Nick Fuentes
Based on Wikipedia: Nick Fuentes
In October 2025, Tucker Carlson opened an interview with a revealing admission: "Everybody's going to be like, 'You're a Nazi, you just like Fuentes.' But then I'm like, 'I don't think Fuentes is going away.'" The guest in question was Nick Fuentes, a 27-year-old livestreamer who has built a following by denying the Holocaust, calling for violence against journalists, and organizing campaigns to push American conservatism further to the extreme right. That a mainstream conservative media figure felt compelled to interview him—and that the Heritage Foundation's president initially defended the decision—tells you something about where American politics has arrived in the mid-2020s.
The Radicalization of a Student Council President
Nick Fuentes grew up in La Grange Park, a comfortable suburb about fifteen miles west of downtown Chicago. He attended Lyons Township High School, where he served as student council president and appeared on a local radio and television station hosted by the school. At that time, by all accounts, his views were conventionally conservative—the kind of politics you might expect from a Republican teenager in the Chicago suburbs.
Then came 2016.
After graduating high school, Fuentes enrolled at Boston University to study international relations. But he never made it past his freshman year. In August 2017, he attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—the gathering of white supremacists and neo-Nazis that turned deadly when a man drove his car into counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer. Fuentes claimed afterward that he didn't support Nazism or the driver, arguing instead that violence from counter-protesters had provoked violence in return.
The blowback was swift. Death threats followed. Boston University became untenable. But a former mentor of his observed something counterintuitive: the controversy actually raised his media presence. Fuentes had stumbled onto a formula that would define his career—provocation generates attention, and attention can be converted into influence.
His parents pushed him to take a conventional path: get a job, go back to college. Fuentes proposed a deal. As he later told the British documentarian Louis Theroux: "Why don't you give me just one year to explore this. If it works out, I'll keep doing it. If it doesn't work out, I'll abandon it." It worked out, at least by his definition of success.
The Basement Broadcaster
In 2017, Fuentes launched a livestream called "America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes" from his parents' basement. The setting became central to his persona—he presented himself as a NEET, an acronym that stands for "not in employment, education, or training." It's a term borrowed from Japanese sociology that describes young people disconnected from traditional paths to adulthood. For Fuentes, the basement wasn't an embarrassment but a badge of authenticity.
His shows featured frequent jokes and irony, a style designed to appeal to Generation Z while providing what strategists call "plausible deniability" for extreme views. This approach deserves careful attention because it's become a template for how radical ideas spread online.
Here's how it works: A host makes an extreme statement—say, questioning the death toll of six million Jews in the Holocaust. When criticized, he claims it was satire or "lampoon," as Fuentes called one such monologue. NPR documented a 2020 video where Fuentes explained the strategy explicitly: "Irony is so important for giving a lot of cover and plausible deniability for our views," he said, specifically referencing Holocaust denial.
This technique creates a kind of Schrödinger's extremism: the content is simultaneously serious (for true believers) and ironic (for critics). It allows young viewers to gradually acclimate to ideas they might otherwise reject outright.
What He Actually Says
Stripped of the ironic packaging, Fuentes's views are straightforward white nationalism combined with antisemitism, misogyny, and opposition to LGBTQ rights. He promotes Christian nationalism—the idea that America should be explicitly governed according to a particular interpretation of Christianity. He has expressed admiration for Joseph Stalin. He questions whether the First Amendment applies to Muslims or immigrants.
In April 2017, during one of his shows, he said: "Who runs the media? Globalists. Time to kill the globalists." He continued: "I want people that run CNN to be arrested and deported or hanged because this is deliberate." The word "globalists" in this context is widely understood as an antisemitic dog whistle—a coded reference to Jews.
These comments led to his departure from Right Side Broadcasting Network, a conservative outlet where he had briefly worked. As a network spokesman put it at the time: "Nick was just taking things a little too far into right field for us."
