Tucker Carlson, Ted Cruz get heated over Iran: 'You don't know anything about the country'

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson and Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz got into a heated exchange over Iran in an interview, during which they accused each other of being uniformed about the country.

The video clip of the interview was released by Carlson on X on Tuesday, with the caption, "Ted Cruz on Iran. Full interview tomorrow."

The interview comes as Israel and Iran are exchanging missile fire with each other, which began on Friday, when the former hit the latter's military and nuclear sites.

Carlson starts off the clip by asking Cruz, “How many people live in Iran, by the way?”

“I don’t know the population,” Cruz responded.

“At all?” Carlson followed up.

“No. I don’t know the population,” Cruz repeated.

“You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?” Carlson retorted.

"How many people live in Iran?" Cruz asked Carlson.

“92 million,” Carlson replied. “How could you not know that?”

“I don’t sit around memorizing population tables,” Cruz responded.

"Well it's kind of relevant because you’re calling for the overthrow of the government," Carlson said.

“Why is it relevant whether it’s 90 million or 80 million or 100 million – why is that relevant?” Cruz asked.

Carlson started to say, "Well, because if you don't know anything about the country," when Cruz interjected, "I didn't say I don't know anything about the country.

“Okay, what’s the ethnic mix of Iran?” Carlson asked.

"They are Persians and predominantly Shia," Cruz began his reply when Carlson cut in, asking, “What percent?”

“Okay, this is cute – ” Cruz said, as Carlson cut him off, saying, “No, it's not even – you don’t know anything about Iran.”

“Okay, I’m not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran – ” Cruz said.

“No, no, but you’re a senator who’s calling for the overthrow of a government, and you don’t know anything about the country!” Carlson shouted over Cruz.

“No, you don’t know anything about the country,” Cruz shot back. “You’re the one who claims they’re not trying to murder Donald Trump. You’re the one who can’t figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani, and you said it was bad.”

Carlson pushed back on Cruz’s initial claim about him, saying, “No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying you don’t believe they’re trying to murder Trump, because you’re not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation.”

“Yes, I do!” Cruz exclaimed, cutting in. "We are carrying out military strikes today," he added.

“You said Israel was,” Carlson responded, to which Cruz clarified, "Right – with our help. I said, 'we' – Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them."

Carlson said that Cruz was "breaking news" because the White House had "denied" that "we were acting on Israel's behalf in any offensive capacity at all."

"No, we're not bombing them. Israel's bombing them," Cruz said.

“You just said ‘we’ were,” Carlson responded. 

"We are supporting Israel as they're – " Cruz started to say.

“This is high stakes,” Carlson said, cutting him off. “You’re a senator. If you’re saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening.”

Carlson previously expressed his disapproval of U.S. involvement with Israel's attacks on Iran.

"The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians," Carlson posted on X on Friday. "The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it — between warmongers and peacemakers."

He added that "warmongers" are "anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran.

President Trump pushed back on Carlson on Monday, saying, "Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, 'IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!'"