Qatar’s stooges want to delegitimize pro-Israel voices critical of Vance
Are some of Vice President JD Vance’s allies worried about scrutiny of his connections to the network of Qatar-connected donors supporting both him and his friend Tucker Carlson? Apparently, so.
While most Americans are focused on the fall midterm elections, the vice president is beginning to transition toward a potential 2028 presidential campaign run. That’s why those who think they have a stake in him becoming President Donald Trump’s successor seem interested in trying to silence Americans discussing a topic that they’d prefer to go unnoticed—namely, the troubling connections between him and a network of donors whose interests are linked to that of the home base of the Muslim Brotherhood and its leading American booster, Tucker Carlson.
Similar tactics on the left and the right
That’s the only plausible connection for a broadside published in the Daily Caller last week aimed at smearing JNS podcast host Emily Schrader. The goal of the unsourced hit piece wasn’t just an attack on her; it also sought to delegitimize JNS and, by extension, pro-Israel and Jewish voices in general as somehow un-American and a “foreign-influence operation.”
Both in tactics and goals, it bears a striking resemblance to the main campaign themes of hard-left antisemitic Democratic candidates like Michigan senatorial hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. He won a primary by asserting that the country’s greatest problem was the efforts of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. Meaning, he and the party’s left-wing intersectional base take issue with the fact that many Americans, including Jews, organize and use their constitutionally protected right to political speech.
They think that there’s something wrong with using the tools of democracy to promote the U.S.-Israel alliance and assert that it’s in the interests of America to preserve it. And Democrats, whether they call themselves “progressives”—or are affiliated with or allied to the Democratic Socialists of America—have been winning primaries throughout 2026 by treating opposition to the Jewish state as one of the organizing principles of their candidacies.
The anti-Israel and antisemitic groyper wing of the GOP may be far less significant than their moral equivalents on the other side of the political aisle. They’ve flopped in virtually every contest in which they have been engaged; still, they are pinning their hopes on the vice president.
Vance has become the most prominent critic of Israel in the Trump administration, who at times has seemed an advocate for President Barack Obama’s policy of appeasing Iran. More important than that, at least up until this moment, is that he has taken a stand in which he is asserting support for the inclusion of antisemitic groypers in the GOP coalition, including his longtime friend and key ally podcaster Tucker Carlson.
Carlson, a former popular Fox News host, has become America’s most prominent and arguably most dangerous antisemite. To date, Vance has stuck by his friend and states that he intends to in the future. But the issue of his association with Carlson goes beyond that. The same people who have funded Carlson’s podcast since he was fired by Fox in 2023 are friends and allies of the vice president who are beginning to line up behind his presidential prospects. As Schrader pointed out last week in her “Axis of Truth” podcast, the network of friends of Vance and Carlson is filled with connections to Qatar, up to and including those who have registered as agents of the Islamist emirate under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The Daily Caller was founded by Carlson and hedge-fund manager Neil Patel in 2010. Once Carlson rose to prominence with a prime-time show on Fox, he sold his interest in the company to Patel, who remains as its publisher.
Patel has denied, as has Carlson, that he is beholden to or connected to Qatari interests. But he has spoken at forums sponsored by the Qatari government. And Carlson has become Qatar’s leading cheerleader in the United States, lauding its Islamist government, which funds terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis while also playing a double game by posing as an American ally and hosting a U.S. airbase. Indeed, Carlson has even purchased a home in the tyrannical emirate, where foreign workers are treated like slaves.
Qatar has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years in lobbying and public advocacy in the United States. It has also poured billions of dollars into American educational institutions. The country has turned elite schools into places where its Muslim Brotherhood-inspired propaganda that seeks to undermine and defeat Western civilization is taught as a form of scholarship. That not only dwarfs the amounts spent by AIPAC and pro-Israel donors, but has helped to mainstream and normalize the sort of antisemitic invective about Israel and the Jews that has flooded public forums since the Hamas-led Palestinian-Arab terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Their web of influence extends into the Trump administration. They bailed out Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff when he was in financial trouble and have extensive business dealings with Donald Trump Jr. and presidential adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner.
All of this is fair game for commentary on what has become the most extensive and potentially dangerous instance of a foreign-influence operation in modern American history. But the fact that JNS is taking note of it—rather than ignoring it, as most of the mainstream media as well as those outlets that cover Israel and the Middle East have been doing—is getting on the nerves of friends of Vance, Carlson and Qatar. And that’s the explanation for the bizarre Daily Caller hit piece on Shrader and JNS.
At its core is a classic deception that attempts to flip the narrative of the story.
And so, in this upside-down view of the world, the fact that JNS has taken note of Qatar’s influence, Carlson’s antisemitism and posed questions about their connection with Vance is apparently evidence that it is a foreign-influence operation. They claim that JNS and Schrader are part of a plan for a foreign power (Israel) to manipulate U.S. policy and even elections.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same smear that El-Sayed and left-wing antisemites similarly obsessed with Israel can’t stop talking about.
Before the purpose of this big lie is unpacked, let’s understand a few facts.
