaphorically, was dangerously irresponsible in the wake of recent political violence. “Josh Hammer calls for Tucker Carlson to be neutralized,” The Blaze host Jason Whitlock wrote, contending that such rhetoric belonged in an “Olbermann-style” screed rather than a mainstream outlet. “We just witnessed the assassination of Charlie Kirk. This is irresponsible by the Daily Mail,” Whitlock added.
Others echoed the alarm. Libertarian comedian Dave Smith posted on social media: “Hey @josh_hammer @DailyMail what the hell do you mean when you write that @TuckerCarlson must be ‘neutralized?’ Seems like a pretty reckless thing to say in the wake of the biggest political assassination of our lifetime (which is the topic of the piece).” Candace Owens, a conservative commentator and friend of the late Charlie Kirk, wrote that she could not “believe the @DailyMail allowed this to be published.” Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative, accused Hammer of “playing fast and loose with outright insinuating that Tucker Carlson should also be murdered.”
Hey @josh_hammer @DailyMail what the hell do you mean when you write that @TuckerCarlson must be “neutralized?”
Seems like a pretty reckless thing to say in the wake of the biggest political assassination of our lifetime (which is the topic of the piece).
Also, who the fuck is…
— Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith) October 29, 2025
That aside, Josh Hammer — less than two months from Charlie Kirk’s assassination — plays fast and loose with outright insinuating that Tucker Carlson should also be murdered https://t.co/HRYr8Iqjq9 pic.twitter.com/NOx0hquER4
— Curt Mills (@CurtMills) October 30, 2025
Mr. Hammer responded to the backlash in a social-media post that sought to narrow the interpretation of his language. “One has to be truly stupid or willfully disingenuous (or both, as the case may be) to think that ‘neutralized’ here means anything other than its most common usages. Quit lying,” he wrote. The comment underscored the fault lines within conservative media over tone and tactics as voices on the right debate how to police the boundary between acceptable rhetoric and violent suggestion.
The episode reflects a broader struggle on the right over the limits of confrontation. For some, Mr. Carlson’s prominence and his willingness to platform controversial figures represent a threat to the Republican coalition’s electoral prospects and respectable reputation. For others, the implication that a media figure must be “neutralized” — whatever the intended meaning — crosses a line that risks normalizing threats against ideological opponents.
Hammer’s column framed Carlson’s interview as a strategic danger to the party’s future; his critics viewed the choice of words as a grave misstep that demanded rebuke. The controversy came amid an already febrile political season in which rhetoric and consequence are frequently weighed in public.
Whatever the intent, the exchange crystallized a debate conservatives have been having in private for months: how loudly to call out a provocateur within the movement without lending oxygen to a climate of intimidation. As Mr. Whitlock and others made clear in their public responses, many on the right expect the answer to be found not in euphemism but in restraint.
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