Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist known for his deeply antisemitic, racist, and misogynist worldview, just might be tearing the Republican party apart.
The schism was triggered last Tuesday when former Fox News host Tucker Carlson released an in-depth interview with Fuentes, the leader of the so-called America First movement who has denied the Holocaust, praised Hitler, and shared deeply misogynistic views.
During the interview, Fuentes waxed antisemitic about the threat apparently posed by “organized Jewry” in America, while Carlson slammed figures like Senator Ted Cruz and former president George W. Bush as being “Christian Zionists” who have been ”seized by this brain virus.” Carlson was criticized by, among others, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee for giving Fuentes a platform, and the argument kicked into overdrive after Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, a high-profile conservative think tank, condemned those attacking Carlson as a “venomous coalition.”
“Tucker Carlson remains and always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation,” Roberts said in a video posted to X on Thursday.
Roberts’ comments, which were viewed by many as a tacit approval of Fuentes’ antisemitic worldview, triggered a massive split on the right, with everyone from prominent podcasters and influencers to senators and other lawmakers weighing in to attack or defend Roberts and Carlson.
The debate continued to rage over the weekend as many claimed the situation was a reflection of a broader concern about a perceived rise in antisemitism within the MAGA movement.
“In the last six months, I’ve seen more antisemitism on the right than I have in my entire life,” Cruz told the Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas last Thursday, hours after Roberts’ video was released. “If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you’re a coward and you are complicit in that evil.”
Senator Mitch McConnell, quoting Roberts’ video, wrote on X that conservatives are not obliged “to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats.”
“My mother was a Heritage board member for 40 years,” John Podhoretz, a conservative political commentator, wrote on X, quoting Roberts’ post. “You have befouled her, you rancid wretch of an amoeba.” Podhoretz deleted the post on Monday.
A number of prominent Republicans, however, came out in support of Roberts.
“Excellent statement my friend. Proud to stand with you and Heritage,” Eric Teetsel, the CEO of the Center for Renewing America, which is a conservative think tank founded by Project 2025 architect and current director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, wrote on X.
“This is the common ground we need to rescue our republic,” prominent podcaster Bret Weinstein wrote in response to Roberts’ post. “Attempting to police thought, speech and association is anti-American, and will only deepen our divisions.”
On Friday, Roberts responded: “Nick Fuentes’ antisemitism is not complicated, ironic, or misunderstood. It is explicit, dangerous, and demands our unified opposition as conservatives,” Roberts wrote on X, before adding that his role is not to cancel but to “guide, challenge, and strengthen the conversation.”
(That same day, National Review reported, Roberts announced to Heritage staff that his chief of staff, Ryan Neuhaus, had been reassigned; subsequently, in a story on tumult inside the think tank in the wake of Roberts’ defense of Carlson, the New York Post reported that Neuhaus had resigned. Neuhaus didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Roberts’ disavowal of Fuentes did little to stop the criticism. At the Republican Jewish Coalition conference over the weekend in Las Vegas, US representative Randy Fine of Florida blasted Carlson for hosting Fuentes, calling him the “the most dangerous antisemite in America.”
“He has chosen to take on the mantle of leader of a modern-day Hitler Youth,” Fine said. “Friends, make no mistake: Tucker is not MAGA.” Fine and several members of the audience then held up signs that read “Tucker is not MAGA.”
On Monday, prominent right-wing podcaster Ben Shapiro dedicated his entire show to the “fragmentation of the political right,” claiming it is “being caused purposefully by a splinter faction of people led by a young man named Nick Fuentes.” Shapiro also railed against Carlson: “There’s no question that Tucker has become the most virulent super spreader of vile ideas in America.”
In a follow-up post on X, Shapiro wrote: “No to the groypers. No to cowards like Tucker Carlson, who normalize their trash.” Fuentes’ followers are known as groypers. Quoting Shapiro’s post, Fuentes replied by writing: “No to Ben Shapiro … No to Benjamin Netanyahu … No to genocide and ethnic cleansing. No to the Christ-hating Talmud. No to Greater Israel. No to our Jewish oligarchy.”
Carlson and Fuentes did not respond to requests for comment.
Carlson’s interview with Fuentes came just weeks after Politico revealed the racist and antisemitic views being shared in Young Republicans’ chat groups. Days later, leaked chats from Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the office of special counsel, included Ingrassia’s own description of himself as including “a Nazi streak.”
For years, Fuentes’ openly antisemitic views were deemed too extreme to be taken seriously by the GOP. But as the Republican Party under Trump has embraced far-right figures and viewpoints, Fuentes’ star has risen dramatically.
In recent months, Fuentes’ follower numbers on platforms like X and the alternative video sharing platform Rumble have skyrocketed, especially among young white men, according to Fuentes himself and extremism researchers who have tracked his ascent in recent years. He has also appeared on a number of increasingly mainstream shows beyond Carlson’s, like conservative podcaster Patrick Bet-David’s PBD Podcast. Bet-David interviewed Trump last year.
But his appearance on the Tucker Carlson Show was seen by Fuentes and his supporters as a significant step in his plan to promote his racist, antisemitic, and misogynist worldview. The episode has been viewed over 5 million times on YouTube alone, a platform Fuentes was permanently banned from in 2020.
So as the GOP continues to tear itself apart over the interview, Fuentes sees it as a sign that he is finally being accepted.
“I am no longer the radical on the outside; I’m actually the leader on the inside,” Fuentes said on his own nightly show the day after the Carlson interview was released.
