MAGA Cheers Tucker Carlson Confronting Mike Pence on Ukraine: 'Obliterated'

MAGA supporters cheered on former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Friday for confronting former Vice President Mike Pence over his support for Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.

Carlson confronted Pence, who is seeking the GOP nomination for the 2024 presidential election, during a discussion at the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday. The conservative media personality spoke with Pence about alleged religious persecution by the Ukrainian government and the former vice president's stance on sending military and financial aid to the war-torn country instead of focusing on internal issues in America.

Supporters of MAGA, which is an acronym for Make America Great Again, a political slogan that was first touted by Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2016, shared parts of the discussion between the two on Twitter, praising Carlson for pressing Pence who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv in June.

"Tucker Carlson completely obliterated Mike Pence's presidential ambitions in 13 glorious minutes. The man was flustered and completely out of his depth," Twitter user Ian Miles Cheong tweeted on Friday.

Carlson asked Pence during their discussion whether he spoke with Zelensky about "persecuted Christians in Ukraine," claiming that the Ukrainian government "raided convents, arrested priests, [and] has effectively banned" the domination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Pence said he brought up concerns about religious liberty with Zelensky and leaders of the Orthodox Church, adding that he was assured that the Ukrainian government was "respecting religious liberty."

"What I can tell you is I asked the Christian leader in Kyiv, if that [arresting Christians] was in fact happening, and he assured me that it was not. People were not being persecuted for their religious beliefs," the former vice president said.

Newsweek reached out to Pence's spokesperson via email for comment.

However, some conservatives undermined those assurances and noted that he is not doing enough to defend religious liberty.

"Is Pence clueless or is he just lying? A Zelensky-aligned cleric tells Pence that they're being nice to all Christians and he just buys it? There are multiple media reports of Zelensky arresting opposition clerics. You can't defend that and pretend to fight for religious freedom," Senator J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican, wrote on Twitter Friday.

Another Twitter user Karli Bonne' tweeted on Friday that the confrontation between Pence and Carlson was a "death Blow #Tuckered."

Ukraine has taken steps to address the ties between some church leaders and groups to the Russian Orthodox churches months after the war began last February. The Ukrainian government banned activities of religious groups "affiliated with centers of influence" in Russia, according to PBS last December.

"The wartime Ukrainian government has neither the time nor the patience to wait for the clergy to settle their centuries-old squabbles themselves. The state is forcing them to stand up and be counted, and any loyalty to Moscow—even the most theoretical—is becoming unacceptable," wrote Konstantin Skorkin, a researcher at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a report earlier this year.

Carlson, who has been regularly accused of echoing the Kremlin's talking points about the Russia-Ukraine war during his tenure at Fox News, also confronted Pence about supporting the Ukrainian militarily and how it impacts the United States, to which Pence asserted the importance of providing Ukraine the best defense resources to defeat Russia.

"You're distressed that Ukrainians don't have enough American tanks [when] every city in the United States has become much worse over the past three years. Drive around, there's not one city that's gotten better in the United States. Our economy has degraded, the suicide rate has jumped, public filth and disorder and crime have exponentially increased. And yet, your concern is that the Ukrainians, a country most people can't find on a map who've received tens of billions of U.S. tax dollars, don't have enough tanks," Carlson told Pence. "Where's the concern for the United States in that?"

Pence responded: "It's not my concern. Tucker, I've heard that routine from you before, but that's not my concern. I'm running for president in the United States because I think this country is in a lot of trouble. I think Joe Biden has weakened America at home and abroad. Anybody that says that we can't be the leader of the free world and solve our problems at home has a pretty small view of the greatest nation on Earth. We can do both."

Twitter user Sir Rickster commented on Pence's remarks on Saturday by writing: "Tucker Carlson just brutalized Mike Pence for prioritizing Ukraine despite a litany of social ills afflicting America."