Josh Hammer on the Civil War Inside the GOP

If a time traveler had told me five years ago the following two facts about 2026, I don't know which one of these would have been more unbelievable: that Bari Weiss is the editor-in-chief of CBS News or that the GOP is in the midst of a civil war.

Josh Hammer, whom I interviewed in February, has played a unique part in both of these developments.

I first learned about Hammer back in 2020 when he broke a barrier many of us thought was impregnable. At the time, liberal ideas and their spokespeople had an iron grip over practically all of mainstream news, so the idea that a Trump-supporting former contributor to the Daily Wire would become the opinion editor of Newsweek felt like a glitch in the Matrix. As someone who co-founded this magazine to stand against the groupthink perpetuated by the echo chambers of mainstream media, I was thrilled to hear that a respectable outlet had made a gesture toward viewpoint diversity.

The way I see it, Hammer joining Newsweek was one of the first dominoes to fall that made the marriage between Weiss and CBS possible.

More recently, Hammer has emerged as a key figure in the contentious realignment underway within the Grand Old Party. At the center of the conflict is the iconoclastic Tucker Carlson, a veteran journalist who has used his substantial podcast megaphone to challenge the GOP's close and arguably accommodating relationship with Israel. Despite individuals such as Senator Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro catching most of the ire from the Carlson wing, Hammer has not survived unscathed due to his unapologetic support for—more or less—maintaining the Republican Party's status quo.

Watching the feud unfold from the sidelines has been disorienting, not least because of the speed with which the MAGA coalition has fractured following Charlie Kirk's assassination. An early warning shot occurred only a month after Kirk's funeral last year when Candace Owens called Hammer a "true Pharisee," which I assume was not meant to be a compliment.

A few months later, Tucker Carlson evoked a phrase used by Politico to describe the growing feud as a "civil war" over the future of the Republican Party once the great unifying force, President Donald Trump, leaves office. Perhaps Carlson, known for the occasional exaggeration, is being hyperbolic?

Not so, according to Hammer, who doubled down on the characterization. In contrast to those who point to anti-Semitism as the animating force behind Carlson's attacks, Hammer believes the motives are, in some ways, even more pernicious. Rather than a squabble over foreign policy, for Hammer, this is a war between forces of civilization and barbarism.

He adds that Carlson "…is trying to tear down the coalition," that brought President Trump to the White House in 2024. And what do they want to build in its place? He speculates that, "...it's going to be some sort of subversive, fifth column, neo-pagan, post-biblical sort," adding that, "It's going to be very pro-Russia, pro-China."

Hammer also has a knack for hyperbole, or so I hope.

Since our interview, the conflict has shown no signs of cooling down. If it were not ugly already, the conflict within the Republican Party has grown even more heated as the war with Iran continues.

I am not sure if Hammer is losing sleep over becoming a target of attacks by people he, until recently, considered to be allies. Nevertheless, especially after our conversation, I cannot help but feel some sympathy for Hammer. For one—and I cannot say this for all political pundits—I have no doubts about his sincerity. After all, if he were not genuine in his beliefs, Hammer would not have been able to attend Duke University and University of Chicago Law School, followed by a stint at a white-shoe law firm, and come out with his conservative principles intact. Moreover, instead of continuing on a lucrative career path, Hammer opted to serve his country as an author and activist.

With that said, I know the same can be said of many of his opponents, both to his Right and Left, who are earnest in their convictions. As such, while the feud over the future of the Republican Party becomes increasingly incendiary, I hope that neither side loses sight of that fact.

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Let's start from the beginning. How did you end up becoming a conservative?

I first realized that I was on the Right at a fairly young age. I was twelve years old living in suburban New York City in Westchester County when 9/11 happened. My hometown is twenty-five miles, more or less, up the river from Manhattan, and I actually saw the smoke from the Twin Towers on that day. You intuit upon seeing this that there is real evil in the world. And once you realize that there is evil in the world, you are necessarily then able to realize that there must be good, too, because it kind of defies logic; it defies common sense; it defies moral intuition; it defies everything—the notion that God would create a world where there was only evil and suffering but there was no good.

Once you accept that there is such a thing as this ever-dueling, intertwining dichotomy, this moral dichotomy of good and evil, you've essentially already arrived at a conservative worldview because you've rejected the utopianism of John Lennon's song Imagine, the utopianism of various leftist universalist schemes going back as far as the French Revolution and Marxism.

You've essentially already arrived at a worldview. And, sure enough, I was kind of the token righty back in high school. My foreign policy views have shifted a little bit, but as far back as high school, I was the token Bush administration supporter. I was the guy defending the administration's policies and Guantanamo Bay, the waterboarding, all of that. I recall debating twenty-five liberal classmates in AP Government class.