JNS does have an office and a podcast studio in Jerusalem, and it changed its name this year to reflect its focus on Israel, the U.S.-Israel alliance and supporters of all faiths. But it remains an American nonprofit organization, registered in the United States and operating under U.S. laws. Unlike those who get their money from Qatar and its network of supporters, JNS is funded almost entirely by American donors.
Like them, I’m an American citizen, and as editor-in-chief, I write, podcast and supervise the operation of the news and opinion sections from the United States. Schrader, like some others on staff who are part of the JNS-TV podcast network and live and work in Israel, is also an American citizen.
Like the majority of Americans, we care about Israel’s survival, as well as the necessity for people of goodwill to take note of and fight back against the war on the West being waged by the red-green alliance of Marxists and Islamists, cheered on by their deluded right-wing antisemitic allies like Carlson.
The motives behind the effort to falsely label JNS as part of a malign plot against America by those, like the Daily Caller, who are themselves linked to a real foreign-influence operation or are supportive of it, are obvious. They want to shut JNS up for the same reason that drives similar efforts by their strange bedfellows on the left. They further want to silence Jews, and most Americans who are not Jewish, who also back Israel.
The idea that Jews and supporters of Israel are part of a plot to purchase power, subvert America and manipulate it—or act against the nation’s interests—is taken straight out of the traditional antisemitic playbook dating back to The Protocols of The Elders of Zion. Those who play this game can feign innocence by trying to blow smoke in their readers’ eyes by mischaracterizing JNS and what we’ve reported all they like. But it won’t deter us from telling the truth about the issue.
Vance still has the chance to discard Carlson and the rest of the Qatar fan club before he launches his 2028 campaign. It could happen. Opinion writers and podcasters have been pleading with him to do it since September 2024.
At that time, Carlson caused outrage across the political spectrum because of his platforming Holocaust denier Daryl Cooper as a great historian. Vance was scheduled to appear with the former Fox host at a campaign appearance later that month. I urged him to cancel the appearance to draw a line between himself and that of his buddy, who had done so much to promote his political career but whose outright bigotry was now too obvious to ignore.
He would not. And much of what has followed in terms of Vance’s public neutrality about Carlson’s Jew-hatred and conspiracy-mongering, as well as his disingenuous denial that there is a surge of antisemitism that has spread to the right, follows from that moment.
That he would not do the right thing when it comes to Carlson and the groypers prior to launching a presidential campaign is ill-advised. After all, Trump has already unceremoniously bootedCarlson and other Israel-bashers out of the GOP and banished him from Mar-a-Lago. Appealing to the broad mainstream of public opinion rather than the groypers, conspiracy theorists and Qatar stooges would be the obvious move for someone who wants to win. But it would also likely involve antagonizing people like Omeed Malik, the head of the 1789 Capital firm that provided the financing to launch the Tucker Carlson network; the presidential namesake who was also part of that deal; and the podcaster himself.
The tentacles of Qatar’s influence operation reach deep into political, business and academic elites in the United States. That’s an issue that deserves to be aired out. As a journalistic enterprise dedicated to reporting without the usual filter of left-wing bias, as well as to telling the truth regardless of where it leads, JNS is not going to shy away from reporting and commenting on what this means for Americans and the West.
If Qatar’s American quislings think that they can intimidate anyone at JNS, they’ve come to the wrong shop.
Shrader has made a name for herself, courageously speaking out on the efforts of Iran’s allies and influencers to spread propaganda fostered by the Muslim Brotherhood. And, as someone who has written numerous columns about Vance, including some that were supportive prior to his betrayal of American values at Turning Point USA in December 2025, I will also continue to cover the issue. The same applies to our other featured columnists and op-ed contributors. Our reporters will also not hesitate to go on noting the relevance of the connections between Qatar and Carlson—and any other politician who aspires to high office along with our dogged coverage of the antisemitic left’s hijacking of the Democratic Party whenever necessary.
The smear campaigns of the Daily Caller, the groypers and their allies, as well as the DSA and the hard-left, are a sign that we are hitting them where it hurts. It’s just another incentive for JNS to continue to do the work expected by its supporters, readers, viewers and listeners. Our answer to them is unchanged. Bring it on. We won’t stop reporting the truth.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS. Follow him at: @jonathans_tobin.
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JNS alleges that "The Daily Caller," founded by Tucker Carlson, is attempting to discredit JNS and its pro-Israel voices by labeling them a "foreign-influence operation." This comes as JNS highlights Vice President JD Vance's connections to Qatar-linked donors and Carlson, who is described as a prominent antisemite and a leading cheerleader for Qatar. The article suggests that these efforts aim to silence scrutiny of Vance's associations as he potentially transitions towards a 2028 presidential campaign. JNS asserts that while it has an office in Jerusalem and focuses on the U.S.-Israel alliance, it is an American nonprofit funded by American donors, countering claims that it is an Israeli foreign-influence operation. The piece argues that the smear tactics employed by "The Daily Caller" mirror those used by hard-left antisemitic candidates and are rooted in classic antisemitic tropes.
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