Tucker Carlson has been accused of getting dangerously close to defending Nazi leader Adolf Hitler following an interview with British politician Jacob Rees-Mogg.

The former Tory minister was left defending Britain’s decision to enter World War II and claimed Carlson was “verging on defending Hitler” in the exchange.

In the episode on Saturday’s episode of the pair debated whether it was necessary for the UK to join the fight to beat Nazi Germany.

“Otherwise we’d be speaking German,” Rees-Mogg explained as the host repeated that he did not see a justification.

Carlson replied: “Who cares? There are a lot of people in Britain who can’t speak English. So it would be nice to have at least a European language spoken in your country.”

The podcaster also claimed that “Hitler did not want to go to war with the UK”, adding: “You (Britain) attacked the Germans, they didn’t attack you”, to which Rees-Mogg explained that Britain had a treaty with Belgium and other allies, which were attacked.

“I’m very surprised you’re verging on defending Hitler,” Rees-Mogg said as Carlson doubled down on claims that Hitler did not want to fight Britain. “I think this is not really what you want to be doing.”

Carlson denied that he was defending the Nazi leader, joking: “Yeah, I guess I’m just a secret Nazi. I’m actually not a secret Nazi... and hardly a public Nazi.”

“I’m reassured,” said Rees-Mogg, before later adding: “Germany would have invaded us.”

The former Fox News anchor said “the war wasn’t worth fighting in the first place” as he pointed to the numbers of people killed.

Rees-Mogg said he was less sure about the justification for the the First World War but said it was necessary for the UK to intervene in the Second.

Carlson, who has expressed sympathy for Russia and Vladimir Putin in the past, had suggested in the interview that the West had invited Moscow’s aggression.

“Why are you pushing them to that point?” Carlson asked Rees-Mogg as he insisted that Russia could beat Ukraine “today” if it wanted by using nuclear weapons or hypersonic weapons.

Last year Carlson said he is “definitely more sympathetic to Putin than Zelensky”.

In June, he publicly broke with the Republican Party in the US after spending decades as one of its most influential backers and a key campaigner for President Donald Trump.

His politics and coverage has ranged widely since leaving traditional media to invest resources into his YouTube channel.

“I would not support the Republican Party,” Carlson said. “There’s no chance I would support the Republican Party. I’m not going to support the Democratic Party — I don’t know what I’m going to do.”