So I've really never been of the Left. My thoughts on what it means to be conservative have at times modulated, shifted a little bit over the years, but I've been essentially on the Right since my very first political beliefs.

You have mentioned that your views have shifted since then. Can you elaborate?

Back then, first of all, I was twelve years old when 9/11 happened, and then in high school when I was doing a lot of these debates, you're what, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen? So I didn't really know any better. But I was a reflexive, rally-around-the-flag kind of supporter in those post-9/11 years of the Bush administration's freedom, neoconservative agenda. And that's definitely not my foreign policy today. Like many, I was pretty sobered by the failures of that foreign policy.

And as I've gotten older and become more well-read in the conservative canon, I've developed more of a Burkean, old-school sense of humility. And the notion of a universalist freedom agenda kind of smacks in the face of traditional conservatism, as I understand it. That's not to say that conservatism is at all synonymous with isolationism—that's not the case.

Frankly, the reason that we have the Navy and Marine Corps that we have today is due in no small part to the fact that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had to fight the Muslim pirates off the Barbary Coast. So it's not that isolationism is synonymous [with conservatism], but I take my foreign policy cues a little bit more from John Quincy Adams, who in 1821 (before he was president), back when he was Secretary of State, gave the so-called "monsters to destroy" speech in which he famously says that America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher for people's liberty all throughout the world, but she is the guarantor only of her own. And that's a much more sober view I think of foreign policy. And that is, more or less, my view as well.

In kind of more modern practical terms, I think that Donald Trump's foreign policy is essentially exactly right. I have my criticisms, my quibbles—I'm not a fan of how close this current administration is to Qatar, for instance. But [I agree with] its broader stance of not necessarily seeking to intervene—but when you intervene you do so with overwhelming force and do it very quickly and get the heck out—that's more or less my instinct as well.

It's kind of more of a Jacksonian conservative realism as opposed to an ideological view of foreign policy. So I essentially reject ideology in foreign policy and take a very hard-headed realist approach. Now, you can't necessarily fully get rid of ideology. There's always going to be a little room for ideology—I think anyone who says you can truly entirely get rid of it is lying—there's going to be a little room for that there, but overall I take a very sober, national interest-oriented view of foreign policy, which I think is basically the Trump administration's view as well.

What is your take on the recent actions in Venezuela?

This is a perfect instance of Donald Trump's foreign policy in action. I think this is basically exactly how it should be. Look, this is a quick operation, extraordinary planning for months and months. And you basically go in and you get the job done and get the heck out.

And by the way, it's not like America was seeking confrontation. Donald Trump gave countless off-ramps to Maduro prior to ultimately going in there and getting him out.

Frankly, for what it's worth, what the administration says about the Maduro operation, how they frame it as being a law enforcement operation, not a military action—as a lawyer myself, that's totally accurate. The way they frame this is absolutely accurate insofar as he was not the legitimate leader of Venezuela. And three administrations in a row did not recognize him as the actual leader—Trump I, Biden, and Trump II.

In fact, the Biden-Harris administration had a large bounty on his head to bring him to custody for that 2020 indictment in federal court in New York. So this actually was an international fugitive from justice. And, if he hadn't been an internally recognized head of state, there would have been no need for Delta Force or for the military guys to be involved at all. It would have been purely just a CIA or some sort of other law enforcement type operation, maybe working with Interpol.

It's also very much in line with the Monroe Doctrine which is a quintessentially realist way of thinking about foreign policy.

The Trump National Security Strategy document that came out about two months ago in early December takes a very strong stance on this "Donroe" Doctrine. First was James Monroe, then it was Teddy Roosevelt with the Roosevelt Corollary in the first decade of the twentieth century, and now it's Donald Trump basically saying that when it comes to the Western Hemisphere and the Americas, that we're not going to deal with hostile foreign actors.

And we are going to defend our interests unequivocally when it comes to hostile foreign intrusion in our own hemisphere. That's exactly in line with this kind of more realist version of foreign policy that I'm talking about.

Think about it: If you accept the fact that you have limited resources and you can't necessarily be the world's policeman, it just makes logical sense that you will begin by taking a strong stance in your own backyard. Frankly, I think that the Greenland interest actually plays very nicely into that as well.

I get the sense that you're generally a proponent of this new world order taking shape, of abandoning the so-called rules-based world order that was in vogue for the last fifty, sixty, seventy years. That seems to me to be what's going on in the Republican Party led by Trump.

These are kind of euphemisms and platitudes, right? The so-called rules-based international order. What are we talking about? Are we talking about Geneva? I mean no one's really calling to abandon the Geneva Convention. Are we talking about the United Nations being a legitimate institution in general? Sure, get rid of those clowns. Are we talking about the WHO? Absolutely. They should not be a part of the so-called rules-based order after COVID.

