“Maybe you won?” Tucker Carlson conceded as he kicked off an interview with the avowed white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Then Carlson’s phrasing turned definitive as he admitted that Fuentes has successfully wrangled ideological control of the modern conservative movement: “You won.”
Released on Oct. 27, the rumored linkup between the warring right-wing podcasters, which had been anticipated for weeks, nevertheless appears to have shocked many on the right. The two had previously been at loggerheads before Monday’s conversation, with Carlson mocking the far-right 27-year-old as a “weird little gay kid in his basement” who claims “the GOP is run by Jews, atheists, and homosexuals.” Fuentes has also called out Carlson for saying he only discovered his late father’s work for the CIA after his passing. But the pair finding common cause was inevitable, as the 56-year-old Carlson has been forced to confront Fuentes’ growing influence with young conservatives.
The week before their chat, Carlson was questioned by a young person at a Turning Point USA event in Indiana who echoed Fuentes’ line of attack. “Your dad was in the CIA and I was wondering, does our government even want war to stop?” he asked Carlson, who guest-hosted the event in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing last month.
“Leave my father out of it,” Carlson said, cutting him off. “I’m gonna have to kick your a**, which I could do, by the way, if you bring him up again because he was a wonderful man, whatever he did for a living.” Carlson warning the young man not to “test” him.
Even while filling in for Kirk, who is now seen by many as a conservative martyr, Carlson managed to upset some on the right. “Every single thing about this is the polar opposite of how Charlie Kirk debated people who disagreed with him,” Megan McCain complained of Carlson’s approach. Megyn Kelly, however, defended Carlson, arguing on X that “No one is expecting any of the ppl subbing for Charlie to imitate Charlie.”
Fuentes famously spent years harassing Kirk and his Turning Point staff at similar college campus events before Kirk banned the provocateur. With antisemitism as its cornerstone, Fuentes’ so-called Groyper movement seeks to push extremist ideas into the conservative mainstream.
Fuentes famously spent years harassing Kirk and his Turning Point staff at similar college campus events before Kirk finally banned the provocateur. With antisemitism as its cornerstone, Fuentes’ so-called Groyper movement seeks to push extremist ideas into the conservative mainstream. In August, Fuentes taunted Kirk, “I took your baby Turning Point USA, and I f**ked it. We own you, we own TPUSA and we own this movement.”
Even though Kirk’s assassination was meant to serve as a unifying moment for the right, conservatives have quickly squandered any political capital they managed to muster with infighting. After Kirk’s death, Fuentes turned his attention to Kirk’s widow, Erika.
In retrospect, it’s become clear that Kirk’s killing was barely a Band-Aid. For months before the assassination, right-wing media was fracturing. Soon after his death, conservatives devolved into dissension.
So it’s no surprise that, having experienced what it feels like to be on the other side of those trawling the depths of the internet — and with some young conservatives now arguing that President Ronald Reagan was too liberal — Carlson is eager to get on Fuentes’ right side.
“I don’t think Fuentes is going away. Ben Shapiro tried to strangle him in the crib in college, and now he’s bigger than ever,” Carlson told his audience to flatter his guest. Fuentes’ X account, which reached 500,000 in early 2025 after it was reinstated in May 2024, surpassed one million followers after the interview.
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The conversation came at a critical moment for Carlson. Shapiro, head of The Daily Wire, reportedly “had planned to denounce Carlson in a speech” at a Turning Point USA event before Kirk’s killing. Text messages published by podcaster Candace Owens, a former friend of both Shapiro and Kirk, revealed that Kirk, an unapologetic supporter of Israel, was grappling with whether to let Carlson, a virulent critic of the country, speak at TPUSA’s AmericaFest conference in December. (The exchanges were later confirmed as authentic by TPUSA.)
Two days before Kirk’s death, according to the New York Times, top Turning Point donor Robert Shillman, a conservative tech billionaire described as a father figure to Kirk, informed him that he was withdrawing a $2 million pledge to the organization for hosting Carlson. “Just lost another huge Jewish donor,” Kirk wrote. “$2 million a year because we won’t cancel Tucker.”
Carlson is now scheduled to speak at the conference.
Right-wing media influencers, meanwhile, continue to bicker over what Kirk would do. Others have followed Owens’ lead in releasing private text messages with the deceased podcaster to bolster their claims. “I’m posting two text exchanges with Charlie Kirk where he calls Nick Fuentes ‘vermin’ and insists even my debating him and defeating his arguments nevertheless amplifies him,” Dinesh D’Souza wrote on X. “One can only imagine what Charlie would say about Tucker’s butt-licking interview with Fuentes.”
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While none of this GOP infighting is the least bit surprising, it is revealing. Trump’s political strength depends on coalitional unity — at least rhetorically — of a broad “anti-establishment” right. Carlson understands that Fuentes’ mission is Trumpian at its core. But while folding Fuentes into the GOP tent makes sense for short-term peace, it’s a surefire way to impede any successor to Trump.
That’s why Vice President JD Vance is so careful not to ostracize any young Republican, no matter how racist and hateful their text messages may be. He knows that Fuentes is attacking him as a “race traitor” for marrying the daughter of Indian immigrants. That’s why Vance was one of the only prominent GOP politicians who did not send a “Happy Diwali” message; he is acutely aware that even a simple acknowledgment would further inflame the white nationalist crowd. And that’s why Carlson made no mention of Fuentes’ racist attacks against Vance’s family while interviewing him.
So turns the world where nobody can be cancelled.