The Groypers
By 2019, Fuentes had cultivated what observers describe as a cult following. His supporters call themselves "Groypers," named after a cartoon frog variation that became their symbol. The Groyper identity represents something relatively new in American politics: a networked movement of young, extremely online activists who combine internet trolling tactics with real-world political action.
In late 2019, Fuentes organized what became known as the "Groyper Wars." The target was Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a conservative youth organization founded by Charlie Kirk. Fuentes accused Kirk and TPUSA of betraying Donald Trump by supporting legal immigration, foreign aid to Israel, and LGBTQ inclusion—positions Fuentes considered unacceptably moderate.
The campaign was clever in its design. Groypers would attend TPUSA events featuring speakers like Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump, and Kimberly Guilfoyle. They would ask pointed questions designed to either extract controversial answers or expose what Fuentes characterized as ideological inconsistency. According to Mother Jones, the questions were often crafted to prompt curious viewers to search for far-right and antisemitic conspiracy theories online.
At one book release event, Groypers shouted down Donald Trump Jr. until he ended the event early. In December 2019, Fuentes confronted the conservative commentator Ben Shapiro outside a TPUSA event in West Palm Beach, Florida. Shapiro was walking with his wife and young children at the time.
The Groyper Wars achieved their goal of raising Fuentes's profile, though many mainstream conservative figures responded by publicly disavowing him as extreme and out of touch.
January 6 and Its Aftermath
Fuentes was present at the rallies that preceded and accompanied the January 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol. His rhetoric in the weeks before had been escalating.
At a December 2020 rally following the Supreme Court's refusal to hear a case challenging the election results, Fuentes told supporters: "It is us and our ancestors that created everything good that you see in this country. All these people that have taken over our country—we do not need them. It is the American people, and our leader, Donald Trump, against everybody else in this country and this world." He invoked the Founding Fathers: "Our Founding Fathers would get in the streets, and they would take this country back by force if necessary. And that is what we must be prepared to do."
Two days before the Capitol attack, on January 4, Fuentes discussed state legislators unwilling to overturn the 2020 election results. "What can you and I do to a state legislator—besides kill them?" he asked. "We should not do that. I'm not advising that, but I mean, what else can you do, right?"
On January 6 itself, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Fuentes was visible in livestreams and images among the mob, wearing what appeared to be a VIP badge. He did not enter the Capitol building, but allegedly shouted encouragement: "Keep moving towards the Capitol—it appears we are taking the Capitol back! Break down the barriers and disregard the police. The Capitol belongs to us!"
The FBI opened an investigation into Fuentes's conduct. After five months, it closed without filing charges. In January 2022, the House Select Committee investigating January 6 subpoenaed him.
The Bitcoin Windfall
One of the stranger chapters in this story involves a French donor who, on December 8, 2020—exactly one month before the Capitol attack—sent large Bitcoin donations to several far-right figures and groups. Fuentes received the largest share: approximately $250,000 worth of cryptocurrency.
The donor apparently also posted a suicide note, according to Chainalysis, a firm that tracks cryptocurrency transactions. His status has never been confirmed. The FBI investigated whether any of this money financed illegal activities, including the Capitol riot. Fuentes was not charged with any crimes related to the donation.
Deplatformed
Between 2020 and 2023, Fuentes experienced what might be the most comprehensive deplatforming of any American political figure. The list of services that banned him reads like a directory of the modern internet economy: YouTube, Twitter (initially), Twitch, Reddit, DLive, PayPal, Venmo, Patreon, Shopify, Stripe, Streamlabs, Coinbase, Airbnb, Facebook, Instagram, and Gettr.
By March 2021, according to ABC News, Fuentes had been suspended from "almost all" social media platforms. He claimed his bank account had been frozen and that he had been placed on the federal no-fly list.
Fuentes called this "overt political persecution." His supporters would argue it proves the system is designed to silence dissent. His critics would counter that private companies enforcing their terms of service against someone who jokes about killing journalists and questions whether the Holocaust happened isn't persecution—it's consequences.