A lot of these transnational institutions are feckless at worst and leftist overrun at best. When it comes to Russia and Ukraine for instance, I absolutely do place the overwhelming moral burden on this current terrible war on Vladimir Putin. He was the actual instigator, the one who actually sent in the troops.

But there is a kernel, or perhaps even more than a kernel of truth from those who also say that yes, it's entirely possible that this could also have been avoided. And we could have potentially avoided it by not having NATO spread after—this is the key part—after the fall of the Soviet Union and ten, fifteen years afterward continue to expand into the Baltic states.

Why the heck are you adding places like Latvia, for instance, into NATO years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was the literal raison d'etre of NATO in the first place? So it absolutely is time to rethink some of this.

The administration seems to be rethinking a lot of its stances when it comes to Europe, which I think is frankly overdue. A lot of European actions have not been necessarily consistent with the American national interest when it comes to everything from immigration to free speech to Iran and various other hostile regimes.

How about speaking of ways that the Russia war could have been avoided, how about the fact that Germany—which now purports to care a heck of a lot about Russia—was the [country] that was incredibly addicted for years and years to Russian oil.

I broadly am sympathetic to what you're saying. The reason that I'm equivocating a little bit is I also don't want to give the false impression that I am sympathetic to the strident isolationist stance either, which I'm also a vociferous critic of because it frankly doesn't live in the real world.

I'm generally just not a fan of excessive ideology in foreign policy. The Bush freedom agenda, which we saw highlighted in his second inaugural address, is an ideological foreign policy. The Ron Paul, Tucker Carlson stance is also an ideological foreign policy. They are equal and opposite ideological foreign policies. I think that they're both simplistic and—in many ways—juvenile ways to view the world.

As a conservative, I take human beings and nations as they are. I don't necessarily seek to mold them into my idiosyncratic image. And, unfortunately, I think a lot of these universalist post-war institutions have succumbed at best to that, at worst to something a lot worse than that, which could be woke progressive mind capture and things like that as well.

You mentioned Tucker Carlson. He recently used the phrase "civil war" to describe the battle for the future of the Republican Party, and to my ears it sounded a bit too extreme. Do you agree with that characterization?

There's something of a civil war, but I think that it's important to recognize who started this war. And the war has been led by a few high-profile, vocal malcontented misfits who are essentially trying to burn down the American Right and have no particular interest in preserving the United States itself.

This is the key thing that is often lost in the shuffle. A lot of our current frustrations and a lot of this current tumult that you see play out on the Right gets fixated on Jews and Israel. But, ultimately, what I like to tell people is that it's not really about the Jewish people or Israel. That's a convenient proxy for the broader point that a lot of these people like Tucker and Candace [Owens] and so forth are making there, which is they're actually trying to burn down the American Right.

And I would actually go even further than that and say that in many ways they're actually siding with the enemies of civilization, siding with the forces of barbarism.

Tucker is a particularly neat example here. I mean look at the editorial choices that he has made now for the past two years. Whether it's flying to Russia for those Bernie Sanders 1970s style propagandistic videos in the Moscow supermarket and the Moscow subway, whether it's going to Qatar—which has been the number one funder of Sunni Islamism for decades—and saying to the Emir of Qatar that he looks forward to buying a house in that country.

He was saying that Nicolás Maduro was an ardent social conservative because he was allegedly anti-abortion, that he was pro-life. I mean he's been saying all of this crazy stuff. He's had on very, very pro-Chinese Communist Party voices, voices like Jeffrey Sachs. He's essentially standing for and apologizing for all of America's civilizational foes.

And Candace Owens is very much the same thing. And when you really look at what these folks are doing, they're not just siding with America's enemies; they're trying to drive a wedge through the heart of the American Right, which is the only force capable of standing up to America's enemies because the Left sure as heck isn't going to do it.

Tucker Carlson said, for instance—in his infamous conversation with Nick Fuentes—that he hates Christian Zionists more than anyone in the world. Again, I'm a lawyer, and I think that words mean something: I believe people when they say something. And I take him at his word.

I think that he actually hates Christian Zionists more than Black Lives Matter, more than Antifa, more than ISIS, more than Hamas, et cetera. And we can debate what is a "Christian Zionist," but taking it at its face value [it refers to] someone who is both a Christian and a Zionist. Zionism is this horrifically taken out of context word. What it simply means is that you believe in Israel's right to exist. So we're talking here about a majority perhaps or at least a strong plurality of the Republican Party's voting base: people who are both Christians and Zionists based on that definition.

