At least one speaker on Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest summit lineup has divided the conservative caucus.
Tucker Carlson, the former face of Fox News and an increasingly critical voice against Israel, has been a thorn in the side of the organization’s fundraising efforts for some time now.
Text message exchanges published by Candace Owens (and later confirmed by TPUSA) revealed that the organization’s founder, Charlie Kirk, was grappling with whether to let Carlson speak at AmericaFest in the days before his assassination.
“Just lost another huge Jewish donor,” Kirk wrote. “$2 million a year because we won’t cancel Tucker.”
The donor was unnamed in the exchange, but The New York Times reported earlier this month that Robert Shillman, a Zionist tech billionaire, axed a $2 million pledge over Carlson’s participation in a previous Turning Point event.
“Jewish donors play into all the stereotypes,” Kirk added in another message.
The decision as to whether to include Carlson in future events has not gotten easier without Kirk’s leadership.
But other anti-Israel voices on the AmericaFest roster are posing their own problems. The inclusion of Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec, among others, have raised eyebrows in conservative circles wary of challenges to the larger party position, The Bulwark reported Tuesday.
“No, it’s not good that Carlson, Bannon, Posobiec, and [Texas Attorney General Ken] Paxton are speaking at TPUSA’s AmFest in December,” Kimberly Ross, a contributor at the conservative rag the Washington Examiner, tweeted last week. “It’s bad, actually. The cancer should be cut out.”
The organization has less than two months to figure out a solution: AmericaFest is scheduled to start on December 18.
The post TPUSA’s First Event Since Charlie Kirk’s Death Is Going Off the Rails appeared first on New Republic.
