A News Agency

In an interview published Friday, Huckabee told Carlson, “It wouldn’t be a problem if they took everything.” Huckabee, appointed by the Trump administration and a former governor of Arkansas, discussed interpretations of Old Testament verses within the US Christian nationalist movement.

Carlson, who made controversial claims that he was detained at Tel Aviv airport, asked Huckabee about the biblical verse in which God promises Abraham that his descendants would receive “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates — the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

Carlson noted that in modern geography this region would encompass “basically the entire Middle East.”

“The Levant… Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon — and also large parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq,” Carlson said.

Huckabee responded, “I’m not sure it would cover that wide an area, but it would be a large piece of land.”

He continued, “Israel is land that God gave to a people He chose through Abraham. It was a people, a place and a purpose.”

Asked whether Israel has the right to that land, Huckabee replied, “It wouldn’t be a problem if they took it all.”

The interview took place during a trip to Israel by Carlson, which made headlines after he claimed he was treated “strangely” at Ben Gurion Airport. However, Israeli and US officials said he underwent routine security questioning.