So what is Tucker trying to do then if that's who he hates more than anyone in the world? He's trying to destroy the Right. He's trying to tear down the coalition. Now what are they trying to build in its place? Well, that's anyone's guess, but it's going to be some sort of kind of subversive, fifth column, neo-pagan, post-biblical sort of coalition. It's going to be kind of a very pro-Russia, pro-China style coalition there. And that's not going to be good news for anyone.

So, yes, there is definitely something of a civil war happening, but I think that it's important to recognize that the anti-American, anti-civilization forces are the ones who launched this war.

I distinctly remember about five years ago when you joined Newsweek as an editor. Frankly, I was shocked that a mainstream outlet would hire an outspoken conservative into a prominent role. In that light, what's your advice to younger conservatives or independent-minded people about whether they should try to build new independent institutions or stay within the existing institutions or even try to reclaim them?

So this is a great question. It's one that I've gotten asked many times over the years, so I'm happy that you asked it. And this doesn't apply just to journalism and media by the way. It applies really to any private sector quandary–whether it's ideological capture in the big tech sector, in the big banking sector, such as the question of deplatforming in tech, of debanking in financial services.

My answer is the same for all of these as it is for big journalism or big media. And the answer is that you walk and chew gum at the same time. That it's both/and, not an either/or proposition.

So we absolutely should be trying to make inroads within vestigial institutions. There's absolutely no harm whatsoever in doing that. Again, as long as you have strong convictions and know what you stand for, that you're not looking for an opportunity to pull a David French and sell out, right?

I mean there are people who will do that, but frankly for what it's worth actually, I remember when I first joined Newsweek I was a little scared that there would be some people that would be saying, "Oh Josh is selling out, he's going to work for the libs now." Thankfully, I had way less of that than I thought I would have. I guess because I had already even at that early stage in my career solidified myself as being a vocal and unapologetic conservative. So I got less of that than I thought.

But, look, as long as you know what you stand for, we absolutely should be trying to mold and sculpt legacy institutions the best we can. On the other hand, if you are in a position where you are able to start alternative institutions, to get seed capital, start a new business out of your garage or this or that there, I would never in a million years encourage anyone to not pursue that route as well.

Now I do have a longer-standing concern, which is a concern that I've had for many, many, many years now, about the broader siloing of Americans into these fiercely contesting Left and Right camps where we just lose all sorts of common institutions and touchstones.

This Super Bowl halftime controversy is actually a great example. There was this tweet that went viral of this woman who owns a sports bar saying how eighty percent of her customers want to watch The Turning Point halftime show, twenty percent want to watch Bad Bunny. So she decided to put the TVs essentially half and half and that really made no one happy. And the folks who wanted to watch Bad Bunny ended up canceling their orders, leaving one-star reviews on Google and Yelp.

There's some truth to the notion that a country that can't even agree to watch the same Super Bowl halftime show is maybe not a country potentially, God forbid, long to be unified. And I think that there's some concern here too when it comes to the siloing of society in general.

There are all sorts of great conservative branded companies—Patriot Mobile is a very popular one—but I mean are we really going to get to the point where we choose our accountants and dentists and our personal trainers and this and that based on our politics? Maybe, but is that a recipe for long success either? I don't know that the answer is yes.

So it's my personal bias and my experience at Newsweek that I really think that I would never encourage anyone to not start alternative businesses, but I really think that there is something also to be said for working within legacy orgs.

And by the way, it's not just Newsweek. The Los Angeles Times' owner is now definitely trending in a right-of-center direction. The Los Angeles Times actually runs my syndicated column now—they were running it every week, now it's every other week, but they're still running it pretty regularly. When I wrote my column for The Los Angeles Times, it was after Charlie Kirk's assassination, and the owner of The Los Angeles Times actually personally tweeted out saying The Los Angeles Times stands with Charlie.

The Washington Post is also trending in a very interesting direction, right? They now have a pretty right-of-center leaning editorial board, which is pretty crazy. They actually just hired Jeremiah Poff whom I've known for years now. They hired him from the Washington Examiner. He's a strong Christian conservative.

So it's not just Newsweek that hired me. A lot of institutions seem to be trending in a very interesting direction. We'll see. I mean I wouldn't expect the ladies of The View to start giving favorable interviews to Republican candidates anytime soon, but it definitely is premature to fully give up on legacy [organizations].

And that holds true for academia as well by the way. Again, my same mentality is a both/and not an either/or. I love Larry Arnn, I want Hillsdale to thrive, I want Hillsdale to succeed. I also don't think that conservatives should wholly, wholly give up on a place like Yale or Princeton yet either.

Thank you for speaking with me today.

I appreciate it. Nice to meet you.