Former Fox News anchor and pro-Israel advocate Melissa Francis said in an interview Wednesday with The Jerusalem Post that President Donald Trump was behind Tucker Carlson’s brief visit to Israel to interview Ambassador Mike Huckabee, as part of his effort to calm tensions over Israel within the conservative movement.

“Everybody’s looking for a way to turn down the temperature,” Francis said. “President Trump is telling everyone, including Tucker, ‘Let’s take this down.’”

As tensions escalate within the Republican Party between America Firsters and foreign policy hawks, Francis said that this interview could help steer the infighting into more productive channels with fruitful dialogue to help build bridges.

“The division in the Republican Party right now has to end,” she said. The loud arguments, with social media rewarding the most vocal and radical, are “causing endless problems,” and she said Trump’s goal is to keep the coalition united even in the face of disagreement. “The enemy wins when those that are on the side of God are divided,” she said.

As the disagreements over Israel escalated online, Francis thought of bringing the ambassador and the former Fox talk show host together, having ties to both men and wanting to move the endless fighting into something more productive.

“I’m not in a daily show of fighting people,” she said, adding that her work involved projects with long-term goals rather than going toe-to-toe with guests on air. But “this really had gotten out of control,” she said, and she felt the time was ripe for an intervention.

Francis said Carlson initially agreed, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had signaled that he would not be welcome in Israel. That’s when Francis shifted to Huckabee, saying that Tucker needed an invitation directly from the ambassador in order to feel comfortable traveling to Israel.

She said that Huckabee said Tucker should physically be present in Israel to get a feel for the truth about the current situation. She also said that the two men know each other and, while publicly antagonistic, privately also would like to calm tensions without compromising their authority.

Francis warned against using the antisemitism label too freely because it shuts down conversation.

“Nobody likes to be told what to say and what to do,” she said. “The minute the language turns to ‘You’re antisemitic,’ the conversation stops.”

Nevertheless, she did acknowledge that antisemitism is a real and emerging problem on the right.

Francis has no illusions that this interview will solve antisemitism and the disagreements over Israel but hopes it will serve as a model for productive dialogue as opposed to escalating fights online that serve only to entrench people in their worldview.

“I don’t have the illusion that you’re going to change people’s minds,” she said. “Let’s just stop fighting about Israel.”