The deplatforming created a brief moment when it seemed Fuentes might fade into irrelevance. Instead, he adapted. In October 2021, he collaborated with Alex Jones to launch Cozy.tv, his own livestreaming platform where his content wouldn't be subject to mainstream moderation policies.
Dinner with the Former President
In November 2022, Fuentes achieved something remarkable for someone supposedly exiled from polite society: a private dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. He was accompanied by Kanye West, the musician who had recently made his own antisemitic comments.
The dinner was widely condemned across the political spectrum. It raised uncomfortable questions about Trump's vetting process and willingness to meet with known antisemites. But it also demonstrated something Fuentes had long argued: that he was more influential than his critics wanted to admit.
The Groyper War 2 and the Turn Against Trump
By August 2024, Fuentes had launched what he called "Groyper War 2"—but this time the target wasn't establishment conservatives. It was Trump himself.
Fuentes and his followers used memes, trolling, and protests to push Trump's campaign toward more extreme positions. By 2025, Fuentes was calling Trump a "scam artist" for failing to release documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. The relationship that had once seemed mutually beneficial—Trump got energy from the far right; Fuentes got legitimacy from proximity to power—had soured.
The Mainstreaming
In late 2024 and 2025, something shifted. Fuentes began appearing on increasingly mainstream platforms. He showed up on Fresh & Fit, a podcast hosted by Myron Gaines. He appeared on streams hosted by Adin Ross, a popular gaming streamer. He became a regular guest on Alex Jones's Infowars. Then came appearances on Patrick Bet-David's PBD Podcast, Bradley Martyn's Raw Talk, and streams with the Nelk Boys—shows with audiences numbering in the millions.
The Tucker Carlson interview in October 2025 represented a kind of culmination. Here was one of America's most-watched conservative commentators, formerly of Fox News, sitting down for over two hours with someone who has denied the Holocaust, called for violence against journalists, and organized efforts to disrupt mainstream conservative events.
The Heritage Foundation's initial response was instructive. Kevin Roberts, the Foundation's president, defended Carlson, arguing that a "venomous coalition" shouldn't be able to cancel him and that silencing Fuentes wasn't the solution. After backlash—including from Heritage employees who said "Fuentes is not someone with ideas worthy of debate"—Roberts clarified that Fuentes "is fomenting Jew hatred, and his incitements are not only immoral and un-Christian, they risk violence." Heritage announced staff reassignments following the controversy.
In December 2025, Piers Morgan interviewed Fuentes on his show "Piers Morgan Uncensored."
What His Rise Represents
Writing in The Atlantic, Ali Breland argued that the Carlson interview indicated Fuentes's views had grown more mainstream among some Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters. He pointed to the reluctance of figures like Carlson to fully distance themselves from such rhetoric.
The controversy exposed a fault line within American conservatism over antisemitism and white nationalism. On one side are those who believe engaging with Fuentes—even critically—only amplifies him. On the other are those who argue that his influence is already significant enough that ignoring him isn't a viable strategy.
Ben Shapiro, the conservative commentator Fuentes once confronted outside a TPUSA event, had tried what Carlson called "strangling him in the crib" years earlier—denying him mainstream attention in hopes he would wither. That approach, Carlson suggested in his interview introduction, had failed. Fuentes was "bigger than ever."
Whether that assessment is accurate or self-fulfilling prophecy is a question that will define part of American politics in the years ahead. What seems certain is that a young man who streamed from his parents' basement less than a decade ago, promoting views that would have been considered beyond the pale of acceptable discourse, has managed to insert himself into the center of a debate about what conservatism means in twenty-first-century America.
He did it by understanding something about how ideas spread in the internet age: that provocation generates attention, that irony provides cover, and that persistence—in the face of deplatforming, condemnation, and exile—can eventually force even your harshest critics to acknowledge that you exist.