A two-plus-hour interview Tucker Carlson posted on October 27 featuring white nationalist Nick Fuentes drew wide attention online and sharpened divisions on the right over Israel and antisemitism. Carlson apologized to Fuentes for a past slur, offered limited pushback to his rhetoric about Jews, and triggered a cascade of condemnations and defenses across conservative circles.
Carlson’s sit-down with Fuentes ran roughly two hours (about 2:12) and was widely viewed on X and YouTube. During the conversation, Carlson said his Christian faith prevents him from blaming “the Jews” collectively and told Fuentes that such claims discredit criticism of U.S. policy toward Israel. He also apologized for previously calling Fuentes “gay” — a reversal from August, when Carlson derided him as a “weird little gay kid in his basement” and suggested he might be a fed or “psyop.”
Reaction on the right was immediate. Newsweek’s Josh Hammer, in a Daily Mail column, accused Carlson and Fuentes of cheering on “the West’s Islamist and globalist enemies” and fracturing the Jewish‑Christian alliance — comments The Nation quoted in its report. Other conservatives, including Ben Shapiro and several Republican senators, castigated Carlson for giving a friendly platform to an avowed antisemite.
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, posted a video on X on October 30 defending Carlson from what he called a “venomous coalition,” asserting that “Christians can critique the State of Israel without being anti‑Semitic” and declaring his “loyalty… to Christ first and to America always.” After pushback from Heritage staff, donors, and Jewish leaders, Roberts followed with a separate statement explicitly denouncing Fuentes’s antisemitism while arguing his ideas should be confronted through debate rather than “canceled.” At least one outside participant in Heritage’s antisemitism task force resigned in protest.
Fuentes, 27, is a Holocaust‑denying white nationalist who has praised Adolf Hitler. He attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, later organized “groyper” activists who disrupted Turning Point USA events in 2019 with challenges on immigration and Israel, and has been banned at various times from major platforms, including YouTube and Twitter/X. His anti‑Zionist framing has found a larger right‑wing audience since the Israel‑Hamas war reignited in October 2023.
The episode underscores a widening divide inside MAGA‑aligned conservatism: an ascendant ultranationalist cohort skeptical of U.S. aid to Israel versus a pro‑Israel establishment wing. As Fuentes told followers in a May 2021 broadcast, “We have to push the envelope… We are the right‑wing flank of the Republican Party.” Whether his Carlson appearance cements lasting influence or sparks a broader backlash remains to be seen.
