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.
